Fraud under the parliamentary mandate: MP Serhiy Shakhov hides the rent of luxury $100,000-a-year apartment in Dubai

Fraud under the parliamentary mandate: MP Serhiy Shakhov hides the rent of luxury $100,000-a-year apartment in Dubai

Serhiy Shakhov, affiliated with the ‘Trust’ parliamentary group and listed as a suspect by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau since March 2023 for not declaring 88 million hryvnias in assets, has been living in high-end Dubai apartments rented under his common-law wife’s name for more than two years.

Journalists from the ’Schemes’ project (Radio Liberty) identified Shakhov’s location by analyzing photos and videos from the social media of his elder daughter and comparing the interiors with the MP’s appearances during online sessions of the Verkhovna Rada committee on environmental policy and nature management, of which he is a member.

With access to a Dubai real estate ownership leak obtained in collaboration with OCCRP, journalists established that the total rental cost of the apartments over this period could reach $300,000. These expenses are not listed in the MP’s declarations, including the cost of his children’s education in a private school in Dubai, which journalists also established through videos on social media. Publicly, Shakhov and his defense in court explain the MP’s long absence from Ukraine due to his health condition, stating that he is abroad ’for treatment.’ ’Schemes’ reached out to Serhiy Shakhov for comments, but he has not yet responded to calls and messages. The editorial team will publish Shakhov’s response as soon as it is received.

Journalists reviewed several recordings of online sessions of the Verkhovna Rada committee on environmental policy, which Serhiy Shakhov attended remotely, and noted distinctive elements from his interior that were later noticed in the video and photos from the apartments, which the MP’s 20-year-old daughter Sofiya began posting on social media from April 2023.

Among them are a bright yellow cabinet, a lamp, a column, and specific ventilation.

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Journalists established that these apartments, with an area of almost 300 square meters, are located in the Ashjar residential complex in the Al Barari area of Dubai.

According to documents from the Dubai leak, they are rented by Shakhov’s civil wife, Inna Zhurba. The cost of renting the apartments is about $100,000 per year. Calculating for the entire period, from July 2022 to September 2025 (when the lease agreements expire), this amounts to almost $300,000, according to the investigation. Neither this property nor any family expenses for its rental are listed in the MP’s declarations.

Through social media, ’Schemes’ also established that two younger children of the MP are enrolled in one of Dubai’s private schools, with the education cost for both amounting to $40,000 per year. These expenses are also not declared by the parliamentarian.

In 2023, law enforcement authorities raised the issue of the possible revocation of Shakhov’s parliamentary mandate due to his prolonged stay abroad. The head of SAPO, Oleksandr Klymenko, twice sent letters to the Verkhovna Rada in 2023 regarding this matter.

In turn, the Verkhovna Rada regulations committee requested explanations from the MP himself. Shakhov replied that he is on sick leave, although he allegedly could not officially arrange it in Ukraine because he was ’under treatment abroad.’ Eventually, the committee responded to the head of SAPO that they ’do not have the authority to determine the MP’s location or recognize him as having permanently left for residence.’

Shakhov also tried to justify his absence from Ukraine by business trips, including to Estonia, referring to an agreement with the speaker of the parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk. However, in the Estonian parliament, ’Schemes’ was informed that Shakhov ’did not visit them.’

The Higher Anti-Corruption Court announced Shakhov’s search in March 2023 at the prosecutor’s request of the SAPO after the MP repeatedly failed to appear at the hearings.

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The criminal proceedings were initiated by detectives following the release of the  ’Schemes’ investigation in April 2021, where journalists discovered that Shakhov’s civil wife, Inna Zhurba, owned cottages near Kyiv, apartments, and parking spaces in the city center, land plots, and shares in the statutory capitals of several companies. However, Shakhov did not list her or her registered assets in the declaration.

Later, NABU detectives conducted searches in a two-story house in the ’Sunny Valley’ cottage village near Kyiv, which belongs to Shakhov’s civil wife, Inna Zhurba.

In November 2021, Serhiy Shakhov was notified of suspicion of declaring false information worth 88 million hryvnias.

’According to the investigation materials, the Ukrainian MP did not declare: 13 apartments in Kyiv’s center, eight parking spaces, two houses in an elite cottage village near Kyiv with a total area of over 2,000 sq. meters, 27 land plots with a total area of about 115 hectares in the Kyiv region, a cottage, non-residential real estate, two cars, shares in numerous business entities, income from real estate sales. The suspicion was signed by the prosecutor general,’ NABU reported at the time.

In August 2022, Shakhov commented for the first time on the accusations by NABU and SAPO regarding his provision of false information in his asset declaration. The MP claimed he had no right to declare ’others’ property’ and described the case against him as ’political persecution.’ On August 29, he appeared for the first time at a court hearing in this case at the Higher Anti-corruption Court.

’You have all the documents regarding who, where, and how someone earned. I declared everything in my statement. I had no right to declare others’ property,’ Shakhov stated in response to ’Schemes’ questions after the court session on August 29.