People around the world are investing billions of dollars in cryptocurrency. Ukrainian officials do not graze the rear either. This year alone, bitcoins worth almost 75 billion hryvnias have been declared in Ukraine. Who invests in virtual currency – risk-takers or tricksters who, by declaring electronic money, are actually simply hiding their illegal profits?
Kyiv. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate – May 25, 2021 – Economy
The main cryptocurrency today is bitcoin. For one such virtual coin today you can sell for more than 50 thousand dollars.
“Bitcoin is a value that is produced by computers or special machines that calculate such long chains of numbers. As soon as the computer finds this chain of numbers according to the algorithm, a person has bitcoin. Anyone can buy this chain of numbers and own this bitcoin, ”lawyer Mykola Melnychuk told Money.
His “Money” will be counted in the declarations of the Ukrainian authorities.
The official with the thickest e-wallet in Ukraine is Vyacheslav Mishalov, a deputy of the Dnipro City Council and a local businessman. Just a bitcoin billionaire! In his declaration, he stated that he has 18,000 bitcoins. At today’s exchange rate, it is 25 billion hryvnias.
First Secretary of the Embassy of Ukraine in Vietnam Petro Lensky declared 6,528 bitcoins. This is almost 10 billion hryvnias today.
And the deputy of the Odessa city council Dmitry Pestruyev admitted that has more than 1300 bitcoins. In equivalent, it is about 2 billion in the Ukrainian national currency.
Mykhailo Churylo, a Transcarpathian deputy of the Uzhhorod council, writes that he has 826 bitcoins. In hryvnias, it is more than one billion.
Vitaliy Klitschko’s colleague and Kyiv City Council deputy Dmytro Bilotserkivets also stocked up on a lot of bitcoins. In his e-wallet – 398 fabulous coins. And if you exchange them now for hryvnia, you can get 554 million.
Such crazy money in the accounts of deputies and civil servants is simply amazing. However, is it really all gained, so to speak, honest passion? Do they have these bitcoins at all?
On the one hand, the virtual currency in Ukraine is not recognized as a currency at all.
“The fact is that today in Ukraine cryptocurrency, the same bitcoins, are not settled. They are not recognized as a currency, not recognized by payment systems. The NAPC obliged them to declare them in the section “non-tangible assets”, – Serhiy Mytkalyk, Chairman of the Board of the Anti-Corruption Headquarters, told Grosham.
You can’t buy an apartment or a piece of land directly for bitcoin. But buying digital currency, storing or selling it is legal. And it turned out to be a very convenient tool. Nowadays, declaring bitcoins is a kind of trend that is more and more like a fig leaf, which they are trying to cover up the shame with – dishonestly earned money! After all, how to check whether an official really has an e-wallet and how much cryptocurrency there is?
Is that really so? Can officials and people’s deputies write fictitious information in their declarations with impunity? Declaration experts explain “money”.
First, of course, law enforcement officers do not have the right to just come to an official or deputy and check the e-wallet.
“NAPC and NABU do not have the authority to come and force the declarant to open his e-wallet and show how many bitcoins or just monetary assets he has under his pillow,” says Serhiy Mytkalyk.
That’s why it’s so easy to check whether an official sometimes lies about his bitcoins. After all, there is simply no financial institution that could confirm that a particular official actually owns or does not own bitcoins.
“There is no specific company that is actually responsible for them,” says lawyer Mykola Melnychuk.
Second, despite the fact that all bitcoin transactions are publicly available, it is also impossible to determine the owner of a particular wallet.
“All transactions on all wallets are open for access to anyone. That is, any person can come in, see that in the wallet number such and such operations took place. But it is impossible to say whose wallet it is, ”Mykola Melnychuk explains.
Of course, bitcoins are exchanged for hryvnias and dollars. They do it in exchange offices or banks. This is actually the only way to check the reality of e-currency. Because law enforcement officers have the right to make a request to the bank, and the bank will already be forced to tell about the owner of the money and the amount. However, no one has yet conducted any checks on the cryptocurrency of officials in Ukraine.
“In fact, there is no case in Ukraine so far of an investigation or inspection of the NAPC, which would include, including bitcoins. But this does not mean that there will be no such inspections, “said Serhiy Mytkalyk, chairman of the board of the Anti-Corruption Headquarters.
Only in April 2021 did the NAPC make statements that it would check the cryptocurrency in the declarations of officials. But when – is unknown. Meanwhile, the country’s richest cryptocurrency, the Dnieper MP, Vyacheslav Mishalov, has already given back. He allegedly made a mistake in the declaration when he wrote that he had as many as 18,000 bitcoins.
“I have already met information in the media that he allegedly says that he made a mistake in the declaration and so on. I wrote it by mistake, and there are some other numbers… I will not comment on a specific person, but potentially no official was actually checked… Only now the NAPC announced that they have started checking the declarations of officials claiming cryptocurrencies. I don’t know how they will do it, “says Mykola Melnychuk.
“Money,” asked the NAPC how these inspections will take place. They did it three weeks ago. However, at the time of the program, no response was received.
Given that only NAPCs have the ability to verify the accuracy of officials’ declarations, the conclusion is self-evident: the NAPC violates our right to information because they simply do not know how to verify data on cryptocurrencies.
“Someone may have tried to legalize their funds because indeed, cryptocurrencies bought 5-6 years ago for the same money now cost completely different money. And, yes, it is possible to explain any income “, – Mykola Melnychuk convinces.
Income, first of all, is corrupt. After all, it is difficult to explain it in another way. So how many of the 75 billion hryvnias in Ukrainian bitcoins actually exist is a mystery that cannot be solved. Someone, of course, has something. But, probably, most of it is nothing more than fiction and pre-insurance. So that the official could then explain the illegal unrealistic profits.
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Source: Ukrgate
