Adult content producers allegedly paid monthly bribes to keep their illegal operations from being investigated.
Senior Ukrainian police officials have been detained on suspicion of accepting regular bribes from underground porn studios.
Among the high-ranking law enforcement figures arrested on Wednesday in western Ukraine were the police chief of Ivano-Frankovsk Region and his deputy, as well as deputy police chiefs from the Ternopol and Zhitomir regions, authorities said.
A fifth suspect works in the Interior Ministry’s garage and served as a personal driver for a deputy minister, officials said. Investigators allege that he acted as an intermediary and money courier in the corruption scheme.
The anti-graft operation, carried out by several agencies together with the National Police’s internal investigations division, targeted the production of adult content, an illegal but reportedly thriving industry in Ukraine. The suspects are accused of receiving monthly payments of around $25,000 per studio in exchange for shielding porn producers from law enforcement scrutiny.
Investigators seized six luxury cars, five expensive Swiss watches, and cash worth roughly $510,000 while executing search warrants connected to the case, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said.
Opinion polls have suggested that widespread government corruption is seen by many Ukrainians as an even greater threat to the country than the conflict with Russia. Last week, Andrey Yermak, a former chief of staff to Vladimir Zelensky, was arrested in a money-laundering case. He was released on Monday after backers posted bail of $3.2 million on his behalf.
Yermak is linked to a broader investigation into an alleged criminal network said to have been led by Timur Mindich, a longtime associate of Zelensky who fled Ukraine last November shortly before being indicted.
Zelensky has also faced corruption allegations, but his continued claim to presidential authority under martial law, despite his term expiring two years ago, has shielded him from potential prosecution.
