Investigators of the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) are conducting a pretrial investigation into the fact that fifth President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko committed deliberate actions in 2014 aimed at opening a company in the jurisdiction of the British Virgin Islands, Acting Director of the SBI Oleksiy Sukhachov has said.

"According to the pretrial investigation, these actions were carried out with the help of Cypriot and Panamanian law firms, and the company is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Moreover, its sole beneficial owner is the fifth president of Ukraine (during registration, his passport was shown and his Kyiv address was indicated)," the SBI said in a statement released on its website on Monday.

According to the information, the registration documents indicated that the company will act as a holding company for the Ukrainian and Cypriot structures of the confectionery corporation, the founder of which is the fifth president of Ukraine, and the source of funds for it should be income from commercial activities.

Thus, the SBI says, these actions show signs of criminal offenses provided for in Article 212 (tax evasion), Article 209 (legalization (laundering) of money and other property obtained by criminal means) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

"In order to obtain the necessary information in the criminal process, the State Bureau of Investigations addressed the Prosecutor General's Office for International Legal Assistance with international requests to the competent authorities of the British Virgin Islands, the Republic of Panama and the Republic of Cyprus," the bureau said in the statement.