Ukrainians Suspect Poroshenko of Illegally Hoarding $4.5Mln Offshore

KIEV (Sputnik) — Ukrainian investigative reports have accused the country's president, Petro Poroshenko, of shifting about 4 million euros ($4.5 million at the current exchange rate) from Ukraine to an offshore jurisdiction in breach of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) rules.

On April 3, the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung exposed the alleged involvement of a number of former and current world leaders in offshore schemes by publishing documents it claimed came from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. According to the Panama Papers leak, Poroshenko allegedly created an offshore company in 2014 to facilitate the transfer of the management of his business into a "blind trust."

In a piece by reporters from the Slidstvo.Info investigative project was broadcast on television in Ukraine on Wednesday it was claimed that on March 25 Poroshenko's fund Prime Assets Capital bought shares in Cyprus-based CEE Confectionery Investments Limited from another Poroshenko-controlled fund.

The reporters said that the scheme used during the deal violated a NBU decree aimed at improving the situation in Ukraine's monetary and currency market, which prohibits certain transfers of money abroad.

The Ukrainian leader has already been criticized for his alleged involvement in the schemes revealed in the Mossack Fonseca leak. The Opposition Radical Party of Ukraine has started to collect signatures for a petition to impeach Poroshenko for using tax heavens.