Ukraine government cracks down on illegal amber trade

Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko announced on July 4 that five suspects have been arrested as part of a law enforcement operation to address the illegal gathering and sale of amber from northern Ukrainian forests. More than 120 searches were conducted of suspects that include officials in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), prosecutor offices, the Interior Ministry, local state bodies and possibly state regional administrations, Lutsenko said. He also announced several dismissals of prosecutors in the Rivne office, including the top regional prosecutor. Later that evening, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced 32 suspects have been identified in the Rivne region’s illegal amber trade. 

Zenon Zawada: On the one hand, it’s positive the government has begun to crack down on the illegal amber trade, which not only evaded taxes but caused significant environmental damage. On the other hand, this will serve as a prime example of the government prosecuting small or medium-ranked crooks while turning a blind eye to the big sharks, who are well-connected.

Ukrainian law enforcement – led by the recently appointed prosecutor general Lutsenko – seems to have orchestrated an anti-corruption campaign targeting middle-rung businessmen, which began with the numerous criminal charges filed against Oleksandr Onishchenko and his entourage, who allegedly stole from a state natural gas extraction firm. The purpose of this campaign is to impress upon the public – as well as Western institutions – that something is being done to fight corruption.

This campaign may be enough to sustain ongoing Western loans, fulfilling the requirement that concrete progress is made in fighting corruption, in the form of arrests and convictions. But it won’t make a deep impression on the Ukrainian public, which is widely aware of the bigger fish in the corruption pond that continue to evade capture.