A Ukrainian court on Saturday remanded oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskyi, accused of fraud and money laundering, in custody for two months with the possibility of posting bail in the amount of more than 509 million hryvnias, which is equivalent to more than 13 million dollars, Reuters reports.

Oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskyi, a former political ally of the President of Ukraine and once considered the most powerful businessman in Ukraine, is now facing criminal charges for alleged financial fraud related to his oil and gas business, writes The Guardian with reference to The Kyiv Independent.

Kyiv Independent published a photo showing the moment when security forces arrived at the oligarch’s house to inform him of the charges and search his property.

Citing a statement from the Security Service of Ukraine, The Kyiv Independent writes that Ihor Kolomoisky, who controlled Ukraine’s largest oil refining company until the government seized a “critically important national resource” in November, is accused of laundering more than $13.5 million in 2019-2020 . His company also reportedly refused to pay tens of millions of dollars in taxes last year.

Zelensky allegedly deprived oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky of Ukrainian citizenship

On July 18, 2022, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed a document on the deprivation of Ukrainian citizenship of 10 people, including Kolomoisky.

Who is Kolomoiskyi?

Kolomoisky is one of the most famous Ukrainian oligarchs. His business has a wide range of activities, covering oil and gas, metals, media and, most sadly, banking and finance.

Many of his business activities have led to scandals or lengthy court battles against the state. But no scandal has received as much media attention as the case of PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest bank.

Kolomoisky and his business partner, the oligarch Gennady Bogolyubov, were once the owners of PrivatBank, which experienced rapid growth in the 2000s and the first half of the 2010s. In December 2016, PrivatBank, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, was nationalized by the state.

According to an audit by Kroll, a corporate investigation firm, there was a $5.5 billion hole in PrivatBank’s books that led to the bank’s nationalization.

After court proceedings and a conflict with President Petro Poroshenko, Kolomoisky left Ukraine in 2016, and the oligarch himself publicly stated that he has at least three passports.

In 2019, Kolomoisky returned home when Zelensky was elected to the position. The TV channel “1+1”, which is owned by Ihor Kolomoiskyi, was a key promoter of Zelenskyi’s candidate.

Civil cases against the Ukrainian oligarch were unsuccessful, and Zelenskyi’s critics claimed that Kolomoiskyi had influence over the president.

However, an anti-oligarchy law passed by parliament at the initiative of Zelenskyi prohibits former owners from returning their state-nationalized assets, and relations between them have deteriorated, known as the anti-Kolomoiskyi law.

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