WASHINGTON, DC — PNC Tower is one of the most recognizable buildings in downtown Louisville and now the U.S. Justice Department wants to seize it, alleging it was bought using embezzled funds from a Ukrainian bank.

In a federal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, it is alleged that PNC Tower and a Dallas office park were purchased using money embezzled by PrivatBank in Ukraine. 

The complaints allege Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Boholiubov, owners of PrivatBank, one of the largest in Ukraine, embezzled and defrauded the bank of billions of dollars. In a statement from the department, the pair allegedly laundered money using shell companies' bank accounts before transferring the money to the United States. The complaint goes on to say, associates of Kolomoisky and Boholiubov, Mordechai Korf and Uriel Laber, worked out of Miami and created a series of entities, usually under some variation of the name “Optima,” to further launder the misappropriated funds and invest them. They bought millions in real estate across the country including PNC Plaza and the former CompuCom Headquarters in Dallas. The buildings have a combined value of approximately $70 million.

The FBI's Cleveland division is investigating the case.  A complaint is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

PNC Plaza was built in 1971. In 2011, it was bought by Optima International out of Miami for $77 million, a company the complaint says was one the companies run by Korf and Laber.