You're reading: Ukrspyrt ex-director detained in Romania led criminal gang involved in Pankov’s murder

Former director general of the state enterprise Ukrspyrt Mykhailo Labutin, who was detained on the territory of Romania, was in charge of a criminal organization whose participants committed several serious crimes, including the murder of the adviser to the Ukrspyrt director on May 30, 2017, and also planned the murder of Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, press secretary of the Prosecutor General Larysa Sarhan has said.

The Main Military Prosecutor’s Office supervises criminal proceedings into the activities of the criminal organization. On December 19, 2017, more than 60 searches were conducted simultaneously in various regions of Ukraine and six active participants of this organized crime group were detained, Sarhan reported on her Facebook page on January 25.

According to her, all of them were put into custody without a bail option.

“The head of the criminal organization, the former director of Ukrspyrt, was detained on the territory of Romania, where a request for his extradition to Ukraine was sent to bring him to trial,” Sarhan said.

According to her, the Romanian court dismissed the detainee’s appeal against detention for the duration of the extradition procedure.

“It has been established that the same person is suspected of embezzlement of Hr 261 million from the said state enterprise and the commission of other crimes stipulated in Part 5 of Article 191, Part 3 of Article 212, Part 1 of Article 345 and Part 2 of Article 28, Part 2 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine,” the prosecutor general’s press secretary said.

As reported, on the morning of May 30, 2017, an assassin shot Viktor Pankov multiple times in the back in Kyiv’s Darnytsky District. The killer drove away in an Audi sedan.

Verkhovna Rada deputy from the People’s Front Party faction Anton Gerashchenko has said the killer of acting director of the state-owned Ukrspyrt concern Viktor Pankov escaped capture.

He said Pankov’s murder was probably a contract killing, adding that Pankov was involved in a complicated state-run organization that worked in the shadows, instead of for the people of Ukraine.

Pankov in 2008 and 2009 was a board member of the national joint-stock company Nadra Ukrainy. In 2012 he began working at Ukrspyrt as deputy general director in charge of legal issues, and later as acting Ukrspyrt general director and first deputy director in charge of production and financial issues. He left Ukrspyrt in December 2013.

At the start of 2014 Pankov was an advisor to the chairman of the board of Chornomornaftogaz. In March 2014 he returned to Ukrspyrt as deputy director in charge of legal issues. In December 2014 the Agriculture and Food Ministry sacked Mykhaylo Labutin as Ukrspyrt general director, naming Pankov as acting director.

Pankov in 2016 was put in charge of Ukrspyrt’s main office.