A deputy director of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's confectionery empire is a beneficiary of a company registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), according to new information from the leaked Panama Papers.
The link to Sergei Zaitsev is potentially embarrassing for Poroshenko because in April he said he wants to legally require Ukrainians to disclose all offshore holdings in an attempt to force them to pay tax in their home country.
Serhiy Leshchenko, a prominent lawmaker in Poroshenko's faction, told Reuters on Tuesday that a special investigative commission should be set up to probe Poroshenko's business dealings as a result of the latest allegations.
A spokeswoman for Roshen, Poroshenko's confectionery business, declined to comment.
According to a the now public International Consortium of Investigative Journalists database of documents from the Panama Papers, Zaitsev is a beneficiary of Intraco Management Ltd, registered in the British-ruled tax haven.
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Local news agency reported Zaitsev said he's associated with Intraco, and its main activity was arranging and servicing charter flights.
The address given for Zaitsev in the database is identical to the business address of at least three other companies owned by Poroshenko, according to the Ukrainian state registry.
Poroshenko, one of Ukraine's richest businessmen, was propelled to power by a popular revolt in 2014, and needs to convince Kiev's Western backers that he is serious about improving governance and rooting out entrenched corruption to secure continued financial backing.
Poroshenko's press service said the president has no connection to Intraco.
The ICIJ alleged last month that Poroshenko had set up an offshore firm, Prime Asset Partners, to avoid tax in August 2014 during a peak in fighting between Kiev's forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Poroshenko denied wrongdoing, saying the offshore company had been set up to help him move his business assets to a blind trust.
The Panama Papers comprise four decades of documents from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that specialises in setting up offshore companies.
Intraco has already featured in allegations about Poroshenko's circle.
Last year, the former head of Ukraine's security service, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, accused Ihor Kononenko, a close ally of the Ukrainian president, of using the BVI-registered firm to launder money.
