Takhtai Oleksii Volodymyrovych

The son of Volodymyr Takhtai, who in the early 2000s was the Chief Controller of the Accounting Chamber and Deputy Minister of Finance in the middle of 1990s. Until 25 May 2017 brother of Olexiy, Andriy Takhtai, was the head of Department for Internal Audit of Naftogaz Ukraine and the member of revision commission of Ukrgazvydobuvannia PJSC.

Mass media published videos of how the Head of State Enterprise “Special Service” Vasyl Petrivskiy reported to the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs (at that time Serhiy Chobotar) on the sale of sand. It was clear from their conversation that it was only in December 2014 that the State Enterprise “Special Service” officially conducted an auction on sale of sand and the winner became Bud Market Group, controlled by Petrivskiy. This firm was used as the intermediary, which bought sand at a lower price and resold it at a higher price. Chebotar also told him that he should have been reporting on this issue to the Minister Arsen Avakov.

Among participants of this conversation was the Head of Department for Financial Provision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Olexiy Takhtai, who was overseeing the work of State Enterprise “Special Service” for Chebotar. When Chebotar was fired, Takhtai became the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, and in the end of 2017 the State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. There is no information regarding notifying Takhtai and Chebotar of suspicion in the “sand case”.

According to the media, on 13 May 2017 the court found the Director of the State Enterprise “Special Service” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Vasyl Petrivskiy guilty of illegal sale of ownerless sand that the state enterprise kept. He was sentenced to 4 years of conditional deprivation of liberty with a fine in the amount of 17,000 UAH. After the sentence Petrivskiy kept his position in the structure of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.