Detectives of the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine sent an indictment to the court against the general director his deputy and the chief accountant of one of the largest distributors of tobacco products in Ukraine.

The investigation established that the company's officials in the tax reporting reflected the sale of tobacco products to the address of enterprises with signs of fictitiousness.

In fact tobacco products were not sold to these companies. Realization took place for cash off the record including through a network of own retail stores.

In their turn these enterprises documented the sale of other goods - meat products and fuel - in their tax reporting.

In the future the funds were legalized by concluding a number of contracts with financial companies.

Such actions led to the non-payment of taxes and the legalization of funds obtained through criminal means in particularly large amounts - more than 1.6 billion losses were caused to the budget.

The general director of the company his deputy and the chief accountant were notified of suspicion under Part 3 of Art. 212 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (intentional tax evasion in particularly large amounts) and Part 3 of Art. 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (legalization (laundering) of proceeds obtained through crime).

The indictments have been sent to the court.

Procedural management was carried out by prosecutors of the General Prosecutor's Office.

Note: in accordance with Art. 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine a person is considered innocent of committing a crime and cannot be subjected to criminal punishment until his guilt is proven in a legal manner and established by a court verdict.