Only two real prison sentences have been issued in fraudulent call center cases since 2022 – Opendatabot
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Since the beginning of 2022, at least 18 verdicts have been handed down in Ukraine in cases involving fraudulent call centers (Photo: National Police)
Since the start of 2022, Ukrainian courts have handed down at least 18 verdicts in cases involving fraudulent call centers, but only two of those resulted in actual prison terms, according to Opendatabot, citing court registry data on Sept. 9.
The 18 identified verdicts involved 27 defendants.
Formally, prison sentences were imposed in 14 of the 18 decisions. But in only two cases did the courts order the convicted individuals to actually serve time behind bars — one sentence of five years and one of eight years.
In the other 12 decisions, the convicted defendants were released from serving their sentences on probation.
One defendant received two years of restricted liberty, a punishment served in a correctional center without full isolation from society. In three other cases, courts imposed fines ranging from 51,000 to 68,000 hryvnias ($1,149-1,532).
More than half of all the verdicts were issued in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, where courts handed down 10 decisions. Two verdicts each came from courts in Kharkiv, Odesa, and Zakarpattya oblasts, and one verdict each was issued in Kyiv city and Kyiv Oblast.
The Carthage case
On Sept. 4, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau said it had conducted a special operation to expose a criminal organization allegedly led by an employee of the Office of the Prosecutor General.
NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office detained Serhii Kropyva, head of the cyber department of the Prosecutor General’s Office. The anti-graft agencies said the official may have been involved in protecting a network of fraudulent call centers and in laundering assets.
The Office of the Prosecutor General later said it was ready to fully cooperate with anti-corruption bodies in the investigation into the alleged involvement of one of its employees in illegal activity related to scam call centers.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court placed Kropyva in custody until Nov. 2, with the option of release on bail of 120 million hryvnias ($2.7 million). He is suspected of protecting illegal call centers and laundering more than 89 million hryvnias ($2 million) in assets. His lawyers said they would appeal the ruling.
On Sept. 7, the same court placed Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko, another suspect in the Carthage case, in custody. She is identified in the case under the alias “Muse” and is described as Kropyva’s partner. The court ordered her held for 60 days, with possible bail set at 20 million hryvnias ($450,520).
That same day, the High Anti-Corruption Court also set a pre-trial restriction for another Carthage case suspect, Serhii Kutsyi, who is Kropyva’s driver. He was ordered held in custody until Nov. 3, with bail set at 3 million hryvnias ($67,578).
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