Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau charges five in Carthage case, including detained SBU major general

Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) has announced charges against five people in a new episode of its Carthage case. Investigators say the group ran or shielded scam call centers, drug sales and a counterfeit-euro workshop. The case matters because Ukraine, fighting Russia's full-scale invasion, is negotiating EU membership, and Brussels has tied those talks to reforms that include independent anti-corruption agencies. Carthage is NABU's investigation into officials allegedly paid to let scam call centers defraud people in Ukraine and abroad; it now reaches the police and the security service.

The general nicknamed Akim

On 4 November, NABU detectives detained Serhii Duka, a major general in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). A source in the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) told BBC that he was held under Article 208, meaning detention without a prior court order. Investigators believe Duka is the "Akim" of the recordings, who helped the group with problems in the SBU, the Prosecutor General's Office and the police. When the group paused its call centers last summer, he allegedly told its leader to change addresses and "go partisan."

Slidstvo.Info reported that Duka was found at a cottage in Roslavychi, Kyiv Oblast. NABU unit head Oleksandr Abakumov described armed men at the windows and Duka holding a pistol, who then smashed his phones with a hammer on a balcony and destroyed a hard drive. Fighters from Alfa, the SBU's special forces, then arrived in vans. The same day, SBU head Oleksandr Poklad said he had dismissed two senior officials involved in the case without naming them. SAP planned to ask a court on 6 November to keep Duka in custody.

The other suspects

The organizer is named as Andrii Osipov, a repeat convict known as Kryminal ("Criminal"). On 5 November the High Anti-Corruption Court ordered Vitalii Rybalka, called Boxer, held for 60 days without bail. He denied involvement in beatings with a hammer, called the suspicion far-fetched, but admitted knowing Osipov. Volodymyr Tsenov, known as Price and a senior National Police investigator, was ordered held unless he posts bail of UAH 15 million. The fifth suspect, Oleksandr Demianchuk, is a police detective in Kyiv Oblast; no ruling on him had been reported.

Detectives also searched Kyiv Oblast police chief Andrii Rubel but did not charge him.