ARMA is receiving first assets for management
Prosecution General Office informed that assets seized in the course of investigation of Oleksandr Klymenko’s activities were already transferred for management to the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA). Among the assets are 154 real estate properties, including fancy apartments in Kyiv downtown as well as houses in Kozyn – luxurious Kyiv suburbs. The ARMA will also receive for management a 3000 sq metres Hunting & Fishing Base located in Kyiv region.
It is the first case of ARMA receiving seized assets under management. The Agency was established in 2016 as part of the EU requirements within Visa Liberalization Action Plan. It has to assist law enforcement agencies in tracing assets and managing seized and confiscated assets.
In the course of investigation of the activities of Ukraine’s ex-Minister of income and tax Oleksandr Klymenko, property of the UNISON group was frozen. According to Avakov, Klymenko registered a number of offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus during 2011-2013 on the name of his father. Between 2011 and early 2014, over UAH 788 million were transferred to the accounts of UNISON group, the media holding Vesti and two other asset management companies owned by the minister’s relatives, which served the Yanukovych family.
Avakov informed that UNISON group purchased following assets at the expense of these funds:
– 78 elite apartments;
– 28 office premises;
– 5 buildings;
– 41 parking spaces;
– 11 land plots in Kyiv, Odesa and Donetsk;
– 23 cars;
– 3 floors of the Gulliver Shopping and Entertainment Center in Kyiv;
– 1000 railway cars.
According to Avakov, up to the present day Klymenko’s business has been making money. The property purchased on money stolen from the budget will be frozen until the final court decision. Avakov expects assets to be confiscated in favor of the state.