llegal coal mining, a multimillion-dollar shadow industry, has become a curse on the Ukrainian economy and workers but a blessing for its few profiteers. An investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has found that companies linked to former government officials and to businesses owned by the son of former President Viktor Yanukovych routinely legalized and sold black-market coal -- stealing jobs from legitimate miners and endangering workers toiling in unregulated and illegal pits. Industry experts estimate that there are tens of thousands of these workers in some 2,500 kopanki or illegal pits around Ukraine, mostly in the protest-wracked Donbas region around Donetsk...While the illegal miners work, they get little pay and work in very dangerous conditions...[refers to Sverdlovantratsyt (owned by DTEK), Donbas Financial Transaction Center (DFTC), MAKO Holding]. [Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited DTEK, DFTC & MAKO Holding to respond. MAKO Holding response provided. DTEK & DFTC did not respond.]