KYIV: A general in Ukraine’s SBU security service suspected in a serious corruption case was released from pre-trial detention on Friday after posting $1.2 million bail.
Footage on TSN.ua showed Serhiy Duka after leaving prison proclaiming his innocence and thanking his SBU “brothers-in-arms” who had raised the money.
Duka was detained on November 4 as part of an anti-corruption operation targeting a criminal group that investigators say involved members of the SBU, the prosecutor’s office, the police, and organised crime.
The NABU anti-corruption bureau says the group paid bribes to law-enforcement officials to turn a blind eye to call centres running fraud schemes, drug sales, as well as production of counterfeit cigarettes and fake currency.
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC), Ukraine’s fraudulent call centre generates up to a billion dollars a month in revenue.
In early November, NABU announced that five new individuals had been officially named as suspects in this operation, including Duka.
After his release from pre-trial detention, Duka claimed on Friday to be the victim of “revenge by the leaders of the anti-corruption bodies”, in reference to a long-running conflict between them and the SBU.
Corruption is a recurring problem in Ukraine, and several other major scandals have erupted since the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022.
