Journalist Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos Unveils Details of Burisma Corruption Investigation with Ukrainian Prosecutor Kostantin Kulik

Investigative journalist Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos has revealed new insights from her interview with Ukrainian prosecutor Kostantin Kulik, who, alongside Viktor Shokin, investigated corruption in Burisma. Papadopoulos expressed concern not only about the corruption itself, but about what happened to those who dared to investigate it in Ukraine.

https://x.com/simonamangiante/status/1830031140486594633

During my investigative journalism work, I had the opportunity to interview another Ukrainian prosecutor who investigated Burisma corruption alongside Shokin- Kostantin Kulik. What frightens me the most isn’t the corruption itself, which has been exposed long ago, but what… pic.twitter.com/7277fN0qbG

— Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos (@SimonaMangiante) August 31, 2024

Readers can watch the full interview and find a text version of it below.

“After receiving evidence that Hunter Biden received laundered money from Mykola Zlochevsky, the U.S. State Department took every possible step to block the investigation” – Ukrainian prosecutor Kostyantin Kulyk

Interview of Ukrainian prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk with American journalist Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos.

Thanks for being here with us Mr. Kulyk. How are you today?

Hello, I’m fine. Thank you.

We would like to start talking about the most famous cases in your career as a prosecutor. First and foremost, I would like to talk about your case in which you gained a significant recognition after leading an effort to recover 1.5 billion dollars taken out of Ukraine by former president Yanukovitch. Could you provide more details on this case and how did it ultimately conclude?

I worked in the prosecutor’s office until the end of 2019. For 20 years my work was related to criminal activities of various organizations in the field of finance. In 2014, when there was a change of power in Ukraine, the new Prosecutor General instructed me to investigate the activities of a criminal organization that was created by Viktor Yanukovych. I investigated the activities of both the organization as a whole and its individual leaders. We are talking about such people as Serhiy Kurchenko, Serhiy Arbuzov, Mykola Zlochevsky and other well-known Ukrainians.

Just to go back one second to the specific case of recovering, the case with Yanukovych. How did it ultimately conclude?

By the end of 2019, the investigation was completed in almost all the areas I was entrusted with. It was established that this criminal organization included more than 480 people and that a total of $14 billion had been stolen. 98 members of this organization were brought to trial, and 8 of them represented the highest echelon of state administration and the National Bank of Ukraine. Also, as a result of the investigation, some representatives of local authorities were accused. More than 10 representatives of various well-known companies of Ukraine took part in this process.

In March 2019, I practically finished the investigation and also prepared final decisions on the leaders of this criminal group. Thus, in 2019 my investigation was practically completed and I was able to bring charges against all the mentioned persons. The amount of stolen money in question amounted to about 14 billion US dollars. We also represented the state in the courts, worked to get convictions and to forfeit the money. So, the court work continued and the stolen funds could be returned.

It was a very successful case on your side. But you are also very well known for your high-profile case involving investigating corruption in Burisma, where Hunter Biden served on the board of directors for five years. In the United States you are known for the so-called “Kulik dossier”, which contains allegations of corruption against Hunter Biden. What evidence you were able to gather during this time and could you share details with us today?

As I have already said, we have been working to return the stolen money to the Ukrainian budget. And we managed to confiscate and return more than 1.5 billion dollars. In this case, Hunter Biden was one of the people who received illegally obtained and then laundered money.

What was the outcome of Burisma investigation? How do you explain that in the end no particular people were held accountable?

The investigation went on as usual, nothing extraordinary, exactly until the moment when it became possible to bring final charges against Mykola Zlochevsky, who was the owner of Burisma. So after the evidence was gathered that Hunter Biden was receiving laundered money from Mykola Zlochevsky, the U.S. State Department, in my opinion, took all possible measures to block this investigation. So state officials, significant people in the U.S. government did everything they could to stop this investigation.

Well, that’s actually a jump to my next question, because I wanted to ask you which are the obstacles that you encountered during the Burisma investigation and how these challenges affected you on the personal level and how they obstructed investigation itself? Also, earlier you made clear that a $50 million bribe was offered to shut all the cases against Burisma and its owner Mykola Zlochevsky owner. So why, what was about those cases that pushed these people to offer such a huge amount of money to shut this persecution?

During this investigation, I was constantly confronted with some factors that stopped me from further action. Usually, when a person is facing charges, he or she will try to avoid them at all costs. Such a person will bribe the people conducting the investigation in an attempt to stop the investigation. If bribing a prosecutor doesn’t work, such a person may find someone above such a prosecutor to influence the prosecutor to stop the prosecution. Such a person would say untruths about the prosecutor’s office or the prosecutor himself to stop the case from proceeding. Also, such a person would try to stop the prosecutor by intimidating him or his relatives with murder or perhaps some physical harm. So, Mykola Zlochevsky went through all these stages. He paid bribes. He took measures to intimidate me and people important to me. He also secured the support of the U.S. State Department to help him. He used all these measures to make it look like I was not competent enough to continue the investigation. This led to my dismissal. All of these things combined were the obstacles I faced in investigating this case.

So you have been intimidated and obstructed in conducting this investigation because your interest involved very important individuals?

I can go into more detail about what was the illegal assistance and the illegal actions of members of the United States Government in this case. Would you be interested? The fact is that I have spoken to some people in the United States. I have those contacts. I have gathered a lot of information that I want to share. With the people I am talking about now, I would also share my findings.

Just to reset one second for our audience. You were investigating corruption in Ukraine, in particular you were investigating corruption at Burisma. You found evidence of corruption involving members of the Congress of the United States?

Yes, corruption was connected to the political figures in the United States.

Are we talking about Biden’s family or any other names?

It is connected to the Biden’s family. And other people.

What did it look like?

The $ 14 billion that the criminal organization we mentioned above took possession of was stolen from Ukraine’s state budget. This money was subsequently laundered. The laundering process took place in the Baltic States. This laundered money was subsequently used to pay for the services of various politicians. There were several ways to do this. Sometimes Ukrainian members of this criminal organization did business with their American partners in Ukraine. And then this money was used to pay for lobbying services. Sometimes they jointly acquired stakes in businesses. Sometimes that money was used to pay the salaries of people like Hunter Biden. This is not just about Americans. It’s also used in Europe and Russia.

Because the sum stolen was huge those members of the crime organization were trying to cushion themselves with everyone they could reach. So the money laundering schemes never came to justice. These people tried to establish contact with everyone, they tried to find partners everywhere and tried to get close to everyone. The case of Mykola Zlochevsky stands out from the general picture because it shows exactly how it was done. 

So first it was the United States that started an investigation against Zlochevsky and Burisma Holdings in 2014. Mary Butler, the member of the judiciary system of the United States, was overseeing the questions of money confiscation and international assets. She asked the General Prosecutor’s Offices in Ukraine and in the UK to start the investigation against Mykola Zlochevsky. That investigation started just by her phone call. She oversaw it. She called Ukraine. She was the head of this investigation.

To save himself from that investigation Mykola Zlochevsky started to give bribes in Ukraine and hired Hunter Biden. Basicaly Hunter Biden could not do anything. His appointment was just a nominal decision. He was on the Board of Directors, that’s all. But the investigation could not take place.

However, Zlochievsky did not pay his salaries from the money that Burisma Holdings was making. He was paying his salaries from an account that was opened in one of the Baltic countries. The Ukrainian Privatbank had branches in the Baltic countries. One of the branches was carrying out those transactions. All the money on that account came from the laundering schemes involving money that were stolen from Ukraine earlier. And these money were used to pay the salaries of Hunter Biden. As we might understand, that was done solely for Hunter Biden to be also interested in covering that scheme. He had to protect himself and therefore protecting everyone around him.

That’s very interesting. Sorry to interrupt you here, because just one year after your dismissal in 2019 you revealed a very clear scheme of how Burisma was laundering money. You mentioned some prominent beneficiaries of this scheme. And the core other people involved.

So we say about several famous people but Zlochevsky among the beneficiaries.

What is the current status of the people involved in this case? Those who paid the bribe, are they serving any prison sentence or?

After all the facts that we established, the case was handed over to the US-controlled organization in Ukraine – the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). As a consequence, the case was dismissed in the friendliest way possible for Zlochevsky. He was given a minor sentence that did not involve imprisonment. His assets remained in his possession. And the investigation into the origin of the money and money laundering was concealed and terminated.

So is that correct to say that you, as a prosecutor, were dismissed for doing your job? While these people who committed crime were finally not held accountable? What does this tell us about the level of corruption in Ukraine? Is that getting any better? Is the fight against corruption going on through people like you and any others that have been targeted for simply doing their job?

The question of choice is a simple one. You choose according to your morals, to your moral compass, and whether you do your job or you don’t do your job. Either you tell the truth and follow your conscience or you start to bend according to your superior’s will. That is not always the correct thing to do. As for the level of corruption, that question is more difficult to answer. It will be there. It is true for the Ukraine, it is true for the United States. The more correct thing to do is to not give an estimate of the level of corruption, but an estimate of how we are dealing with that corruption. That’s actually what was interesting to know. Today, the level of the fight against corruption is at the level that it was under Yanukovych. So the fight against corruption is possible only in those cases that were approved by the country’s leadership.

What are you doing now? Are you working on a new dossier? Are you involved in any new investigation? Could you share anything about it with us?

I keep in touch with certain people in the United States. I can say that I somehow consult them, based on my understanding of the issues in what is happening in Ukraine. Perhaps this is not the best time to share conclusions, but I understand that if the authorities in Ukraine or in the United States change, these issues can be revisited and some investigations can be launched. And the main point will be the creation of international investigative teams, which we were not allowed to do in the Burisma case. Perhaps it will work next time. I think it can be done if the political regime changes a little bit. Because the key point now, the key problem is the money stolen from the budget, from the American and European budgets. We are not even talking about the Ukrainian budget anymore. We are talking about financing the war. We are talking about aid for Ukraine. This money was given to Ukraine to help it fight Russian aggression.

And there has been some sort of misappropriation of these funds and there is an investigation going on?

There are no investigations into this. There are documents that show that the vast majority of the aid was stolen. State money that came from European budgets was plundered, although it was supervised by foreigners. People from Ukraine were also involved in these schemes. It is very easy to investigate such schemes. There is no clever or creative way to implement them.

A very simple example. Americans give Ukraine some money to acquire certain things. Everything gets signed, all the documents are present. Those things were acquired and delivered. And it appears practically that none of the things that were acquired and delivered gets into the hands of simple Ukrainians. We are speaking about tens of millions of dollars. They go through a European bank but not to Ukraine. And the same thing in Ukraine, a Ukrainian organization is holding a tender to acquire those same things. It takes the money out of Ukraine to get those things. And the final customer gets nothing. So they see their partners abroad do that scheme and they do the same scheme in Ukraine.

You mentioned something very interesting, which is the necessity to establish an intergovernmental group to investigate corruption. Speaking about the enormous amount of evidence you gathered during your investigation in Burisma, what would you like to share with our audience about the evidence against Hunter? Because much of this information about the Burisma investigation has been twisted.

All the details of the case were fully investigated and handed over to NABU. But further investigation concerning Zlochevsky’s associates was curtailed. According to my partners in the USA, nothing was done against Hunter Biden because the investigation was overstayed. The money laundering investigation was also dropped. But investigating money laundering is very important as it helps track how that money gets into the country’s economy. The United States is not investigating the actions of its officials who gave the command to stop the investigation in Ukraine.

One last question. Simply answer yes or no. If you were invited to testify in front of the US Congress about those facts, would you accept the invitation?

This is too complex a question to answer yes or no. On the one hand, this information could be passed on to the United States to be used there to restore justice. On the other hand, the U.S. does not yet want to conduct such an investigation. But if there is a real interest in investigating money legalization, money laundering by Burisma, or U.S. officials exceeding their government rules, then of course I will accept such an invitation.

At the same time, it would be more appropriate not to appear before members of parliamentary committees, but to create the intergovernmental group of prosecutors I mentioned above. That would be a more professional approach. Because Congress is a place for verbal battles. There is a lot of talk in Congress, people express their opinions, but not much gets done there. By the way, I am also ready to give you the materials that I have already given to some members of Congress.

Absolutely. In our publication we are planning to release this interview. And if you can share it with us, you can share it with our audience.

Yes, these events took place over a long period of time and it is easy to get confused in this amount of information. That is why I have detailed everything in one document and can share it.

Now that you mentioned this file my natural question is: is anyone in Congress has done anything about information you provided in this file?

I submitted the case to the attorneys with whom I am cooperating. The lawyers said that the case has been submitted to Congress.

Are we talking about Aborisk and Greenberg?

No, no, we’re talking about people who represent different parties.

When did you submit this file, if I can ask about the time?

That was three months ago. Three or four months ago.

Okay, so this year. Alright, thanks so much for this information. It is very interesting. And do you have any other information or thoughts you would like to share with us today before we close this interview?

I hope that if the political situation changes even a little, it will again be possible to bring these investigations to a conclusion. Because the abuse of power by heads of state and top officials is a huge problem. After all, we are talking about corruption in the highest echelons, not about some minor offenses.

Thank you so much. We hope that this can be carried on. Have a great day. Thank you.