Deputy Chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine Dmytro Oliynyk stated that the regulator does not have the technical ability to establish the origin of dollar banknotes that NABU detectives discovered in the US Federal Reserve Bank packaging in the office of those involved in the corruption scheme in the energy sector.
He said this during a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada's Temporary Investigative Commission on Economic Security.
According to Oliynyk, there is no single registry in Ukraine that would allow you to verify the barcode or package number and accurately determine to whom and when the relevant banknotes were shipped.
He noted that such information may be stored at the US Federal Reserve, but at the level of Ukrainian institutions there are no tools to trace the path of a specific batch of cash.
Oliynyk also reported that currently there are eight banks in Ukraine that import US dollars and euros. Some of them import currency for their own needs, others sell it to other banks and financial market participants. However, none of these operations is accompanied by detailed accounting of the Fed packages with the possibility of further identification search.
For his part, the head of the NABU detective unit, Oleksandr Abakumov, recalled that this is the second case when the Bureau has encountered a large amount of cash brought into Ukraine without unpacking - under seals from the US Federal Reserve Bank.
He warned that without the introduction of proper accounting of such cash transactions, law enforcement officers will again find themselves in a situation in the future where no one in Ukraine will be able to explain how such funds crossed the border and ended up at the disposal of specific individuals.
Abakumov emphasized that the US Federal Reserve keeps records of who it sells cash currency to, but at the European and Ukrainian levels, the further movement of these funds in connection with the packages is actually not tracked. According to him, the people's deputies have already proposed to the National Bank to introduce a form of accounting for the import of large amounts of cash into Ukraine in such packaging, with a record of who exactly it is sold to. This, according to detectives, could become a significant tool for preventing corruption schemes and money laundering.
The NABU reminds that the issue of dollars in Fed seals arose within the framework of a large-scale investigation into corruption in the energy sector, which involves businessman Timur Mindich and financier Oleksandr Tsukerman. Detectives established that the function of legalizing illegally obtained funds was concentrated in a separate office of the criminal organization in the center of Kyiv. According to the investigation, the premises belonged to the family of former MP and current senator of the Russian Federation Andriy Derkach.
According to NABU, this office maintained "black bookkeeping", carried out strict cash accounting, and organized money laundering through a network of foreign companies. In total, about 100 million US dollars may have passed through the so-called "laundry."
Against the backdrop of these events, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree imposing sanctions against Timur Mindich and Oleksandr Zukerman, whom the investigation considers to be key figures in a large-scale corruption scheme in the energy sector.
The discussion in the TSC regarding the accounting of dollars in the Fed's packaging may become a starting point for changes in the regulation of cash flows: the National Bank is expected to make specific decisions that will allow it to record large batches of cash entering Ukraine and clearly track their movement in the future.
