“Tetiana Vasylivna is a very good leader, a nice and kind person! She is being accused but it has not been proven yet. People come and make something up about bribes. There has been nothing like that! She is a wonderful person, and it’s just a shame that all this has happened,” this is how Tetiana Krupa is described by her subordinates, the doctors of the Khmelnytskyi regional MSEK і The municipal institution of health care of the Khmelnytskyi regional council “Khmelnytskyi Regional Centre of Medical and Social Expertise” in the conversation with NGL.media.
After a high-profile detention of 64-year-old Tetiana Krupa in Khmelnytskyi, her son Oleksandr resigned from the position of the head of the local department of the Pension Fund and started to get rid of their business in Ukraine. Other relatives, also government employees, have closed their profiles on social networks and keep silent. They do have things to hide – it is not by accident that millions of dollars have come to this family.
NGL.media has attempted to reconstruct the path of Tetiana Krupa’s life, which has led her to the ward in the pre-trial detention centre.
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The regional MSEK is situated on the first floor of the Khmelnytskyi regional clinical hospital. Four years ago, Tetiana Krupa’s colleague, the then head of the city MSEK, Liubomyr Zavialets, was caught with a bribe in one of the neighbouring offices. During court proceedings, his subordinates also defended him very actively, characterizing him in the best possible light, and, as a result, he managed to achieve his exoneration. Yet, a few months later, he was actually sentenced to two years of imprisonment і Liubomyr Zavialets spent about 9 months behind bars, then the court allowed him to get voluntarily drafted to the Armed Forces of Ukraine .
In case of Tetiana Krupa, who has been heading the regional MSEK for the last 16 years, her subordinates also keep their loyalty. It seems that it caught them by complete surprise when an enormous amount of cash was found during the search at their leader’s place. “We are all very sad,” sighed the MSEK reception employee when NGL.media asked her to describe the mood among the staff. It is worth reminding that over UAH 164 million was found in cash in different currencies in the apartment and the working office of Tetiana Krupa, which were shoved into almost every possible crack.
Tetiana Krupa during the selection of a preventive measure in court (photo by RBC-Ukraine)
A high-profile case of Tetiana Krupa is considered in Kyiv, while local Khmelnytskyi law enforcement bodies are not involved in it at all. One of the reasons for this distrust to locals may be the exposure by a well-known journalist Yuriy Butusov, who has found out that 50 prosecutors in the local prosecutor’s office have an official status of disabled people. Since the disability status was registered by the MSEK, headed by Tetiana Krupa, and the disability benefits were paid by the Pension Fund, headed by her son, the local prosecutors could hardly be interested in the objective investigation.
“The Servant of the People” party, which nominated Krupa to become the deputy of the regional council, didn’t even mention her surname and just made a statement about recalling “pursuant to the people’s initiative”. The head of “The Servant of the People” faction in the Khmelnytskyi regional council has refused to provide her comments to NGL.media.
Money loves silence
Up to the autumn of 2024, this family was hardly known even in Khmelnytskyi. Being a deputy of the regional council, Tetiana Krupa was never really productive and didn’t get into any scandals. Although her husband Volodymyr and son Oleksandr held high management positions in the governmental bodies, they were not active public figures either, except for a few informative paragraphs in the local mass media.
It seems that the habit of keeping a low profile has helped this family to stay in the shadows for such a long time while accumulating their wealth. Even judging by the financial statements of Tetiana Krupa and her relatives, the riches have not fallen on their heads all of a sudden – this process has been going on for years if not decades.
For instance, Serhii Labaziuk, a people’s deputy from the Khmelnytskyi region, believes that the Krupas could have gained considerable profits even by leasing commercial real estate. NGL.media addressed the deputy not only due to his registration in Khmelnytskyi but also because some mass media published the information that he is a business partner of this family. Labaziuk thinks the definition of a “business partner” is too exaggerated, but he confirmed that his “Ahrarna kompaniia 2004” LLC rents a few land plots in the region from the Krupas.
“I have known this family from different perspectives for very many years, so I can say that they have had business all their life. The only question is: what came first – their positions in the government bodies and then business or vice versa? This is what I don’t know. But they do have a great number of real estate objects,” Labaziuk said in the conversation with NGL.media. “Now people write about their houses somewhere in Turkey or Spain, but they forget about commercial real estate in Khmelnytskyi. And what is commercial real estate? These are some little shops, some hairdressers’ and so on. And they have been leasing all of these. I heard about this real estate even about ten years ago. So they surely do have official income, which, in principle, can be explained. Does it explain those six million dollars found at their place – this is hard to say.”
Their family business – this is how the Krupas are trying to explain the cash, found in their home. They demonstrate the energy-related, construction, and food businesses. Yet they do not highlight the fact that as early as two years ago, all the adult members of the family – Tetiana herself, her husband Volodymyr, son Oleksandr, and daughter-in-law Kateryna – worked in governmental positions, which contradicts the possibility of running any business.
At the time of Tetiana Krupa’s arrest, her husband Volodymyr claimed that the law enforcement bodies had previously “taken an interest in his son”. It could have been conditioned by the fact that 37-year-old Oleksandr worked in different governmental positions all his life. In three recent years, he has been heading the main department of the Pension Fund in the Khmelnytskyi region – this is the very place where the disability benefits are accrued. Previously, Oleksandr Krupa had been the head of the municipal enterprise at the regional council, the “Khmelnytska regional depot of special medical supplies” і Ensuring the storage and maintenance of material assets of the state material mobilization purpose and the regional material reserves in case of emergencies and the deputy head of the Khmelnytskyi district administration.
Oleksandr Krupa with his wife Kateryna (a photo from Tetiana Krupa’s Facebook page)
Tetiana Yuzepchuk, a volunteer from Khmelnytskyi and a friend of Oleksandr Krupa, doesn’t believe that he or his mother are involved in corrupt activities. She says that the Krupas have been actively helping the military personnel a lot. However, when explicitly asked what “a lot” means and whether it can be compared to the piles of cash, found during the search, in any way, Yuzepchuk says that she would like to wait for the court decision in this case.
“I can say that these people helped very much. I wouldn’t want to estimate it until the decision of the law enforcement bodies. As for the assistance to the draft dodgers, it should be proven first. I don’t know how to comment on that,” she says.
Yuzepchuk is convinced that “clever people can synchronize many different things and actions”, which is why the Krupas allegedly succeeded in combining the private business and state service.
Kateryna Krupa, a 37-year-old wife of Oleksandr, must also be a “clever person”, since, until 2022, she worked at the Central-Western Interregional Department of the Ministry of Justice, where she headed the registration department for four years. Before that, she had worked at the Department of labour and social security of the Khmelnytskyi city council.
However, according to the amount of the salary declared by her, Kateryna Krupa didn’t work at the Ministry of Justice very much. For instance, in 2022, her annual salary was UAH 21.5 thousand, and in 2020 – only UAH 795 і There is no declaration of Kateryna Krupa for 2021 in the register . It may have been caused by her maternity leave since during this period, she had a daughter and started her business actively – she promoted her family business in the sale of cheese.
Kateryna Krupa is involved in the development of another family business of the Krupas – a network of cheese shops, “Parmesan”
In April 2023, Kateryna Krupa, her husband Oleksandr, and Andriy Kryminskyi, an entrepreneur from Khmelnytskyi, became the founders of the Polish company “Novis Food”, registered in Wroclaw. As per its documents, the company can sell dairy products and run restaurants. NGL.media tried to talk to Andriy Kryminskyi about this business, but as soon as he heard the question, he refused to talk categorically. Kateryna and Oleksandr Krupa did not respond to our request for comments.
According to the data of the State Bureau of Investigation, in October 2022, Tetiana Krupa transferred USD 590 thousand to a Polish bank, Pekao і Bank Polska Kasa Opieki , and Volodymyr Krupa, her retired husband, has USD 1.3 million and EUR 11.4 thousand on his accounts in the Polish banks.
Actually, before retiring in 2022, Volodymyr Krupa also dedicated his life to serving the state. In the 2000s, he headed the regional KRU і the Control and Auditing Department; after the liquidation, its functions were transferred to the State Auditing Service , and after its liquidation, he took charge of other financial control bodies. In case of any attempts to transfer him to any other position, he contested these ideas in court and got reintegrated into his management position.
After Tetiana Krupa was arrested, some media posted information about several companies in Cyprus and Austria, owned by Volodymyr Krupa. NGL.media checked these data and found out that, in fact, the companies in Cyprus belong to his complete namesake – 44-year-old Volodymyr Krupa.
As for the business in Austria, it existed indeed. Yet, it was owned not by Volodymyr but by his son. Two years ago, Oleksandr Krupa had a restaurant business in Vienna. In 2017, together with two Austria citizens of Ukrainian origin, Taras Seniv and Mykola Antonishev, he registered a company, “KSAN Partners GmbH”, in which Krupa owned 50%. In 2022, the company was liquidated, but at the peak of its activity, its annual turnover did not exceed EUR 280 thousand.
In addition, more distant relatives worked for the state as well – 37-year-old Yevhen Troyanivskyi and 38-year-old Serhii Bomok, the nephews of the Krupas. It is noteworthy that the latter had previously worked along with his aunt in the regional MSEK as well. At present, he is the deputy head of economic issues at the Khmelnytskyi Regional Cardiovascular Center. He also has joint ownership over the real estate with the Krupas, and his brother, Andriy Bomok, is a long-term business partner of Kateryna and Oleksandr Krupa.
Both Serhii Bomok and his mother, who was at home in Staryi Skalat village when we came to see how the Krupas live, refused to talk to the NGL.media journalists.
Andrii Bomok refused to have any conversation with NGL.media as well. He didn’t even want to deny or confirm his kinship with Tetiana Krupa. His accounts, or rather his wife’s accounts, in the social networks do not demonstrate him as a successful businessman. However, he is the official owner of 50 to 75% shares in different companies of the Krupas. He also has a share in “SKM West Group” LLC which is equal to that of Kateryna Krupa. Andrii Bomok has become the head and the accountant of “West Estate” LLC, which belonged to Oleksandr Krupa until recently. And he also became the owner of the almost complete package of “Yakisnyi produkt plus” LLC і “Quality product plus” , which was previously founded by Oleksandr Krupa.
Everyone knows everything but does nothing
Aliona Bereza, the founder of the Khmelnytskyi online media resource ZHAR.INFO, recollects that in 2013, Oleksandr Krupa, 26 years old at the time, paid UAH 2.1 million in the auction to buy an entire house in Proskurivska Street in the city centre. When an illegal construction appeared there three years later, it attracted the attention of local activists.
Yet, the activity of his mother sparked the interest of local journalists much later. In 2020, the footage about Tetiana Krupa and her family was shot by the journalists of “Dosyt” programme of the Khmelnytskyi channel TV7+. At the time, they didn’t just estimate the wealth of the officials’ family and their real estate; they also showed the stories of specific people, whom Tetiana Krupa had refused to assign the disability group without a bribe.
As a result, these people managed to register their disability without any bribes, but the footage of the journalists did not lead to any inspection regarding the MSEK activity, headed by Tetiana Krupa, although the people featured in the footage claimed that they had been demanded to pay bribes of USD 300-800 per person.
By the way, Serhii Labaziuk, a people’s deputy, who has known the family for a long time and is even ready to explain their wealth through official business, also recollected a story from 2014 when he had a scandal with Tetiana Krupa.
“At that time, I, a people’s deputy, was approached by a 26-year-old man, a participant of the ATO, from our Khmelnytskyi paratrooper regiment #8. He had tears in his eyes, telling me about being sent from one office to another in the MSEK with the refusal to register his disability. He had been wounded, his tendons had been cut, and one arm was shrinking. He said that an intermediary had contacted him and suggested solving this problem for USD 1,200. I had a vicious row with Krupa at the time. The man’s problem was solved. But it is absurd! The fact that corruption goes over the roof in Khmelnytskyi. And everybody knows about it. But I have to ask, where have the law enforcement bodies been these 10 years?!” the people’s deputy said with resentment.
It is worth recollecting the reaction of the Ministry of Health after the detention of Tetiana Krupa. The deputy minister, Serhii Dubrov, said that the Khmelnytskyi region is a leader for the number of complaints about the activity of the MSEK services, and the Minister, Victor Liashko, claimed that the Ministry of Health had sent an inspection team to solve this matter. However, in response to the inquiry by NGL.media, the Ministry did not inform about the results of this inspection, noting only that all the complaints had been passed on to the Department of health care of the Khmelnytskyi regional administration.
In this department, NGL.media was told that in 2022-2023 alone, they received 384 complaints about the work of the regional MSEK, but couldn’t do anything about it because “conducting inspections is not within the authority scope of the department”.
“After receiving the complaints of the citizens, who thought that the refusal to assign a disability group to them was related to a possible desire of the commission members to receive unjustified profits from them, these citizens were provided with explanations about the need to inform specifically authorized bodies in the corruption combating sphere about the facts, known to them,” this is the explanation for the failure to act, provided by the Department of health care of the Khmelnytskyi regional military administration.
Alternative income
For the last eight years, Tetiana, Volodymyr, and Oleksandr Krupa have been the owners of “Solar-Invest” company, which works in the alternative energy sector (production of electricity by solar panels). In 2023, this company declared UAH 1.6 million in net income. To install solar panels, the family buys land plots in the region.
Generally, the Krupas and their relatives own more land plots than residential or commercial real estate. This family owns a total of about 63 ha. Some parts of this land are rented by large farmers, and the others are used to install solar panels of “Solar-Invest”.
To avoid describing each real estate object owned by the Krupas in fine detail, we marked them in the interactive map.
Tetiana Krupa and her husband Volodymyr live in the closed residential complex near the river and the city culture park in a comfortable district of Khmelnytskyi. Yet, the residential complex is evidently not new – somewhat damaged façades and chaotically glassed balconies are in full sight.
The apartment of older Krupas can be partially seen in the photos from the search of the premises, published by the State Bureau of Investigation. This is where the famous picture of Volodymyr lying with dollars on the bed was made, and it immediately became a meme on social networks.
The Krupas live in an apartment in a residential complex on Parkova Street (photo by NGL.media)
37-year-old Oleksandr Krupa, his wife Kateryna, and their two small children live in the neighbouring apartment. He was at home on Tuesday afternoon when the journalists of NGL.media called on his door phone. “I will comment nothing. You are wasting your time here,” he said after hearing the request to talk about the high-profile case in which he and his mother are the key figures.
In addition, Oleksandr Krupa owns an apartment of 67 sq.m. on Instytutska Street in Khmelnytskyi. The remarkable feature of this apartment is the fact that he bought it in 2012 within the loan programme for young people and still pays his loan, transferring about one thousand hryvnias a month.
Soon after our visit, it became known that Krupa junior resigned from the position of the head of the main department of the Pension Fund in the Khmelnytskyi region. After his resignation, he started actively getting rid of his business. For instance, he has already sold two construction companies, “West Estate” і a local entrepreneur, Petro Bytsyk, has become a new owner of “West Estate” and “Estate Plus” і now the company belongs to two Kyiv residents, Yevhen Blyzniuk and Oleksandr Oliinyk . By the way, the former company is building a large residential complex, “Argo”, near the lake in the north of Khmelnytskyi. Oleksandr Krupa didn’t want to talk about these solutions either.
On the way from the Krupas’ house, it is hard to miss another, much more recent and larger, residential complex, “Proskuriv”. This is the place where Yevhen Troyanovskyi, a 37-year-old nephew of Tetiana Krupa and an employee of Khmelnytsoblenergo JSC, has bought several real estate objects.
The Krupas are reconstructing a restaurant in the culture park to found a hotel (photo by NGL.media)
Troyanovskyi became the owner of two apartments in the newly-built residential complex in one day, on February 8, 2024, and had bought one apartment in 2022. As per Yevhen Troyanovskyi, he was able to invest in real estate thanks to his sister Tetiana and didn’t receive any financial assistance from the Krupas.
“We combined our finances with my sister to buy the first apartment; she went abroad [to work]. And these two more apartments – she intends to come back, and this is, let’s say, what she has done. There is my share in it as well, but she has helped for the most part,” Troyanovskyi explained.
There is ongoing construction work in the city culture park, near which the Krupas live, – a hotel and a restaurant are being built instead of the former “Zoriana nich” restaurant. The construction object passport on the fence says that the work will have been completed by the end of the year, but from the look at it – it is far from completion. The Krupas have been directly dealing with this construction as well. Several years ago, they bought the real estate here and rented a land plot from the city council.
Gifts and “Oleh MSEK”
While analyzing the real estate of this family, NGL.media noticed one interesting detail. Volodymyr Krupa, the father of the family, has a shared real estate object – a residential house with an area of 64 sq.m. with a district police officer from Teofipol, Oleh Fedoruk, and his wife Olena. The house is situated in Volytsia village, 80 km from Khmelnytskyi on the land plot, which also belongs to Fedoruk.
We got interested in 48-year-old Oleh Fedoruk because, firstly, he can be called a large land owner: together with his wife and son, he has gained almost 100 (!) hectares of land in the Khmelnytskyi region, and this amount is larger than even that of the Krupas. He also leases some land to the same agrarian enterprises which rent from the Krupas. You must agree that it is an unbelievable success for an ordinary policeman.
Oleh Fedoruk (photo archive)
Another interesting fact – according to the data of Getcontact, people sometimes enter the phone number of policeman Fedoruk in their phone books as “Oleh MSEK”, “Oleh Fedoruk Teofipol Reservation” and “Oleh Reservation”. These are non-typical nicknames for a policeman.
“Are you joking or what? I have nothing to do with that… Within the scope of my authorities, I put draft dodgers on the wanted list. The military enlistment office gives the information, and we put it there. Then [the wanted persons] call me and ask me what to do to be taken off the wanted list. I tell them to go to the military enlistment office. Then, the military office deals with all this… I put them all on the wanted list on my own behalf, so someone could have registered me like that,” Oleh Fedoruk assumes.
“[Volodymyr Krupa] just installed solar panels in my land plot,” this is the policeman’s explanation for the joint ownership with the older Krupa; he says that they have been friends since then. Good relations are confirmed by the fact that in 2022, Fedoruk’s son gave a gift to Volodymyr Krupa, which cost UAH 32 thousand.
Soon after the conversation with the NGL.media journalist, Oleh Fedoruk called us back to find out who exactly entered his phone as “Oleh Reservation” and “Oleh MSEK”. We couldn’t help the policeman but we share his surprise. And our surprise is triggered not only by such entries in the phone books of other people but also by the volumes of real estate, not typical for a district policeman. But this is a different story.
Volodymyr Krupa and his son Oleksandr Krupa declared “gifts in non-monetary form” at rather high costs several times. For instance, in 2020, Oleksandr received a gift worth UAH 74.6 thousand from Liudmyla Homa, the head of the agrarian “Ahrokorm” LLC in Vinkivtsi. NGL.media didn’t manage to contact 86-year-old Liudmyla Homa, and her son Serhii reacted to a phone call rather emotionally. “Leave these Krupas alone! The information is not relevant anymore,” he said.
The former head of the Krasylivskyi district military enlistment centre, an entrepreneur Yurii Kuka, who gave a gift to Volodymyr worth UAH 73.5 thousand, didn’t want to talk about his relations with the Krupas either.
What awaits the Krupas?
At present, Tetiana Krupa is in the Kyiv pre-trial detention centre, waiting for the completion of the investigation and her sentence. She can come out of that place if someone stands a bail of UAH 500 million for her, but she will have to stay in Ukraine.
Until now, Tetiana Krupa has been notified of suspicion only under the article about illegal enrichment (Article 368-5 of the CCU), under which she faces 5 to 10 years of imprisonment. According to the version of the investigation, the assets found at her place exceed her legal income by UAH 137 million. In addition, judging by the fact that forged medical certificates and lists of patients with fake diagnoses were found at Krupa’s place, she may also be accused of bribery and forgery of documents. It would increase the chances of more severe punishment, but it might not happen.
A few more words about enrichment. The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) checked the declarations of Tetiana Krupa and her daughter-in-law Kateryna Krupa for 2023 and didn’t find any signs of illegal enrichment. The declaration of Volodymyr Krupa for 2021 is still under inspection.
Generally, the corruption crimes in Ukraine end with the actual imprisonment of the criminals exceptionally rarely. Usually, the guilty person has to pay a fine or gets an evaluation period. Recently, the “Ekonomichna pravda” showed this tendency using the example of corruption cases against MSEK employees, thus confirming the hypothesis that the corruption in these institutions may be caused, inter alia, by the absence of actual punishment.
Yet, miracles do happen. Like the story of the ex-head of the Khmenlnytskyi city MSEK, Liubomyr Zavialets, mentioned in the beginning. He did receive an actual prison sentence for a small bribe in comparison to the abovementioned (700 dollars). Yet, contrary to Tetiana Krupa, he “was caught red-handed” while receiving a bribe. So, it was much easier to prove his guilt.
Oleksandr Krupa, Tetiana’s son, has not been notified of any accusation, although the State Bureau of Investigation openly talked about his involvement in the illegal enrichment of the family.
Another problem in the Krupas’ case may be the absence of any witnesses who would confirm her control over corruption schemes in the MSEK. All the employees of the institution NGL.media talked to are willing to defend their manager. However, the recent detention of doctors in Khmelnytskyi who forged disability certificates might accelerate the course of this case a bit. Anyway, the investigators will have to sweat and toil for this high-profile case not to have it end in the folder “Left in the air”, which hardly has any space left.
This material was prepared with the financial support from National Endowment for Democracy. The publication contents is a sole responsibility of the editorial team and does not reflect the views of National Endowment for Democracy