Ukraine's State Fiscal Service together with the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine have conducted a special operation resulting in the arrest of UAH 450 million belonging to a counterfeiter, acting State Fiscal Service head Myroslav Prodan has said.

"As a result of joint actions, at the end of last week UAH 450 million was arrested on accounts belonging to Ukraine's renowned smugglers … It was a unique operation. Odesa front companies were used by a gang of smugglers with UAH billions in backing capable of working with officials in any administration. We have started systematically taking apart their business," Prodan said on his Facebook page on Wednesday.

According to Prodan, customs agents gathered and transferred to law-enforcement officials all information about the criminal scheme to minimize customs tariffs. He said court officials were involved in the scheme. NABU is currently conducting the pretrial investigation.

Under the scheme dozens of fictitious companies from Ukraine headed by fictitious directors were used.

"These companies received large shipments from China (shoes, cloth, bags and so forth). The same firms that sent the goods received the goods. The contracts were drawn up in Odesa reducing the price of the goods tenfold and more. For example, shoes were priced at $.5 per kilogram," Prodan said, adding that the companies importing the goods used article 55 of the Customs Code of Ukraine, selling the goods after providing financial guarantees to customs agents.

"The companies importing the goods then appealed to Odesa courts, and a group of judges voided rulings made by Customs Service agents, saying the goods be offloaded according to substantially lowered prices and ordering that financial guarantees be returned to the importers. This was done although it was perfectly obvious that the documents were falsified and should not be trusted. It was a total fiction. But Odesa court judges for some reason did not notice," Prodan said.