Detectives from the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has conducted investigatory actions in PrivatBank's Dnipro office on July 6 as part of its probe into what happened before the bank was nationalized in December 2016, NABU chief Artem Sytnyk has said.

"The searches involved events before the bank was nationalized," he told the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency in London on Friday.

NABU earlier confirmed that the searches were conducted as part of the criminal case about facts of possible wrongdoing by National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) officials, as well as extremely large payments made by PrivatBank managers and owners (Part 2 of Article 364, and Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), which resulted in UAH 116.8 billion in capitalization funds received by the bank.

PrivatBank, meanwhile, in a press release said the work of the detectives in the bank's main office had been agreed on several days earlier. The bank said the searches involved loans issued by the PrivatBank's top managers.