Operation NABU "Carthage": What Business Thinks About the New Corruption Scandal

The materials released by NABU and SAP regarding the operation "Carthage" aimed at exposing a criminal organization within the Office of the Prosecutor General have sparked a strong reaction among Ukrainian entrepreneurs and former leaders of state companies. According to the investigation, officials from the central apparatus of the prosecutor's office provided systematic protection for fraudulent call centers and legalized shadow income.

This was reported by Dilo, citing entrepreneurs' posts on Facebook.

Vladimir Poperyshnyuk, co-founder of NOVA ("Nova Poshta")

The co-founder of NOVA views the scandalous tapes as clear evidence of the dominance of bureaucratic "political means of enrichment," where benefits are not created through one's own labor but are appropriated by force.

"Safes with cash and tapes are not a failure of the political system. This is the very system of enrichment through political means, and it works exactly like this," emphasizes the entrepreneur.

In his opinion, this phenomenon cannot be overcome by punishments or imprisonments. The only effective solution is to eliminate the ground for abuses due to total privatization, the liquidation of unnecessary ministries, and deregulation: "Not to replace the bad with the good, but to eliminate the positions themselves: fewer officials, fewer ministries, radically fewer powers."

Alexander Derkach, co-founder of Aval Bank and the "Milk Alliance" holding

The co-founder of the "Milk Alliance" does not share the opinion that this problem can be solved solely through economic measures or legislative liberalization, pointing to the purely criminal nature of the scheme:

"This is about banal crime. Neither reducing the number of officials, nor lowering taxes, nor deregulation will eliminate it. Because this crime is protected (and possibly initiated) by a completely rotten 'law enforcement system' in conjunction with top officials."

Vladislav Smirnov, entrepreneur, leading analyst at EAC "Medical Constructor"

Vladislav Smirnov notes that the case demonstrates a qualitatively new level of crisis -- the phenomenon of state capture. In such a model, the law enforcement agency is not just bribed from the outside: the very state function becomes part of a commercial service for pressuring competitors and distributing the illegal market.

The analyst points out that in a number of NABU operations ("Midas", "Dynasty", "Forest Gump", "Carthage"), the same tools are repeated --- state banks, registries, and the prosecutor's office. This raises a direct question to the architects of the centralized vertical:

"If the president really knew nothing about all this, then what exactly was one of the most centralized presidential systems in modern Ukrainian history controlling? And if he knew, the question becomes quite different."

Andrey Kobolev, former head of Naftogaz of Ukraine

The former head of Naftogaz notes that the motivation for bribe-takers remains the impunity of officials from past political eras, who still remain in power.

He is convinced that relying solely on competitions is useless, as commissions have learned to lie, and professional personnel simply do not enter such a system. According to Kobolev, public administration is rapidly degrading, and the prerequisite for change is "first of all, the will from above --- not declarative, but real, which is currently not observed."

Svetlana Panaiotidi, former Deputy Minister of Economic Development

The former Deputy Minister of Economy notes a deep social problem --- the catastrophic loss of respect for honest labor against the backdrop of a cult of rapid success on social networks.

Hundreds of thousands of young people engaged in fraudulent call centers, she calls a consequence of chronic cultural and educational decline: "This generation is largely untrained to work... A big question is how to teach these children to work, those who currently do not want to, and with such development of artificial intelligence, may soon not be able to."

Vladimir Kudritsky, former head of the board of NEC "Ukrenergo"

The former head of Ukrenergo points out the paradox: the public campaign of the authorities against illegal call centers has resulted in exposing the leadership of the prosecutor's office.

Kudritsky summarizes that such schemes are a direct consequence of systemic negative selection in power: "Positions are usually filled by the most loyal, corrupt, and stupid... So the fact that the Attorney General protects call centers cannot scare or surprise us."

Operation NABU "Carthage"

On September 4, NABU announced a special operation to expose a criminal organization led by an employee of the Prosecutor General's Office.

"Ukrainian Truth" reported that NABU and SAP conducted searches at the General Prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko, his deputy Maria Vdovichenko, and the head of the Odessa police Oleg Kiper.

On Saturday, September 5, NABU exposed an organization led by an official from the Prosecutor General's Office, whose members systematically received illegal benefits from fraudulent call centers and legalized property worth tens of millions of hryvnias.

On Sunday, September 6, Prosecutor General Kravchenko reacted to mentions of himself in the "NABU tapes" and denied involvement in possible cover-ups of illegal call centers and the legalization of funds obtained from their activities within the framework of the NABU and SAP "Carthage" case. In addition, he commented on the origin of his property and family expenses.

According to the investigation, one of the heads of structural units of the OGP created and headed a criminal organization in mid-2025. The organizer of the scheme is the deputy head of the department of international legal cooperation of the OGP, Sergey Kropiva.

In total, five people have been suspected in this case.

What are these fraudulent call centers, how much and how do they make money, Dilo investigated.

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