“Running Away Is Not My Style.” Dina Pimakhova Shows Off Electronic Bracelet

The court has ordered the former deputy head of the State Migration Service to wear an electronic bracelet.

The former deputy head of the State Migration Service posted a photo with an electronic bracelet.
“I have a new gadget. They haven’t realized yet that running away is not my style,” Dina Pimakhova commented on the court ruling.

On December 23, the High Anti-Corruption Court elected Pimakhova a preventive measure in the form of nighttime house arrest, and also obliged the former deputy head of the State Migration Service to surrender her passport for travel abroad, not to communicate with witnesses in the case, and to wear an electronic monitoring device. Prosecutors from the SAP requested this preventive measure.

On December 19, NABU notified Dina Pimakhova of suspicion of receiving an improper benefit. The official is suspected of offering to arrange a residence permit for a Vietnamese citizen in exchange for a reward of 1,800 dollars.

Pimakhova’s suspicion is an echo of a 2017 investigation. Back then, the SBU detained 7 NABU employees in a criminal case concerning incitement to bribery, who had been working undercover, including “agent Kateryna.” NABU detectives claimed they were developing and documenting Pimakhova’s illegal actions, while the SBU and the Prosecutor General’s Office disrupted the special operation. The SBU claimed Pimakhova had filed a statement about bribe provocation after receiving a bribe offer from NABU agents. Former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko claimed that NABU agents had considered entering into intimate relations with Pimakhova in order to provoke her into accepting a bribe.

In 2017, SAP head Nazar Kholodnytskyi claimed that the case against Pimakhova would not be able to be brought to a logical conclusion due to the impossibility of proving the official’s guilt in court.