The Prosecutor General’s Office has made public the suspicion of Khmelnytskyi native Denis Nikolayev in his involvement in the theft of funds from the accounts of Zakhidnadraservice LLC and Energopark Yavoriv LLC. To do this, he used 68 individual entrepreneurs and 100 accounts of «financial mules.»
The Prosecutor General’s Office has made public the suspicion of Khmelnytskyi native Denis Nikolayev in his involvement in the theft of funds from the accounts of Zakhidnadraservice LLC and Energopark Yavoriv LLC. To do this, he used 68 individual entrepreneurs and 100 accounts of «financial mules.»
This is reported by the publication «Court Reporter» with reference to the website of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Last fall, the Lviv Regional Police Department received a statement that the attackers gained access to the remote banking service «client-bank» and made payments from the accounts of Zakhidnadraservice LLC for 78.5 million hryvnias and from the accounts of Energopark Yavoriv LLC for about 48.7 million hryvnias.
The owner of these companies is Zinovy Kozytsky, father of the head of the Lviv Oblast Autonomous Region Maksym Kozytsky. In 2021, Forbes estimated his fortune at $95 million. Zakhidnadraservice is the largest private oil and gas producer in Western Ukraine.
It is reported that the suspect in the theft of funds, Denis Nikolayev, was born in 2004 in Khmelnytskyi and is registered in temporarily occupied Donetsk. His whereabouts are currently unknown.
The investigation established that he gained access to an automated system for remote management of bank accounts using a remote administration server module (RAT). He distributed a password-protected archive «Documents.zip», inside of which was a JavaScript file «Password^z», which contained a packaged remote administration server module (RAT). It was supposedly intended to obtain a password to the contents of the archive, so the user launched it, which led to the installation of malicious software (Remote Manipulator System).
Having gained access, Nikolayev used 11 banking institutions, 7 accounts of legal companies, 68 current accounts of individual entrepreneurs, and 100 card accounts opened by «drops.» The hacker managed to legalize 104 million hryvnias, directing them to the accounts of organizations and individuals under his control.
The police found out that Denys Nikolaye had agreed to purchase a Cadillac ATS and a BMW 320 and paid about a million hryvnias for them.
The hacker faces liability under Part 5 of Art. 361, Part 5 of Art. 185, Part 3 of Art. 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. According to the rules for imposing punishment for a set of crimes, he may be deprived of liberty for a term of up to 15 years with confiscation of property.
