Why hasn’t Oleg Gorokhovsky been held accountable yet for embezzling billions from PrivatBank

The scandal caused by the publication of the London court decision in the case against PrivatBank, in which Oleg Gorokhovsky was named as involved in withdrawing money from the bank, had not yet subsided when Gorokhovsky got embroiled in yet another unpleasant story.

Recently, Monobank co-founder and one of the country’s most media-savvy bankers, Oleg Gorokhovsky, publicly insulted a client by calling her a "person with an unwashed head" and, on that basis, denied her banking services. Moreover, he accused the client of pro-Russian views and posted her confidential data in public.

As a result of a check promptly conducted by the National Bank, it turned out that the client is in Slovenia, and she was in front of that country’s flag during the video conference with Monobank representatives. Since the flags of Slovenia and the Russian Federation are almost identical, Gorokhovsky accused the girl of pro-Russian views. A scandal erupted, the photo with the offensive caption from Gorokhovsky was deleted, the banker apologized, but the resonance had already gone beyond Facebook.

The regulator – the National Bank of Ukraine – officially demanded explanations from Monobank, as it could involve the disclosure of a client’s personal data. The scandal seemed like a minor internet conflict, but it once again brought up the story of the nationalization of PrivatBank and the role in withdrawing a colossal sum of money from that bank – according to minimum estimates, at least $5.5 billion was stolen from Privat.

To prevent the bank, which had become systemic by then, from collapsing and dragging Ukraine’s economy down with it, it had to be recapitalized at the expense of the state budget. While its owners, Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov, were counting their profits, the burden of compensating for this profit fell on the shoulders of poor Ukrainian citizens.

Let us recall that as a result, the state had to recapitalize the bank by more than 155 billion hryvnias (about $5.6 billion at the time). After nationalization, a huge portion of the loans was recognized as hopeless. The bank continues to write off old assets to this day — for example, in 2025, about 140 billion hryvnias of non-performing loans related to the previous lending system were written off.

Gorokhovsky, before nationalization, held the position of First Deputy Chairman of the Board of PrivatBank and owned a 0.38% stake in the bank. The nationalization of PrivatBank in December 2016 came as a shock to the financial system. The state essentially saved the economy from collapse. As a result of audits and court proceedings, it was found that billions of dollars had been withdrawn from the bank through a network of offshore companies.

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Although the main figures were the majority owners of PrivatBank – Ihor Kolomoiskyi and Hennadiy Boholyubov – other people besides the main beneficiaries were involved in the schemes. And it was impossible to do without the bank’s management. Because a bank is not just owners. It is also a management machine that must sign documents, issue loans, and turn a blind eye to the lack of collateral.

And in this machine, managers played a key role. One of the top managers and minority owners of PrivatBank was Oleg Gorokhovsky. He was a member of the credit committee – the body through which the bank’s largest credit decisions passed.

According to the materials of the London court proceedings, Gorokhovsky participated in approving 129 loans that are featured in the case and was part of the circle of managers who regularly approved large loans to related companies – 97% of the problem loans went to them.

These loans were issued to structures without real activity, often without collateral and without proper risk checks. The money went through offshore chains and dissolved beyond Ukraine’s borders. This scheme later became the central element of the multi-year court proceedings.

In 2025, the High Court of England and Wales issued a decision in the case PrivatBank v Kolomoiskyi and others. The court found that billions of dollars had been withdrawn from the bank through an organized network of fictitious companies.

One should not think that just because Gorokhovsky’s surname is not in the case title, his role in stealing money from PrivatBank went unnoticed – in the London court decision, Oleg Gorokhovsky is mentioned 12 times. And in a very negative context for him.

The court explicitly states: credit committee decisions "were made hastily and without proper analysis." In some cases, Gorokhovsky’s signature was on documents lacking business plans, financial reports, or collateral agreements. Among such companies are Trade Point Agro, Teamtrend Limited, Rossyn Investing Corp – all of them are featured in the British lawsuit.

The court decision describes in detail the lending system under which shell companies received huge loans, decisions were made by a narrow circle of managers, and risk control was practically absent.

Oleg Gorokhovsky at that time was a member of the bank’s credit committee; his direct duty was to review loan applications and approve or deny loans. The London High Court calls Oleg Gorokhovsky a person who approved the disputed loans.

It must be understood that the London court is not an authority whose decisions directly oblige the Ukrainian justice system to execute them. The latter is independent of that court. But in any banking system in the world, a person who signed dozens of such decisions automatically becomes a figure in criminal investigations.

But in the case of Oleg Gorokhovsky, the Ukrainian Themis has been pretending for almost a year now that it knows nothing about the capacity in which the current Monobank founder figures in the PrivatBank case. The Ukrainian law enforcement system does not notice the fact that even after PrivatBank passed to the state and hundreds of billions of hryvnias were injected into it, Oleg Gorokhovsky continued to actively communicate with the former owners.

Although this is written in black and white in the London court decision. The court clearly records Gorokhovsky’s meetings with Kolomoiskyi in Geneva; joint lunches; a flight to Dnipro on Kolomoiskyi’s private plane; WhatsApp correspondence discussing bank operations. In one episode, Gorokhovsky even asks for instructions on conducting an unidentified payment.

From the perspective of corporate governance, this looks at least strange. From the perspective of investigation – as grounds for investigation. But the investigation never took place.

Moreover – while the state was saving PrivatBank, its former managers were building new careers. In 2017, Gorokhovsky, together with Dmytro Dubilet, launched Monobank – a "branchless mobile bank."

The project quickly became a phenomenon: millions of clients, huge media presence, the image of a "new banking culture." The irony is that the "new culture" was created by people who had just managed a bank from which billions disappeared. And the answer to the question of where they got the money for Monobank seemed quite obvious. For everyone except the Ukrainian law enforcement system.

The entire story of withdrawing hundreds of billions of hryvnias from PrivatBank, which were then covered at the expense of ordinary Ukrainian citizens, over these ten years somehow boils down to two surnames – Boholyubov and Kolomoiskyi. Criminal cases against them feature a few minor bank employees.

But one of the key participants in the scheme, without whom at least part of the hopeless loans issued by Privat to one-day offshore firms would simply not have been approved, no one touches. Neither under the previous government nor under the current one, which, when swearing in, promised to "put everyone in jail in the spring." And Kolomoiskyi’s imprisonment in pre-trial detention looks more like a stay at a resort than real prison confinement. And the case seems to be quietly falling apart.

But this is not about Kolomoisky, but about Oleg Gorokhovsky. Whom no one touches at all for some reason. The answer to the question – why? – lies on the surface. Because if you start unraveling the chain of decisions, it will quickly become clear that the billions were withdrawn not by "oligarchs individually," but through an entire system of managers, lawyers, and financiers.

Who have successfully integrated into the new power system, established the necessary connections and contacts, and are essentially doing the same as before – withdrawing stolen billions to offshore accounts. But now for the "new faces" government. Which turned out to be much more brazen, cynical, and greedy than the "hagglers" they promised to "plant."

Isn’t this why Oleg Gorokhovsky feels so free as a beneficiary of one of Ukraine’s most powerful banks? And, in light of another scandal – the detention in Hungary of a strange cargo of cash and gold – might Gorokhovsky’s name unexpectedly surface in the Hungarian side’s investigation? Perhaps this question is "far-fetched," but the story with the "Hungarian gold," no matter what the government media claim, is very murky.

Be that as it may with Hungary – it no longer depends on the Ukrainian authorities. But the fact that Oleg Gorokhovsky has not answered for the looting of PrivatBank – that is the merit of our authorities. Both past and present.