KYIV. UkraineGate . 7 . September . 2022 | Ukraine News.
Last week, the National Police announced the exposure of criminals who seized more than half a million dollars of the Ministry of Defense intended for the purchase of military ammunition.
According to the investigation , as representatives of the Ministry of Defense, they organized the conclusion of a contract between the Ministry of Defense and a Turkish company in the amount of 16.6 million euros, convinced the Turkish leadership to conclude a contract with a company from Bahrain that belongs to them, took possession of funds in the amount of 580 thousand dollars, and the supply of products was not carried out. During the searches, the law enforcement officers seized 17 million hryvnias, 400 thousand dollars, and 100 thousand euros.
According to “Ukrainian Pravda”, as part of this criminal case, searches were also conducted at the residence of the head of the Department of Procurement and Supply of the Ministry of Defense, where large sums of money were seized, but the Ministry of Defense issued an official denial : no funds were found in the possession of an official of the Ministry of Defense during the search and did not withdraw; the Ministry of Defense was not searched; there were no reports of suspicion to Ministry of Defense officials in this criminal proceeding.
Judging by the results of an independent journalistic investigation published by the Kommentary publication, the contradictions and inconsistencies in the case of the supply of body armor for the Ukrainian army do not end there.
The first thing that journalists pay attention to is that representatives of the Ministry of Defense are not co-founders of the company in Bahrain (as it was initially stated by representatives of the national police), the funds seized during the searches have nothing to do with them, and the company from Bahrain itself has no less ties to the Turkish side claims than the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. At the first signs of non-fulfillment of the contract, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine started work on refunds, a claim to the Turkish company FarmTR was sent immediately, as soon as the terms of delivery of the paid goods were violated. The Ministry appealed to the ICC Arbitration (where it received a decision in its favor), a Turkish court (as a result of which the bank accounts and assets of the Turkish company were seized), as well as to the Embassy of Ukraine in Ankara and the Embassy of Turkey in Ukraine.
Also, according to the publication, a more thorough analysis of the Turkish side of the contract could shed light on this case, and here, as it turned out, there is something for the law enforcement officers to work on. The contract between the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and FarmTR Gida Tarim veHayvancilik Tik. ve San. Ltd. Sti was concluded on 14.03.2022 and signed by its director, Yusuf Kurun, who previously participated in negotiations on behalf of the Turkish company. In this regard, Yusuf Kuryun himself is a fairly young man who has never worked anywhere before, did not receive an official salary and was not listed in the state register of enterprises, that is, he has all the signs of a fake person. In addition, the main activity of FarmTR , as indicated by the very name of the company and information from its corporate website- this is agriculture, animal husbandry and construction of greenhouses. In open sources of information and databases of the state register of companies, the director of FarmTR is listed as Halit Arabaci.
Journalists believe that the entire agreement for the supply of body armor for the Ukrainian army looks like a fraudulent FarmTR scheme from the very beginning, since the Turkish agricultural company is a priori unable to fulfill the terms of the defense contract, does not have its own production of military ammunition, and also does not have certificates and special licenses to to carry out relevant trade. It is unlikely that the authorized persons of the MoD missed the openly left-wing firm due to negligence or a backroom arrangement. Licenses, recommendations, information on previously implemented defense orders, and most importantly – information on the availability of own production and finished products in warehouses, most likely, were falsified.
According to the publication, the transferred funds in the amount of 16.6 million euros have not yet been returned by the Turkish company to the Ukrainian budget, despite the efforts of lawyers and foreign lawyers of the Ministry of Defense.
Now scandalous Turkish businessmen, not without the help of their patrons in Ukraine, are trying to reclassify their procedural status from defendants to victims in order not to return 16.6 million euros to the defense budget of Ukraine and to remove the seizure of their own assets in Turkey, the publication notes .
Source : Ukrgate
