Swiss banks have frozen $70 million in assets allegedly stolen by ex-President Viktor Yanukovych and his cronies.
It’s a small amount of the estimated $40 billion taken during Yanukovych’s corrupt reign, which the EuroMaidan Revolution ended on Feb. 22, 2014.
Ukraine’s prosecutors, however, view the money held in Switzerland as recoverable. “It’s a priority for us,” said Eugene Yenin, head of international cooperation at the General Prosecutor’s Office.
Former officials who stashed suspicious cash in Swiss banks include: Yanukovych, the former president; Mykola Azarov, the former prime minister; Andriy Klyuev, the former head of Yanukovych’s administration; and Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, an ex-member of parliament.
President Petro Poroshenko and Swiss President Doris Leuthard spoke on the phone twice since the beginning of 2017, both times reaffirming their commitment to speeding up the asset recovery process and agreeing on “further steps.”
But Andriy Sliusar, an expert at Transparency International Ukraine, suggested that the statements were more a reflection of the lack of progress made than anything else.
“There should be a concrete dialogue between the law enforcement organs of both countries,” Sliusar said.
Crucial steps
Switzerland first froze the money of former Ukrainian top officials in February 2014, days after Yanukovych fled Ukraine, for three years.
Swiss Ambassador to Ukraine Guillaume Scheurer said that the country had granted a year-long extension of an administrative freeze on around $70 million out of the $100 million identified by prosecutors, which will expire in February 2018.
Yenin came into office in June, after the ouster of former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was not active in asset recovery. Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko hired Yenin, who served in Ukraine’s Embassy in Rome and the country’s security service.
Since then, Yenin says he’s focused on speeding up cases by restoring trust with foreign law enforcement, a step towards ensuring effective cooperation on asset recovery.
“We’re stepping up in directions where we lagged behind,” Yenin said, adding that prosecutors are getting approval from Ukrainian courts to freeze the money.
Swiss law makes the process slightly easier. Evidence of an underlying crime doesn’t need to be established in order to conduct a money laundering investigation.
But to make progress, prosecutors need to send a formal motion to a Swiss court for a judicial freeze, as administrative sanctions expire. So far, Ukraine has not yet asked for such a judicial order. To do so, evidence will need to be presented.
Yenin said Ukraine faces a tough fight from Yanukovych’s lawyers, who “postpone the process, rais[ing] challenges to every one of our actions.”
Yenin said that there are five separate investigations involving Yanukovych-era money in Switzerland.
Geneva prosecutors opened an investigation into money laundering by Yanukovych in 2014, a case that could help Ukraine. The Swiss have sent around 15 requests to Ukraine as part of the investigations.
Yenin said that he would go to Geneva for the Basel Institute for Governance’s International Center for Asset Recovery in two weeks to meet with Swiss authorities on how to speed asset recovery.
He promised “to meet every investigator” and ask “what they need from our side to move forward.”
Long-term process
Anti-corruption activists have criticized the government for failing to formally ask the Swiss and other authorities to freeze the money.
Sliusar, the Transparency International expert, said that political will is lacking at the top to return the money.
In the best of circumstances, results take years.
“We’ve seen from cases in Africa, Asia, and South America that it takes eight to 10 to 12 years until the legal aspects are clarified,” said the Swiss ambassador.
Sliusar said that time has been wasted due to inaction. “Spending time on constructive actions is different from spending time on empty actions,” he said.
