Prosecutors of the Chernivtsi Regional Prosecutor's Office have sent an indictment to the court regarding one of the leaders of the regional branch of the State Enterprise "Center for State Land Cadastre" and a resident of Chernivtsi. They are accused of fraudulent acquisition of communal land.

According to the investigation, a 45-year-old resident of Chernivtsi organized a scheme for the illegal privatization of communal land within the city. He selected promising plots for entrepreneurship that did not have defined boundaries or registration rights and registered them under fictitious persons.

He handed over the forged documents to an accomplice – an official of the Lviv regional branch of the State Enterprise "Center for State Land Cadastre".

The latter, using his official position and access to state registers, produced technical documentation for land management and entered false information.

As a result of these actions, five plots of communal land were removed from communal ownership, and they did not manage to register two more plots – their actions were stopped by law enforcement officers.

In addition, the involvement of the land cadastre official in the illegal removal of a plot of land from the Selyatyn territorial community has been established.

The actions of the suspects have been qualified under Part 1 of Article 364, Part 3 of Article 362, Part 4 and Part 5 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine – abuse of power or official position, unauthorized alteration of information in official databases, and fraud committed on a particularly large scale.

All seven plots of land have been seized. Their value exceeds 13 million UAH.

The pre-trial investigation was conducted by investigators of the Main Investigation Department of the National Police in the Chernivtsi region with operational support from the Security Service of Ukraine in the Chernivtsi region and the Main Criminal Investigation Department in the Chernivtsi region.

Note: According to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is presumed innocent of committing a crime and cannot be subjected to criminal punishment until their guilt is proven in a lawful manner and established by a court verdict.