Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) has charged five people in a new episode of its Carthage case, the bureau said. Investigators say the group ran or shielded scam call centers, drug sales, and a fake-euro workshop. Judges have ruled on two suspects, while the most senior one, a security service general, still waits.

As Ukraine fights off Russia’s full-scale invasion, Brussels has tied its EU membership talks to reforms that include independent anti-corruption agencies, a condition watchdogs flagged as under strain. Carthage is the bureau’s hunt for officials allegedly paid to let scam call centers rob people in Ukraine and abroad, and it now reaches the police and security service meant to stop them.

The general called Akim

On 4 November, NABU detectives detained Serhii Duka, a major general in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). A source in the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) told BBC News Ukrainian that he was held under Article 208 (detention without a prior court order). Investigators say Duka is Akim from their tapes, who helped the group with problems in the SBU, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and the police. When the gang paused its call centers last summer, he allegedly told its leader to change addresses and “go partisan.”

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Detectives found Duka at a cottage in Roslavychi, Kyiv Oblast, owned by the family of business partners of a relative with ties to Russia, investigative outlet Slidstvo.Info reported.

NABU unit head Oleksandr Abakumov described armed men at the windows and Duka with a pistol, who then smashed his phones with a hammer on a balcony and destroyed a hard drive. Fighters from Alfa, the SBU’s special forces, then arrived in vans. Abakumov called it absurd that the unit came to shield the general from detectives.

The same day, SBU head Oleksandr Poklad said he had fired two senior officials involved in the case, without naming them. The Anti-Corruption Action Center, a Kyiv watchdog, called Duka a key player in the July 2025 attack on NABU, when the SBU searched its detectives. SAP planned to ask a court on 6 November to keep Duka in custody, BBC News Russian reported.

Where the other four suspects stand

Mezha, an anti-corruption center, matched the tapes’ nicknames to the people NABU and SAP charged. The charge list names Andrii Osipov, a repeat convict known as Kryminal (“Criminal”), as the organizer.

On 5 November, the High Anti-Corruption Court ordered Vitalii Rybalka, called Boxer in NABU’s video, held for 60 days without bail, Radio Svoboda reported. The video mentions people being beaten with a hammer. Rybalka denied any part in that and called the suspicion far-fetched, but admitted he knows Osipov. Osipov, jailed in another case, faces the same court next week.

The same court ordered Volodymyr Tsenov, known as Price, held unless he posts bail of UAH 15 million ($330,000). A senior National Police investigator, he is also suspected of taking a bribe.

The fifth suspect, Oleksandr Demianchuk, called Consultant, is a police detective in Kyiv Oblast. No ruling on him was reported by Friday morning.

Detectives also searched Kyiv Oblast police chief Andrii Rubel but did not charge him, Abakumov told Ukrainska Pravda. Rubel ran the National Police’s strategic investigations department from October 2022 to April 2026. NABU suspects he may have acted so as not to notice the crimes, Abakumov said.

What the gang allegedly planned

The tapes show a plot to attack Denys Bihus, an investigative journalist, over his reporting on U420, a shop chain suspected of selling drugs. Participants also discussed how to stop a man who wanted to tell NABU that evidence against one of its detectives might have been faked.

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The leader of the Russian drug cartel Khimprom, called Mexican, offered $2 million on the recordings to remove Dmytro Torhalo, the National Police’s anti-drug chief, Slidstvo.Info reported. Torhalo confirmed Mexican threatened him.

The cartel leader also discussed bribing then-Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko to keep the cartel’s drugs off the banned list, Abakumov said in the same interview. Middlemen suggested offering people close to the minister a share of the business instead.

Police push back, the Presidential Office responds

Andrii Nebytov, a deputy head of the National Police, wrote that the tapes date from September 2025 to April 2026, when police were already tracking Khimprom with Interpol and the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Deal plans existed, he said, but police dismantled U420.

Presidential Office head Kyrylo Budanov said after the searches that the law is the same for everyone.

NABU and SAP launched Carthage in September against an official in the Prosecutor General’s Office suspected of shielding call centers. Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko then resigned and left Ukraine. His office has since fired eight people.

Ukraine’s prosecution service has dismissed eight people named in connection with an anti-corruption probe into the alleged protection of scam call centers, acting Prosecutor General Anton Kovalskyi reported. His office is also running internal checks on several officials linked to the case. A separate probe covers the trip abroad of his predecessor, who left Ukraine in September.

Ukraine’s main prosecution service is auditing itself while the country’s anti-corruption agencies investigate an alleged scheme run from inside it. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) allege that a PGO official set up a criminal organization in mid-2025. They say it drew in serving prosecution employees and unofficial associates, took bribes for leaving scam call centers alone, and laundered the proceeds. The investigation is called Operation Carthage.

A probe from the outside, an audit from the inside

Ukraine’s main prosecution service is auditing itself while the country’s anti-corruption agencies investigate an alleged scheme run from inside it. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) allege that an official of the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) set up a criminal organization in mid-2025. They say it drew in serving prosecution employees and unofficial associates. The group allegedly took bribes for leaving scam call centers alone and then laundered the proceeds. The case is known as Operation Carthage, Espreso reported.

Dismissals and polygraph tests

Seven of the eight dismissed people worked at the PGO, Kovalskyi said. Separately, four people were removed from administrative posts, including the heads of the IT department and the cybercrime directorate. Kovalskyi said 24 prosecutors took polygraph tests. The results went to a commission running an internal investigation. He wrote that trust in the prosecution service would be restored not through announcements of change but through consistent, balanced decisions and concrete results.

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The internal probe concerning former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko covers his trip abroad. Investigators are checking whether he followed established procedure and how the business trip was organized. Kravchenko left Ukraine in an official car on the night of 13–14 September, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing law enforcement sources. He explained his departure as an official trip to Lithuania.

On 14 September, Kravchenko announced he had signed a notice of suspicion against NABU director Semen Kryvonos. That evening, his own office said Kryvonos had never been properly served and that the register entries were cancelled.

On 15 September, lawmakers backed Kravchenko’s resignation 317–0. Two days later, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy assigned Kovalskyi the duties of prosecutor general by decree. Before that, Kovalskyi headed the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Prosecutor’s Office.

Two Carthage figures under internal review

The PGO completed an internal investigation into Aidyn Khudiiev, a former deputy department head, Kovalskyi said. Its findings will go to the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors, and the PGO abolished his post. SAPO prosecutor Mykola Karas told a court hearing that detectives seized $50,000 at Khudiiev’s workplace during the Carthage searches.

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The PGO is also investigating Serhii Kropyva, former deputy head of its international cooperation department. NABU detained him on 4 September, the first day of the operation. The internal probe looks at whether he used his powers for private interests and interfered in other prosecutors’ work. The PGO’s General Inspectorate has filed a disciplinary complaint against him with the same commission, and his post was also abolished.