Prosecutors of the Specialized Environmental Prosecutor's Office of the Chernivtsi region, together with the police and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), have completed the pre-trial investigation and submitted an indictment to the court regarding an organized criminal group that illegally extracted limestone from an abandoned mine in the territory of the Dnistrovskyi district.

Among the organizers are an official of a municipal enterprise, the head of a private firm, and an entrepreneur.

According to the investigation, the head of the municipal enterprise entered into fictitious contracts with the private firm, allegedly for carrying out work on the improvement of the mine for the arrangement of a bomb shelter. In reality, everything was planned: under the guise of this work, they illegally extracted limestone based on fictitious contracts.

They involved hired workers in the operations, while the technical support and transportation of the material were carried out by so-called "contractors" – the participants of the organized criminal group themselves.

The extracted limestone was crushed, packaged, and transported for further sale.

The total volume of illegally extracted stone exceeds 2,500 m³, and the damage to the state amounts to about 5 million UAH.

The participants in the scheme are charged with embezzlement, legalization of income obtained by criminal means, illegal extraction of mineral resources, official forgery, and use of forged documents (Part 4 of Article 191, Part 2 of Article 209, Part 3 of Article 27, Part 4 of Article 240, Part 2 of Article 28, Part 1 of Article 366, Part 4 of Article 358 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

Prosecutors have also filed a lawsuit in court to recover the damage caused to the state.

The pre-trial investigation was conducted by investigators of the Main Investigation Department of the National Police in the Chernivtsi region, with operational support from the SBU in the region.

Note: According to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is presumed innocent of committing a crime and cannot be subjected to criminal punishment until their guilt is proven in a lawful manner and established by a guilty verdict of the court.