SBU Puts Oligarch Pavel Fuks Under Suspicion for Fraud

On Tuesday, May 16, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) gave Ukrainian oligarch Pavel Fuks and two of his top executives a “notice of suspicion,” which in the Ukrainian legal system is a step prior to indictment and formal accusation.

Fuks is suspected of large-scale financial fraud regarding Ukraine’s strategic enterprises. Fuks is also suspected of tax evasion.

According to the SBU investigation, Fuks’ holding company was seeking out Ukrainian enterprises in the energy, machine-building and metallurgical industries that had loans from bankrupt banks.

“The dealers bought ‘credit obligations’ of these entities from banking institutions for nothing, which allowed them to interfere in their business activities,” the SBU report states.

“In the course of these activities, Fuks and his accomplices received excessive profits and evaded taxes. For example, just one of these transactions resulted in almost Hr.100 million ($2.7 million) in losses to the state,” the report added.

Since 2018, Fuks has illegally taken over the assets of Ukrainian companies worth more than Hr.100 billion ($2.7 billion).

Fuks is a well-known Ukrainian-Russian oligarch from Kharkiv. He is involved in the development, banking, and oil and gas sectors, among others. According to Forbes, he was the 64^th richest Ukrainian in 2021, before the full-scale invasion, with a net worth of $165 million.

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Together with Russian oligarchs German Khan and Mikhail Fridman, he founded the Babyn Yar Memorial Center project in Ukraine in 2016.

Since 2018, he has been under Russian sanctions. In 2021, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine also imposed sanctions against Fuks.