Security Reports disagree 2 publishers 2 min read Published Sep 9, 2026, 3:44 AM PDT Updated Sep 11, 2026, 3:42 AM PDT

Alleged bribes from 500 scam call centers cost Ukraine its prosecutor general

NABU says investment-fraud call centers bought protection from inside the Prosecutor General's Office. The deputy arrested for it ran the department that handles requests from foreign prosecutors.

The Watch · Security desk

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What happened

Ukraine's prosecutor general Ruslan Kravchenko resigned on Monday over allegations that people in his office took bribes to protect scam call centers, hours after telling President Zelenskyy he had no plans to go.
NABU arrested Serhiy Kropyva, deputy head of the office's Department of International Cooperation; he has been fired and held until November.
NABU's report last week described a department head taking money to ignore call centers that cold-called Ukrainians and foreigners into fake investment platforms and emptied their accounts.
Ukrainska Pravda's law enforcement sources put the network at more than 100 centers last year and about 500 this year, a fivefold rise that pulled more police attention onto the scheme.
Police closed 94 call centers in August and further sites in Kyiv, Dnipro and Nikolaev in September, part of an operation NABU and SAPO have been running for months as Project Carthage.

Why it matters

Who's exposed exposure The official arrested sat on the international cooperation desk, so any foreign prosecutor who routed a request about these call centers to Kyiv since 2024 has to treat the intake point as compromised until the investigation says otherwise.
What it costs cost Bail of 120 million hryvnias recovers about 23 days of the alleged monthly bribe income. The victims of the fake investment platforms recover nothing through this case.
What doesn't add up contradiction NABU attached no names to its recordings; the identification of the prosecutor general as Chef comes from Ukrainska Pravda's unnamed law enforcement sources, and Kravchenko says he committed no crimes and calls his exit political.
What it sets up precedent Georgia arrested its former spy chief in a comparable probe late last year, which makes senior state protection a purchasable input for call-center fraud in the region rather than a Ukrainian anomaly.

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Confirmed2 publishers

The protection fee was priced per site. Ukrainska Pravda, citing law enforcement sources, reports $7,000 a month from each call center, which at more than 100 centers put roughly $700,000 a month into the hands of corrupt officials in the Prosecutor General's Office ^[14]. At about 500 centers this year the same rate yields $3.5 million a month ^[15]. Multiply by twelve and the flow is around $42 million a year ^[17]. That is a standing line item in a fraud business, and the growth in site count is what NABU and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office spent months tracking under the name Project Carthage ^[16].

Kropyva's title places him at the center of this. He was Deputy Head of the Department of International Cooperation in the Office of the Prosecutor General ^[2], the desk through which foreign legal assistance requests reach Ukrainian prosecutors. NABU's published allegation is domestic: bribes paid so that a department head would look away from call centers cold-calling Ukrainians and foreigners into fake investment platforms ^[3]. Neither NABU's report nor Ukrainska Pravda's account, as published, identifies a single cross-border request that was slowed or dropped. There is room to infer a structural link, though no documentation yet supports it.

What NABU has put out is audio. The recordings feature an official of the Prosecutor General's Office working under the pseudonym Chancellor, taking orders from someone called Chef, alongside accomplices named Muza, Flesh, and Kamrad, and the video attaches no real names to any of them ^[6]. NABU says the recruitment started last year with one of the heads of the office's structural units and spread to other employees ^[4]. Investigators searched Kravchenko's own office in a night raid, which the office denied before confirming it once Kropyva was in custody ^[10].

Scope is where the case looks narrow against the network it describes. NABU says it is currently pursuing five individuals, which leaves Flesh, Chancellor's assistant, at large ^[9]. Police detained Kropyva's driver Serhii Kutsyi and Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko on Monday, taken in the recordings to be Kamrad and Muza ^[11]. Against the 500-center figure, the past month's closures of more than 100 sites leave roughly 400 unaccounted for ^[5]^[18]. By that count the bribery case is running well ahead of the takedown.

What to watch

Whether SAPO charges Kravchenko himself or treats the resignation as the end of the matter.
Whether any foreign jurisdiction states publicly that a Ukrainian legal assistance request on these call centers stalled in 2024 or 2025.
Whether September closures keep August's pace once the political story cools.

Clarity's read

What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption55
Hype gap+25
Incentives65
Confidence60

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers

Builder: Builder 15%
Operator: Operator 67%
Investor: Investor 18%

Why these scores

Claim ledger

Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.

[1]
Ukraine's top prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko resigned on Monday over allegations that individuals in his office were taking bribes to protect scam call centers operating across the country.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[2]
NABU investigators arrested Serhiy Kropyva, Deputy Head of the Department of International Cooperation and a top lieutenant in Kravchenko's Office of the Prosecutor General.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[3]
In a report last week, NABU said it uncovered a scheme in which one of Kravchenko's department heads took bribes to look the other way regarding a network of call centers that called Ukrainians and foreigners and lured them into fake investment platforms that stole their money.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[4]
NABU says the scheme began last year when the call center operators recruited one of the heads of the structural units of the Prosecutor General's Office and later other employees of the same office.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[5]
Over the past month Ukrainian police shut down more than 100 call centers, including 94 in August, then one in Kyiv in September, others in Dnipro and Nikolaev, and another in Kyiv.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[6]
In a video published over the weekend NABU released recorded calls in which the Prosecutor General's Office official operated under the pseudonym Chancellor and took orders from someone called Chef, with accomplices named Muza, Flesh and Kamrad; no real names were given in the video.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[7]
Kropyva has been fired and placed under arrest until November, with bail set at 120 million hryvnias ($2.7 million), and a major investigation underway.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[8]
Kravchenko's resignation letter called the move a "political decision" and said he "committed no crimes"; hours earlier he had met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and said he had no plans to resign.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[9]
NABU says it is currently only going after five individuals, which leaves Flesh, Chancellor's assistant, still at large.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[10]
NABU searched Kravchenko's own office in a night raid; the Prosecutor General's Office initially denied the searches but later confirmed them after Kropyva was detained.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[11]
On Monday Ukrainian police also detained Kropyva's driver, Serhii Kutsyi, thought to be Kamrad in the recordings, and Yelyzaveta Ivakhnenko, thought to be Muza.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[12]
Something similar happened in Georgia at the end of last year, when authorities arrested the country's ex-spy chief in a probe of bribes taken to protect local scam call centers.
Reported SupportedView cited source
[13]
Ukrainska Pravda says Chancellor is Kropyva and Chef is Kravchenko himself.
Reported ContestedView cited source
[14]
According to Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda, citing law enforcement sources, more than 100 call centers were sending $7,000 a month each to the Prosecutor General's Office as a protection fee, giving the office's corrupt officials $700,000 a month.
Reported InsufficientView cited source
[15]
Sometime this year the number of call centers rose to 500, driving the monthly bribe total to $3.5 million.
Reported InsufficientView cited source
[16]
NABU and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) had been tracking the operations for months in what they now call Project Carthage.
Reported InsufficientView cited source
[17]
At $3.5 million a month, the alleged protection payments run to about $42 million a year.
Derived Insufficient
[18]
If the network held about 500 centers and police closed more than 100 in the past month, roughly 400 sites are unaccounted for.
Derived Insufficient
[19]
Kropyva's bail, given as $2.7 million, is equivalent to about 23 days of the alleged $3.5 million monthly bribe income.
Derived Insufficient
[20]
The call center count grew fivefold, from more than 100 last year to about 500 this year.
Derived Insufficient

Sources

2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.

news.risky.biz
1 article · September 8, 2026
Risky Bulletin: Ukraine's top prosecutor resigns amid scam call center scandal
risky.biz
2 articles · September 8, 2026
Risky Bulletin: Ukraine's top prosecutor resigns amid scam call center scandal
therecord.media
1 article · September 9, 2026
Ukraine prosecutor general steps down amid scam call center bribery probe

Clarity analysis

How the coverage leans and what the record actually supports. Read the methodology

Perspective Coverage

How much of the coverage speaks to builders, operators and investors. It measures emphasis, not whether the story is right.

Builder15%

Neither account gets near the machinery. The Record is the only one describing the front end: operators posing as bank employees, police officers or financial advisers, caller ID spoofing, and a Kyiv center that recruited English-speaking staff from the United States, West Africa and Europe and took more than $500,000 from dozens of Americans. Risky Business calls the product fake investment platforms and stops there. Nothing here covers hosting, dialer software or payment rails, so this reporting will not help anyone fingerprint the infrastructure.

Operator67%

The job title is the operational fact. Kropyva was deputy head of the Prosecutor General's Office Department of International Cooperation, the desk that receives requests from foreign prosecutors and police, and NABU alleges he was paid to keep enforcement off the call centers. Both accounts show the other side of the same month: 411 searches and 94 closures in a single week in August, more than 100 centers shut over the month. Neither says what happened to foreign referrals that passed through that department while the alleged scheme was running.

Investor18%

The figures come from two sources of unequal quality. From the court, via The Record: bail of 120 million hryvnias, about $2.7 million, and suspected laundering of roughly $2 million through property and jewelry. From Risky Business, via Ukrainska Pravda's unnamed law enforcement sources: $7,000 per center per month, 500 centers, $3.5 million a month. Annualising the second set gives about $42 million a year, and that is our arithmetic on someone else's anonymous sourcing, not a number any court has used.