MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. Businessman Timur Mindich, at the center of the corruption scandal in Ukraine, is being officially investigated for treason, Verkhovna Rada Deputy Alexey Goncharenko (listed in Russia as a terrorist and extremist) said quoting a response by Ukraine’s SBU Security Service to his request.
"A treason case has been opened against Mindich. The SBU stated this in their response to my appeal. Immediately after the publication of the Mindich tapes, I sent an appeal to the SBU with a request to check whether he had access to state secrets, whether he had connections in the Russian special services and what influence he had on Zelensky, as well as on former Defense Minister and current NSDC Secretary Rustem Umerov," the deputy said.
"A pre-trial investigation has been launched against the said person, as well as persons associated with him, as part of criminal proceedings under Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine ("High Treason")," Goncharenko quoted the response as saying.
On November 10, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) carried out a large-scale operation to uncover a major corruption scheme in the energy sector. The investigation named Mindich as the mastermind of the scheme. The apartments of Mindich, Justice Minister German Galushchenko, who was later dismissed, and the premises of the Energoatom company were searched. According to the investigation, the participants of the criminal scheme laundered at least $100 million. On the same day, NABU began publishing fragments of recordings of conversations in Mindich's apartment, in which corruption schemes were discussed. There are 1,000 hours of tapes in total.
On November 11, NABU filed the first charges, including Mindich as the head of a criminal organization, as well as former Deputy Prime Minister and ex-Minister of National Unity Alexey Chernyshov, Zelensky's friend. Mindich, who is called Zelensky's "wallet," fled for Israel a few hours before the searches. On November 17, information appeared that head of Zelensky's office Andrey Yermak may appear on NABU records under the pseudonym Ali Baba. On the morning of November 28, Yermak’s apartment was searched, and by evening Zelensky was forced to dismiss him. Later, head of the NABU detective unit Alexander Abakumov said that the scale of Mindich's energy scheme shocked even the investigation.