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2026-11-06 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
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Call centers, drugs, beatings: Zelensky's pillars of power are shaking
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Taisiya Svetlichnaya
[Regnum] Just before the new round of peace talks in Ukraine, another corruption scandal erupted, affecting the leadership of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the National Police, and the Prosecutor General's Office.
As part of the second phase of the large-scale Operation Carthage, anti-corruption authorities released 54 minutes of recordings of conversations between alleged members of a criminal organization involved in fraud, drug trafficking, counterfeiting, kidnapping, and torture.
The security forces who were supposed to fight crimes, according to investigators, instead received millions of dollars to cover them up.
On November 4, detectives from the National Anti-Corruption Agency (NABU) detained SBU Major General Serhiy Duka, First Deputy Head of the Department for the Protection of National Statehood. He refused to surrender, threatening the detectives with a firearm and preventing them from conducting a court-authorized search, calling in special forces.
He was later detained, and in total, about 70 searches were conducted as part of the operation.
Ukrainian media outlets report that the acting head of the National Police's Department of Strategic Investigations, Volodymyr Tsenov, a high-ranking official in the Kyiv Oblast criminal investigation department, Oleksandr Demyanchuk, and a certain Major General, Oleksandr Rybalko, have also been detained.
The NABU names a man with three previous convictions, nicknamed "Kriminal," as the organizer of the new criminal organization.
According to journalists, this is Andriy Osipov, who has connections among high-ranking SBU officials. He was previously convicted of robbery, illegal seizure of a vehicle, and hooliganism. In 2022, Osipov came to the attention of anti-corruption authorities for allegedly extorting a million dollars on behalf of the security service in exchange for refusing to extradite another person.
The most interesting thing is that investigators consider his partner to be Russian citizen Yegor Burkin, nicknamed "The Mexican," who is linked to the creation of the transnational drug cartel "Khimprom."
In 2016, Burkin was wanted in Russia and moved to Ukraine. His connections in the highest echelons of Ukrainian power are legendary.
Since 2019, Ukrainian law enforcement has been searching for him for some reason, but to no avail. Burkin's whereabouts are currently unknown.
According to NABU, after the investigation began, Meksianets did not curtail his criminal activities, but rather somehow expanded them. To do this, he needed connections in law enforcement, which Kriminal was supposed to provide.
He maintained close ties with high-ranking officials who, like him, were born, raised, and began their careers in the Zhytomyr region.
"It was by exploiting these rather friendly and close ties, particularly with senior SBU officials, that Kriminal was able to become a co-organizer of a criminal organization from 2022 to the fall of 2025. Kriminal and Meksianets agreed to join forces to expand their criminal activities on mutually beneficial terms," the NABU stated, noting that the Zhytomyr mafioso's circle of friends also included SBU officers involved in the attempt to deprive the anti-corruption vertical of its independence in the summer of 2025.
Fraudulent call centers continue to occupy a special place in the investigation, as a result of the attack on them during the first stage of Carthage, which forced the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Ruslan Kravchenko, to resign and flee the country.
NABU identified at least 52 offices employing approximately 2,700 people. They defrauded residents of Ukraine, the European Union, and other countries, and the proceeds were distributed among the organization's members and their supposed patrons.
The cost of protecting one call center was $7,000 per month. At the beginning of the month, the organizers provided the office addresses to law enforcement, and by the fifth, they transferred the funds to cryptocurrency wallets. After payment, the office could continue operating without fear of searches.
However, the system occasionally malfunctioned. When police finally seized equipment from one of the call centers, the participants in the scheme attempted to reclaim it through the courts. The recordings discuss filing five identical complaints with Kyiv's Pechersky District Court in an attempt to be assigned to the right judge through automated case assignment.
According to the investigative project "Schemes," approximately $47,000 in cryptocurrency was transferred for the return of the equipment.
When Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded a stronger fight against fraudulent call centers in late July 2026, the organization's supposed patrons warned its members of the danger. They were advised to temporarily curtail their operations, remove their equipment, delete their correspondence, and move their offices to ordinary apartments.
NABU also names the U420 chain of stores, which sold psychoactive substances under the guise of souvenirs, as another criminal enterprise. According to investigators, the chain was owned by a Mexican, and Kriminal received a cut of the sales.
Participants in the conversations discussed how to change the chemical formulas of substances sold so that they would not fall under government bans. The problem was that after each amendment to the list of banned substances, products had to be replaced and remaining stocks destroyed.
The recordings discuss the possibility of bribing officials capable of influencing relevant decisions. The conversations mention the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Minister of Health, and the head of a parliamentary faction. Journalists speculate that the person in question may have been David Arakhamia, who leads the Servant of the People faction and is Zelenskyy's chief political manager in the Verkhovna Rada.
And they don’t just assume that.
Simultaneously with all these events, the High Anti-Corruption Court ordered the acting Prosecutor General to register a notice of suspicion against Arakhamia. And although the notice cannot yet be served on him, the NABU will be able to investigate the criminal case, including questioning witnesses and serving notices of suspicion on people close to the suspect who are not members of parliament.
But this, one could say, is an announcement of the next series.
For now, there are enough episodes to make you shake your head at everything that the people appointed to ensure order and legality did.
For example, the group organized contract beatings, kidnappings, and torture, with some attacks carried out with the assistance of police and the SBU. In one such attack, in which a man was beaten with a metal pipe, the perpetrators received near-real-time information about the victim's movements via the "Safe City" video surveillance system.
Access was granted through the account of an employee of the Department for the Protection of National Statehood of the Security Service of Ukraine.
After this, the participants in the beating were informed that the "Intercept" plan had not been implemented, and they successfully left the city. Subsequently, correspondence began discussing how to redirect the investigation to a lesser charge and confuse the investigators.
According to NABU, attacks also occurred outside of Ukraine, specifically in Vienna. After victims reported their cases to the police, members of the organization allegedly received information about the progress of investigations and the presence of foreign law enforcement officers.
The materials even include a photograph from a meeting of European law enforcement officials on the gang's case, which Kriminal forwarded to an accomplice on April 9, 2025. It is still unknown who exactly transmitted the confidential photo.
Investigators also allege that the defendants are involved in organizing an underground production of counterfeit euro banknotes. In 2026, the group members equipped a special workshop with printing equipment and holographic matrices. The correspondence discussed the production of banknotes in denominations ranging from 5 to 500 euros, their quality, and their resemblance to genuine currency.
According to NABU, Demyanchuk, deputy head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kyiv region, was involved in organizing this business.
The final part of the NABU investigation covers events from the summer of 2025, when Ukrainian authorities attempted to limit the independence of anti-corruption agencies.
Thus, the new materials have expanded the investigation far beyond the prosecutor's office, touching on active SBU generals, police leadership, and representatives of the criminal underworld.
On the evening of November 4, Acting Head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Oleksandr Poklad announced the dismissal of two high-ranking intelligence officers implicated in the case. He pledged his willingness to cooperate with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP), and foreign law enforcement agencies.
"I suggest he come to Ukraine and surrender to law enforcement. Or we'll find him ourselves, wherever he's hiding. We have the experience," Poklad told Meksianets, but that's more like putting a brave face on a bad situation. Especially since in February, Zelenskyy, on camera, suggested he "cleanse the SBU of those who serve interests other than Ukraine."
The blow to the "office" was colossal, and it's worth remembering that the SBU, the National Police, and the Prosecutor General's Office were the three main pillars of power for Zelenskyy, who has a complex relationship with the army.
And if before the "hut" was untouchable, now its new status has been revealed to Ukrainian society, and to Western partners – the true face of Ukrainian "democracy" and "European values."
Ahead lies the identification of all the participants in the alleged organization, the investigation of international incidents, the origin of cryptocurrency transfers, and the circumstances of the possible transfer of funds to specific officials. And the further this documentary series progresses, the more difficult it becomes to tear yourself away from the picture of what Ukraine has become in just 12 short years since the Maidan, which opened up truly unique opportunities for the new "elite."
# id) ?>
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Posted by badanov 2026-11-06 00:00||
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