Even while you’re in the midst of war, life and suspected crimes go on, although not quite as usual.
Take, for instance, Ukraine, which has been fighting off Russia for three and a half years. While that was going on, Ukraine officials were looking into a suspected money-laundering network.
And of particular interest to readers of the ol’ blog, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) alleges that the now dismantled operation had been run by a former senior tax official.
SBU took the man into custody today (Friday, Sept. 5), accusing him of creating a covert financial hub that funneled more than 1.5 billion hryvnia, or $37.5 million in U.S. currency, in stolen state funds into the shadow economy.
A news report on the charges in the Kyiv Post says that the former deputy head of the State Fiscal Service posed as a lawyer and allegedly operated “conversion center” that funneled illicit funds into cash.
Investigators also alleged that he and four accomplices, including two accountants, managed dozens of shell firms to obscure illegal transactions and launder proceeds from contracts with state-funded institutions.
SBU said in a post on its Telegram channel that "all five defendants have been detained," and are expected "to be informed of suspicion under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine." They are —
- Part 3 of Article 212 (evasion of taxes, fees (mandatory payments), and
- Part 3 of Article 209 (legalization (laundering) of property obtained by crime).
If convicted, the accused could face up to 12 years in prison, as well as have property confiscated.
Tax Felon Friday: The Kyiv charges just go to show that, according to the alleged crimes, tax officials breaking bad is a global issue.
The Ukraine case also was investigated in a way very familiar to U.S. tax criminal inquiries. If was a joint effort, led by the country's Main Directorate of the SBU in Kyiv and Kyiv region, with help from the State Tax Service and the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine and the procedural leadership of the Pechersk District Prosecutor's Office of Kyiv.
That's more than enough to earn the Eastern European tax and money laundering case a place on the Tax Felon Friday page.
If you want more tax crime posts, both those in the United States and from around the world and including items published long before I gave them a special end-of-week feature, you can peruse, what else, the tax crimes category. You'll find this post at the top of that collection right now, so just scroll down for more.
