Belgian prosecutors have seized about $2 million as part of an investigation into Iryna Kut and her Antwerp-based diamond company.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, authorities raided Kut’s warehouses while investigating an alleged case of war profiteering that has already cost a defense minister his job. A handful of companies are suspected of selling food to the military at two or three times their market value in 2022 and 2023 while Ukraine was fending off the full-scale Russian invasion.
Kut has not been charged in either Belgium or Ukraine, and it’s unclear if the cases are connected. However, people close to the cases told OCCRP that officials from the two countries have been in touch.
Reporters followed the paper trail to a third country: Croatia. Authorities allege Kut’s mother, Tetiana Hlyniana, controlled some of the companies that have come under scrutiny in Ukraine. Property records show that, as the food scandal broke back home, she was snapping up some choice real estate in the Croatian coastal city of Split, including three hotels.
Hlyniana’s lawyer told reporters his client was cooperating with Ukrainian authorities, and that there is no evidence of her involvement in any offenses. Through her lawyer, Kut declined to comment on the money laundering investigation in Belgium, and whether she had any role in the food scandal in Ukraine.
