SAPO seeking ruling that assets of former Deputy Minister of Energy Kheilo are of unjustified origin

A prosecutor from the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) filed a lawsuit seeking a court ruling that the assets acquired between 2021 and 2023 by Oleksandr Kheilo, who was then the Deputy Minister of Energy of Ukraine, are of unjust enrichment.

It was announced by the SAPO, the Ukrainian News agency reports.

The case involves a residential building and a 0.0345-hectare plot of land located in the Kyiv Region, with a total value of UAH 4,956,900.

The lawsuit is based on the fact that, although the actual ownership of these assets is registered to third parties, they were acquired in the interests of and at the behest of the official. Furthermore, the official has the ability to take actions, either directly or indirectly, with respect to such assets that are equivalent in substance to exercising the right to dispose of them.

At the same time, an analysis of the official’s and his wife’s financial status confirmed that it was impossible to acquire these assets using lawful income.

In light of this, the SAPO prosecutor filed a lawsuit seeking to have the assets declared unjustified and to have them forfeited to the state.

It should be noted that the lawsuit was filed based on materials from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and evidence independently obtained by the SAPO prosecutor.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the High Anti-Corruption Court arrested the dismissed Deputy Minister of Energy, Oleksandr Kheilo, but allowed him to be released on bail of UAH 25 million. Kheilo was caught red-handed while receiving a bribe of USD 500,000 for transferring valuable coal-mining equipment from the frontline territory to a company in the  west of Ukraine.