Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Most likely, someone deliberately “opened a window” for them.
There were as many as three levels of protection against the corrupt system of legalizing proceeds of crime for posting bail for former energy minister Herman Halushchenko, but none of them worked, said Member of Parliament Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
Thus, the scheme exposed by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine could have been caught by financial monitoring at Sense Bank itself, whose management is implicated in the case, the National Bank of Ukraine, and the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine.
“Three independent levels. Do you know how many of them worked? Zero. And this is not the first time. Because back in November last year at a meeting of our temporary investigative commission I asked that very head of the State Financial Monitoring Service specifically about bail payments. About the fact that they’re delivered by companies with a statutory capital of one thousand hryvnias, and nobody somehow notices that,” the deputy said.
He recalled that Filip Pronin then responded very evasively: “There is a request from NABU, we are working on it. … I don’t know from which bank the money was deposited.”
For its part, the NBU has already fined Sense Bank at least twice for violations in the field of financial monitoring. Zheleznyak noted that the problem was seen long before the exposed story, but the question is that a “window” was opened for it.
The deputy reminded that since July a bill No. 15388 has been registered in parliament to strengthen control over the legality of the origin of funds posted as bail, which will give NABU and the SAP the ability to quickly check the chain of origin of the money. The main criteria for additional checks will be a lack of personnel in the company, absence of reporting, and recent registration.
Instead, direct questions about the “Forrest Gump” case will be put to officials of the Ministry of Finance, the NBU, the State Financial Monitoring Service, Oschadbank, Sense Bank, as well as the leadership of NABU and the SAP by deputies at a meeting of the Temporary Investigative Commission on 2 September.
“We want to see a public answer at the TSC meeting as to why, for example, the head of the Financial Monitoring Service has not been dismissed. Why, accordingly, the National Bank did not see this all this time and how many such bail payments went through. Moreover, the question is likely not only to Sense Bank but also to Oschadbank,” Zheleznyak said.
Recall, on 19 August NABU announced suspicions of money laundering against ten people who ensured the deposit of 150 million hryvnias in bail for the defendant in the “Midas” case, former energy minister Herman Halushchenko. According to the investigation, the entire process was overseen by Irina Mudra, the deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, who was dismissed the same day.
The case also involves people such as the director-general of the Directorate for Legal Policy of the Office of the President, Viktor Dubovyk, Deputy Justice Minister Olena Ferens, former MP Maksym Mykytas, current MP Vadym Stolar, officials of Sense Bank, and others.
The following day NABU announced that the organizers of the scheme to legalize money for bail were also engaged in raiding real estate and businesses. Additional charges have been filed against them in that episode.
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