The Prosecutor General's Office announces the seizure of assets of the Cypriot companies of a Russian oligarch in the amount of more than UAH 12.4 billion.

"At a request of the Prosecutor General's Office prosecutors, assets of Cypriot companies totaling more than UAH 12.4 billion were seized. These are securities that were on the accounts of a bank that is one of the ten largest financial institutions and included in the systemically important banks of Ukraine. Its beneficial owners are entrepreneurs of the Russian Federation," the PGO said on Monday on the Telegram channel.

According to the prosecutor's office, the Russian oligarch and businessmen, using controlled Cypriot companies and the aforementioned bank, before the war and during armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, legalized the assets of these companies for a total of UAH 1.1 billion. In the future, as they say in the message, they withdrew part of the assets from the banking system in Ukraine, and seized the other.

"Thus, the Russian oligarch and businessmen tried to avoid possible negative consequences in the form of imposing sanctions and applying measures for the forced seizure of property rights provided for by the legislation of Ukraine," the prosecutor's office emphasizes.

Pretrial investigation in criminal proceedings on the fact of legalization (laundering) of property obtained by criminal means, committed by officials of a private banking institution, is carried out by detectives of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine with prompt support from the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police of Ukraine.

The prosecutor's office reminds that earlier, at a request of the prosecutors, the court also seized the assets of these companies of the Russian oligarch in the amount of about half a billion hryvnias.