On Thursday, March 11, the Security Service of Ukraine and the State Tax Service began a large-scale special operation at 3 oil depots and 105 petrol stations of the Swiss chain Glusco. On March 12, Glusco resumed sales of liquefied gas and related products at some petrol stations, but sales of gasoline and diesel fuel remained blocked, the company told 
.
The searches were carried out within the criminal cases dated January 30, 2019 on the facts of illegal production, storage, transportation for the purpose of selling excisable goods, tax evasion, as well as legalization of illegally obtained income. The warrant of search was issued by the decisions of the investigating judge of the Kyivskiy district court of Kharkiv, K.S. Sadovskiy, from February 26 and March 1.
In total, more than 140 authorized searches were carried out in 13 office premises, 7 oil depots, 13 sea vessels, 105 petrol stations and 2 customs clearance departments. According to the SBU, law enforcement officers have uncovered a large-scale scheme of the low-quality oil products "shadow" sales that caused losses to the state on an especially large scale. The approximate amount of tax evasion is about 240 million UAH.
Glusco denies all charges.
"The criminal proceedings, due to which the operation of the petrol station chain was blocked, is in no way connected with the Glusco group of companies. The proceedings were started following the commission of criminal offenses by officials of ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES COMPANY LLC, who are not connected with Glusco either by economic relations or by control relations. Therefore, the actions of law enforcement officers, sometimes used physical force and confiscated equipment, we consider unacceptable," follows from the official press release.
According to Sergei Kuyun, Director at the A-95 Consulting Group, the situation is purely political.
This story is links in the same chain with the events surrounding the PrykarpatZakhidtrans oil product pipeline that is associated with Medvedchuk. Since Nisan Moiseev is the main contract holder in the project for the diesel fuel supply through the pipeline, therefore, his chain was targeted by the security forces and the authorities.
Sergei Kuyun
Director at Consulting group A-95
Recall that in February, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine imposed sanctions against MP Viktor Medvedchuk and his wife Oksana Marchenko.
In addition, it was decided to nationalize the PrykarpatZakhidtrans oil product pipeline. It was used to pump diesel fuel from Russia and Belarus, its work was associated with business from the Medvedchuk-Marchenko orbit.
Yaroslav Serbin, Senior Associate at Ario Law Firm, draws attention to the fact that criminal proceedings, within which the investigative actions were carried out, had been opened at the beginning of 2019.
I do not exclude that such activity of the Security Service of Ukraine right now is connected with the recent imposition of sanctions on the well-known People's Deputy, who is associated with this petrol stations chain.
Yaroslav Serbin
Senior Associate at Ario Law Firm
The chain was blocked as part of the investigation of the case against the company (a large manufacturer of "hodgepodge"), with which they had no economic relations, says Sergei Kuyun.
Under this scheme, anyone in this country can be closed. This is the most dangerous thing. If you want to investigate, then investigate, but why stop the business. This is the main contradiction. The tax burden on this chain is one of the highest on the market. This company stated that it paid 3 billion UAH in taxes annually. It turns out that every day the budget loses are about 8 million UAH. If this situation is not resolved in the next 10-14 days, then this business could be fatally injured.
Sergei Kuyun
Director at Consulting group A-95
The company's losses are easy to calculate, says Gennady Ryabtsev, Director of special projects of the Psyche Scientific-Technical Center "Psyche".
105 gas stations are closed in total, each of them sells an average of 5 cubic meters per day. Multiplying by a margin of about 10 UAH, we get 5.25 million UAH per day.
Gennady Ryabtsev
Director of special projects of the Psyche Scientific-Technical Center "Psyche"
A source at Glusco told that the company is now calculating losses and preparing an appeal.
In my opinion, first of all, it will be necessary to return the property seized during the search. It is also necessary to take an active procedural and public position of the defense to refute the facts set forth by law enforcement agencies about the existence of economic relations with ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES COMPANY LLC—against officials ot which, according to media reports, criminal proceedings were opened in 2019. And, first of all, the company will need to confirm the legality of the origin and high quality of the fuel sold at the petrol stations.
Yaroslav Serbin
Senior Associate at Ario Law Firm
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