Businessman Mazepa suspected of organizing scheme to seize 7 hectares of land of Kyiv HEPP

Businessman, founder of Concorde Capital investment company Ihor Mazepa is suspected of organizing a scheme to seize 7 hectares of land on which the hydraulic structures of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant (Kyiv HEPP) are located.

It was reported to Ukrainian News Agency in the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI).

On January 18, employees of the SBI, together with the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police, detained the businessman, the organizer of a scheme of illegal seizure of land on which critical infrastructure hydraulic structures of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Station are located, during an attempt to travel abroad.

The detention took place on the basis of Article 208 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

The SBI recalled that on November 29, 2023, the SBI employees, together with the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police, exposed and detained members of a criminal organization who illegally seized more than 7 hectares of land on which hydraulic structures of critical infrastructure are located - the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Station.

The criminal organization included almost two dozen people.

Among them are known investors in the field of construction of elite housing, their assistants, lawyers, architects, land surveyors, other qualified specialists and representatives of government agencies.

They acted in the interests of several developers.

Using legal gaps in the legal status of the plots, the organizers, using corruption ties in government agencies, registered them as agricultural land, which made it possible to allocate these plots to citizens of Ukraine.

Other participants searched through social networks for figureheads who agreed for money to sign documents on the allocation of land to them in private ownership.

Most of them were students of the capital's educational institutions, who were misled and agreed to the proposal due to a difficult financial situation.

In the future, the performers, on behalf of the figureheads, signed a number of documents for registration of ownership of land plots.

Then they "resold" the land to representatives of well-known developers of luxury real estate in the Kyiv Region, who ordered and financed the illegal scheme.

According to this scheme, during 2020-2021, the organizers and participants of the criminal organization took possession of state property lands, which are assigned to the land of the water fund and on which the hydraulic resources of the strategic Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant are located.

The implementation of the criminal scheme was facilitated by the actions of individual officials of the Ukrainian Geological Survey, who exceeded their official powers during the decision-making on the allocation of land.

The actions of participants in the criminal organization and other persons are qualified under articles 255 (creation, management of a criminal community or criminal organization, as well as participation in it), 233 (illegal privatization of state, communal property), 209 (legalization (laundering) of property obtained by crime) of the Criminal Code.

In November 2023, 8 suspicions were reported on these articles.

Participants in the criminal organization face a sentence of up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.

Pre-trial investigation is ongoing.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in November the SBI announced the detention of 5 people on suspicion of possessing 5 hectares of land on which the hydraulic structures of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant are located.

Ukrainian businessman Ihor Mazepa was detained on the border with Poland.

The SBI caught the suspects, who took possession of 5 hectares of land of the Kyiv HEPP.