Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko in 2017-2018 intended to open criminal cases on five credit lines of PrivatBank, but could not do this because of the decision of ex-Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk to begin proceeds in the High Court of Justice of England and Wales.

"Together with state-owned PrivatBank, we appealed to court on five credit lines that are clearly not serviced. In response, we received a letter from Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk saying "we believe that recovering debt from these persons under the decision of national courts is not the most effective protection of the bank's interests and is unlikely to entail the recovery of any funds," Lutsenko said in an interview with LIGA.net.

He said the matter concerns credit lines issued to affiliated persons with maturity in 10-12 years.

"There is PrivatBank, which issues credit lines to different clients, often affiliated with the bank's owners, for example, a ferroalloy plant, a chemical plant, and so on. As a rule, then the funds are sent to offshore jurisdictions and then the funds are transferred through hundreds of companies in one day there. The money goes to an American company that buys real estate in New York, a quarry in Australia, a yacht or a plane," Lutsenko explained.

According to him, the total amount of assets acquired in such a way reaches about $5.5 billion.

"In agreement with the National Bank of Ukraine, Mr. Kolomoisky conducts restructuring, takes out debts from 193 companies that as of 2017 had not repaid loans, and transfers them to other 26 firms," the prosecutor explained.