ESBU has brought in many times more to the budget than it has spent on its work. This was stated by Andrii Pashchuk, the Acting Director of the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine in an interview with Forbes.

"The Bureau is already showing its effectiveness which is evident from this year's performance - there is a tangible economic effect and the Bureau has brought in many times more to the budget than it has spent on its work," said Andrii Pashchuk answering the question about the feasibility of financing the ESBU.

According to him the Bureau's performance has increased in all respects since the beginning of this year. In particular in 6 months of 2023, excisable goods worth UAH 3.1 billion were seized, analysts prevented more than UAH 5 billion of state budget losses using a risk-based approach and UAH 1.7 billion of losses were recovered in tax evasion cases.

The Head of the Bureau also emphasized that the ESBU's current priorities are crimes related to excisable goods, budget embezzlement and tax evasion.

"Currently, the detectives of the Bureau's are investigating more than 1,000 criminal proceedings for tax evasion of which 5 times more have been sent to court than in the entire year of 2022," said Andrii Pashchuk.

Recently the Economic Security Bureau together with the SSU served a notice of suspicion to russian oligarch Shelkov who is suspected of creating and managing an organized criminal group, intentional tax evasion and legalization of the proceeds of crime.