Key Takeaways
- • The National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NACP) identified inaccurate information totaling 7,866,191.69 UAH (about 7.87 million hryvnias) in the 2025 asset declaration of Pavlo Kovalchuk, deputy head of the Regional Service Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Rivne, Volyn, and Zhytomyr regions.
- • Crypto holdings declared on the WhiteBIT exchange, valued at 7,861,180 UAH, were not supported by sufficient evidence; Kovalchuk could not document ownership as of December 31, 2025, and WhiteBIT had not responded to the NACP's request by audit completion.
- • The NACP found signs of a criminal offense under the Criminal Code of Ukraine provision on declaring false information, as the inaccuracies exceed the legal liability threshold, but found no evidence of illicit enrichment or conflict-of-interest violations.
- • Kovalchuk said the crypto came from a Hong Kong trust fund arrangement in which he and nine others pooled $500,000 to join the WhiteBIT Coin private sale in 2021, a claim the audit did not verify.
- • Separate reporting by the Center for Investigative Journalism "The Power of Truth" previously cited a 2023 purchase of 19,000 WhiteBIT Coins for 4.2 million UAH, which it said was worth over 23 million UAH by April 2025.
Summary
The National Agency for Corruption Prevention has identified inaccurate information totaling 7.87 million hryvnias in the asset declaration of Pavlo Kovalchuk, deputy head of the Regional Service Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Rivne, Volyn, and Zhytomyr regions. The discrepancies were identified in an audit of his amended declaration for 2025, submitted on April 21, 2026. The most significant issues relate to the "Intangible Assets" section, where Kovalchuk declared three cryptocurrency holdings on the WhiteBIT exchange: 14,170 WhiteBIT Coin (WBT), over 103,000 Tether (USDT), and over 71,500 Sleepless AI Tokens (AI). He valued the total at 7,861,180 UAH, including approximately 3.11 million UAH for WBT, 4.35 million UAH for USDT, and nearly 395,000 UAH for the AI tokens.
Kovalchuk told auditors he became interested in cryptocurrency in 2021, when he learned of the opportunity to invest in WhiteBIT Coin during its private sale phase. He said he could not afford the $500,000 entry requirement alone, so he and nine other individuals entered an agreement with a representative of a Hong Kong-registered trust fund; after the private sale was funded, the coins were allegedly credited to his account. He cited proceeds from the sale of commercial real estate in Kyiv and Dnipro, an apartment in Lutsk, and land plots as the source of the investment. However, he did not provide documents confirming his ownership of the declared crypto assets as of December 31, 2025, and presentation materials did not show his holdings or balances at year-end. The NACP sent a request to WhiteBIT, which had not responded by the time the audit concluded, so the agency found the crypto information unsupported by sufficient evidence. It also warned that declaring unverified crypto could be used to evade liability for later unjustified asset acquisitions or to inflate declared assets.
Based on the audit, the NACP identified signs of an offense under the Criminal Code of Ukraine provision on declaring false information. The total inaccurate amount, 7,866,191.69 UAH, exceeds the legal threshold for criminal liability. The agency found no evidence of illicit enrichment, unexplained assets, or conflict-of-interest violations.
The case follows earlier reporting by the Center for Investigative Journalism "The Power of Truth." That outlet reported that in March 2023 Kovalchuk bought 19,000 WhiteBIT Coins for 4.2 million UAH, and that by April 2025 their value exceeded 23 million UAH. In 2023 he declared only 84,000 UAH in salary from the WhitePay charitable foundation, where he worked at the time, and he held corporate interests in three companies: Avia Voyage, Primum, and Novokievskoe. Kovalchuk has said he first became interested in cryptocurrency in 2020, through acquaintances connected to the WhiteBIT developers, and that he invested gradually, including before joining the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The NACP has also reported undeclared crypto in other officials' filings, including a claimed 200 million UAH case involving three officials and a police officer's 62 million UAH undeclared crypto income.
Kovalchuk told auditors he became interested in cryptocurrency in 2021, when he learned of the opportunity to invest in WhiteBIT Coin during its private sale phase. He said he could not afford the $500,000 entry requirement alone, so he and nine other individuals entered an agreement with a representative of a Hong Kong-registered trust fund; after the private sale was funded, the coins were allegedly credited to his account. He cited proceeds from the sale of commercial real estate in Kyiv and Dnipro, an apartment in Lutsk, and land plots as the source of the investment. However, he did not provide documents confirming his ownership of the declared crypto assets as of December 31, 2025, and presentation materials did not show his holdings or balances at year-end. The NACP sent a request to WhiteBIT, which had not responded by the time the audit concluded, so the agency found the crypto information unsupported by sufficient evidence. It also warned that declaring unverified crypto could be used to evade liability for later unjustified asset acquisitions or to inflate declared assets.
Based on the audit, the NACP identified signs of an offense under the Criminal Code of Ukraine provision on declaring false information. The total inaccurate amount, 7,866,191.69 UAH, exceeds the legal threshold for criminal liability. The agency found no evidence of illicit enrichment, unexplained assets, or conflict-of-interest violations.
The case follows earlier reporting by the Center for Investigative Journalism "The Power of Truth." That outlet reported that in March 2023 Kovalchuk bought 19,000 WhiteBIT Coins for 4.2 million UAH, and that by April 2025 their value exceeded 23 million UAH. In 2023 he declared only 84,000 UAH in salary from the WhitePay charitable foundation, where he worked at the time, and he held corporate interests in three companies: Avia Voyage, Primum, and Novokievskoe. Kovalchuk has said he first became interested in cryptocurrency in 2020, through acquaintances connected to the WhiteBIT developers, and that he invested gradually, including before joining the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The NACP has also reported undeclared crypto in other officials' filings, including a claimed 200 million UAH case involving three officials and a police officer's 62 million UAH undeclared crypto income.
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