State Tax Service, together with the law enforcement agencies and state institutions, created interdepartmental working group to counter schemes for withdrawing funds abroad. This was informed by acting Head of the State Tax Service, Lesya Karnaukh.

She recalled that the State Tax Service recently published information about a large-scale scheme for withdrawing funds abroad through risky companies. This involved more than 2.3 thousand companies that carried out foreign economic operations worth more than 198 billion UAH and then virtually disappeared.

“Our task is not only to identify such schemes, but also, together with the law enforcement agencies and other state institutions, to destroy them and do everything possible to bring perpetrators and organizers to justice. We discussed this during a joint meeting with leadership participation of the State Tax Service, Economic Security Bureau, National Bank, State Customs Service, State Financial Monitoring Service and the Prosecutor General’s Office. We decided to create joint interdepartmental working group” – she stated.

Parties agreed to exchange analytics for each case, each case will be worked out separately in detail and cooperation will take place to establish the full chain of involved persons. Each company, each person will be worked out step by step.

In addition, the group members will coordinate actions for early detection of risky foreign economic transactions, identification of schemes’ organizers, ultimate beneficiaries and actual controllers of the non-resident companies that can be used for illegal withdrawal of funds.

Each body will work within its competence.

“We must respond effectively to all identified violations. For a country in the wartime, this is primarily a matter of economic security. Because funds should be used for our defense, and not taken abroad, as in this case” – Lesya Karnaukh added.