Group Faces Trial in Odesa for Embezzling Property Worth ₴11 Million

A lawyer and two members of an organized group who, under the leadership of the organizer - a deputy of the Odessa City Council, seized real estate in the center of Odessa worth over 11 million hryvnias will be tried in Odessa. The indictment has already been sent to the court.

It was established that MP Oleksandr Matveyev, who was a member of the Odessa City Council's standing commission on communal property, developed a scheme for illicit enrichment through the registration of ownership rights to real estate objects that were directly or indirectly owned by territorial communities. He involved a familiar lawyer and executors from among his trusted persons in his plan.

“The accomplices looked for communal premises on the first and second floors in the center of Odessa, rented them through controlled public organizations and enterprises, and then bought them out on a non-competitive basis.

After that, they increased the area of ​​the already purchased premises by adding attics and basements, and based on falsified documentation, they registered ownership rights for fictitious persons.

Some of the illegally acquired non-residential premises were converted into residential apartments and sold to bona fide purchasers.

In total, the members of the organized group seized three real estate properties in the city center of Odessa and a land plot in the Peresypsky district, causing over UAH 11 million in losses to the territorial community.

The defendants were exposed in May 2024 and preventive measures in the form of detention with the alternative of bail were chosen. They are charged with fraudulent appropriation of municipal property and its legalization, falsification of documents and their use, unauthorized occupation of a land plot and unauthorized construction (Part 3 of Article 28, Parts 3, 4 of Articles 358, Part 4 of Article 190, Part 3 of Article 197-1, Part 3 of Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

We will remind, Alexander Matveev is a person involved in the EBK base.

We also previously wrote that the Security Service of Ukraine detained in the Dnipropetrovsk region the leader of a gang of racketeers who were extorting money from a military man . According to media reports, the detainee is Yuriy Pryshedko, a deputy of the Pidhorodna City Council of the Dniprovsk district of the Dnipropetrovsk region.