An illegal business scheme centred on Kyiv has been dismantled and three people charged with criminal offences after Ukraine's Bureau of Economic Security (ESBU) carried out more than 60 raids on offices and warehouses in Kyiv. Substantial stocks of oak, ash and pine timber were uncovered, bought for cash and transported using forged shipping documents

ESBU investigators recently found a large volume of documents and confiscated stacks of timber in warehouses in Kyiv, acting against an illegal export scheme that had run for several years and relied on forged timber consignment notes. According to the ESBU's Kyiv office, the Ukrainian authorities are actively combating the trade in "shadow timber" in the country, and have detained an organised criminal group; investigators carried out searches at more than 60 offices, warehouses and private homes. At the heart of the criminal scheme were forged timber consignment notes, known as TTN-lis documents, which were bought from third-party companies and had no genuine transactions behind them. The forged documents were submitted in order to obtain export permits. Over a period of several years the timber was bought for cash from private individuals in the Kyiv region. Nobody was able to explain where the timber had actually come from.

"Those involved in the scheme legalised and attempted to illegally export significant volumes of oak, ash, pine, birch and alder timber, as well as sawn timber and firewood," a representative of the Ukrainian government said.

It all came to light when investigators intercepted a consignment of export-grade oak and pine timber at the national border. Once the case had been heard, the oak timber was confiscated.

This case is just one of many law enforcement actions against the illegal timber trade, which has grown rapidly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Rising wartime demand for timber — for reconstruction as well as for military fortifications and energy supplies — has made Ukraine's forests one of the country's most valuable remaining economic assets and, at the same time, one of the most heavily exploited for illegal purposes.

Last year, representatives of the World Wide Fund for Nature noted that the timber sector had become the third most corrupt in Ukraine, behind only customs and public procurement. The Ukrainian authorities have long been struggling to stamp out illegality, from government efforts to halt the so-called grey timber trade, which was set up using a blockchain-type accounting system, through to the detention of criminal groups logging in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. A scheme created by senior Ukrainian officials also came to light, under which 60 000 cubic metres of so-called conflict-zone timber was sold into the European timber supply network.