The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has said that on December 20-21, the bureau did not conduct any investigative actions at the premises of the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine and asked people's deputies to check the facts before making public statements.

"We officially state that on December 20 or on December 21, NABU employees did not carry out any investigative actions at the premises of the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine. Therefore, reports of 'searches' or 'seizures' in this institution by NABU employees, which were persistently spread by a number of people's deputies since the evening of December 20, are untrue," the bureau said in a report on Facebook on Thursday.

The NABU called on MPs "to check the facts before making public statements regarding the actions of the national bureau."

As reported, on April 28, 2017, the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) said that Oschadbank (the State Savings Bank of Ukraine) had started to impound $1.5 billion belonging to former Ukrainian President Yanukovych and his associates. The impoundment order had been issued by the Kramatorsk court in Donetsk region, and the appeal window already closed by then.

Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said later on that day that the Kramatorsk court had decided to impound money of Yanukovych and his associates on the basis of testimony provided by one associate, who received a suspended sentence in exchange.

On December 20, it was reported that NABU detectives were carrying out a pre-trial investigation into the possible complicity of Head of the State Financial Monitoring Service Ihor Cherkasky in embezzling $1.5 billion of the funds of Yanukovych and his entourage, which were seized under a court decision in line with the impoundment procedure in April 2017. The preliminary legal qualification is Part 5, Article 27 (aiding and abetting crime) and Part 5, Article 191 (large-scale embezzlement) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Notices of suspicion in this proceeding were not reported to anyone.

On the same day, a number of Ukrainian media outlets, referring to their own sources, reported that allegedly "on the appeal of Yanukovych's defense team, NABU conducts searches at the State Financial Monitoring Service on suspicion of criminally writing off $1.5 billion to the state budget of Ukraine."

According to Interfax-Ukraine, NABU did not conduct any searches or other investigative actions in the building of the State Financial Monitoring Service, but only sent a request for temporary access to the documents requested.