Ruslan Kravchenko

Authorities have not independently confirmed that arrest.

Investigators say they've uncovered a criminal organization involving at least 12 individuals, including senior officials from Ukraine's intelligence service, national police, and prosecutor general's office.

The operation, known as Carthage, allegedly involved an extensive network of fraudulent call centers employing approximately 2,700 people, scamming victims both inside Ukraine and abroad.

But the illegal activities reportedly went far beyond financial fraud.

The investigation has already produced significant consequences.

Ukraine's acting intelligence chief, Oleksandr Poklat, confirmed Wednesday that two senior SBU officers implicated in the investigation have been dismissed.

The national police has suspended officers under investigation, while the prosecutor general's office says it's cooperating with authorities.

Well, that's nice.

Ukrainian anti-corruption investigators from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau today said they believed senior security and law enforcement officials were involved in covering up a major fraud scheme at the center of an expanding new probe.

The probe was initially unveiled in September and led to the resignation of former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko.

The SBU security service confirmed that investigators were searching some of its employees and said it was cooperating with the probe.

Dan Pelishuk reports for Reuters.

The High Anti-Corruption Court ordered Tymoshenko held in custody, with bail set at $8 million.

Separately, an agency began reviewing former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko's finances following a report about Dubai property linked to his former mother-in-law.

The review does not establish guilt.

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For, for those that, that aren't familiar with Ukrayinska Pravda, they're one of the oldest kind of independent news outlets in Ukraine since pretty much independence, and they've developed a pretty strong reputation for investigative journalism and for pissing off the government of ... no matter who that government tends to be.

Yeah, so Anthony, I don't know when you covered this, if you covered this back in September, but the former prosecutor dr- general of Ukraine, Ruslan Kravchenko, recently fled the country, uh, to Austria under pretty serious corruption allegations.

I'm not gonna go into his whole deal now, but, uh, you notice that I said Austria.

Uh, Myhailo Tkach, an investigative journalism, a pretty well-known guy from Ukrayinska Pravda, traveled to Austria to track Kravchenko down because, again, we're at war, and then the top lawyer in the country just runs away.

And while he was there, he got himself a position on the Belarusian delegation to these European intergovernmental org- organizations So Belarus said that this Ukrainian oligarch who's on the lam for the law, he's actually a diplomat of ours, which means he has diplomatic security, like diplomatic immunity.

This corrupt guy was just given diplomatic immunity, and because he has it, he's wanted in the US even on corruption charges, and Austria said, "No, we can't give him up because he's a diplomat, has diplomatic immunity." So Austria already had a, a reputation for this.

And so it's not unusual that Ruslan Kravchenko, the former prosecutor general of Ukraine who's wanted on these corruption investigations, because he knew that there's already, like, Ukrainian criminals there who are hiding from the law, hiding from journalists in Austria.

It's just wild.