The Kyiv Regional Prosecutor's Office has opened a pre-trial investigation concerning the illegal actions of officials of the Kyiv Customs (State Customs Service), according to its head in response to a request from MP Aleksandr Dubinskyi.

The investigation was entered in the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations under the number 42020110000000194 on the grounds of a criminal offense under Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code - an abuse of power or official position, which implies liability in the form of imprisonment for a period of 5-8 years.

Pre-trial investigation is carried out by the territorial department of the State Bureau of Investigation, located in Kyiv under the procedural leadership of the Kyiv Regional Prosecutor's Office.

We want to remind you that MPs Alexander Dubinskyi and Alexander Kunitskyi discovered a massive import of goods at an underestimated cost, as well as contraband, during an actual inspection of the imported products at the Kyiv customs in early October.

To illustrate, during the inspection of a cargo - floor and kitchen scales - a number of jewelry scales that were not in the declaration were found in the container. It turned out that it was a contraband product disguised as kitchen scales.

The custom value of jewelry scales differs significantly from the declared price. However, all the goods were carried under the same codes (article number) - kitchen, floor, and jewelry scales.

The kitchen scale was reportedly priced at $ 1 at a market value of $ 8 per unit. Roughly the undeclared jewelry scales amount to 23,550 pieces or 4.5 tons. If we recalculate everything at the market value in Ukraine (UAH 200 per piece), it will be UAH 4,710,000 in total. The number of undeclared goods revealed, and the shortfall in customs payments was about UAH 500,000 on this particular delivery.

Also, the deputies Dubinskyi and Kunitskyi recorded several facts of understating prices for customs clearance:

• Italian sofa worth € 9,000 was declared at € 300-400.

• The € 427 chandelier was declared at $ 15.

• The sofa was announced at $ 200 at a real cost of € 3,000.

It is interesting to note that the PO-trade company, which processed cargo with furniture, has issued 126 vehicles of various cargo from Italy since the beginning of 2020, including 51 cars with cargo furniture.

The head of the Kyiv customs office, Sergei Slichko, speaking on the phone, tried to justify the actions of his customs office and said:

"In this situation, the declaration passed the automatic control of the ASRAM (Automated System for Risk Analysis and Management - Auth.), so the inspector decided to release it."

After a high-profile scandal, Slichko was removed from the leadership of the Kyiv customs at the end of October. However, it does not mean that he should not be held responsible for the crimes committed under his leadership. Therefore, MP Dubinskyi made an appeal to the prosecutor's office, and now he is counting on an objective investigation that will bring the perpetrators to justice.

Andrey Pshenichnyi for dubinsky.pro