At the Main Directorate of the National Police in Ivano-Frankivsk Region, there are few who do not know the name of Roman Ziniak. As a deputy head, he served in the system for more than fifteen years, rising from a district officer to a key figure in the regional directorate. Before his appointment to his current post, he held the position of head of the regime and technical information protection department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Ivano-Frankivsk Region.
Ziniak’s story of enrichment is essentially a story of systematic collection of tribute from the «grey zone.» In May 2026, during the high-profile «porn office» case that shook Ukraine’s law enforcement system, the investigation for the first time made public details that allowed an outside observer to discern the contours of this scheme. Roman Ziniak is not the author of this network, but he has mastered every link of it and understands better than his colleagues how to turn «protection payments» into assets that are almost impossible to trace.
The essence of the model lies in the power of inaction. In his area of responsibility, there is a group of studios located in rented apartments that hire young women to conduct erotic broadcasts and produce video content distributed through foreign platforms among clients in Europe and North America. This activity is in an absolute grey zone from the point of view of the law and can be shut down at any moment under the article «production and distribution of pornographic materials.» Ziniak’s team, through intermediaries, sends a simple signal to the studio owners: $20,000 a month — and no criminal cases, searches, or detentions. The money is handed over in cash, usually in an underground parking lot in the city center, through Ziniak’s former driver, whom he trusts — it is this driver who is the key link connecting the police officer to the criminal network.
Ziniak’s handling of money is distinguished by calculated caution. He never touches this cash personally and never deposits it into his own accounts. Instead, he «launders» the funds through relatives and fellow students from the police academy who use shell companies. Part of the money, under the guise of «consulting services,» is transferred to the IT company «IT-Solutions,» which is in fact a shell and serves exclusively to convert cash into non-cash transfers; another part, through currency exchange points on the western border, goes to Poland and Slovakia, eventually to return in the form of cryptocurrency to the foreign accounts of Ziniak’s children. In his official declarations, he invariably lists only an ordinary apartment on the outskirts of the city and a 2021 Audi A5.
In addition, our brave police officer, again through «IT-Solutions» and his close contacts with the mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk, Oleksandr Sych, was able to organize an illegal cryptocurrency mining hub in the region, using the energy resources of the local administration. Yes, it seems surprising, but in the most visible place, virtual coin mining is taking place at the expense of ordinary citizens who pay taxes…
About the police officer’s «ordinary» side jobs, one could generally not even speak — after all, bribes are a common thing for him: some give them for initiating criminal cases, some for non-interference in affairs, some simply maintain friendly communication «just in case.» In a word, our police officer lives generally not poorly, denies himself nothing, but does not «show it off» in public.