Top managers of the National Bank could have been "covering up" billion-dollar gambling business schemes — Media

Top managers of the National Bank could have been "covering up" billion-dollar gambling business schemes — Media

Former Director of the Banking Supervision Department of the National Bank of Ukraine Natalya Dehtyaryova and Deputy Director of the Financial Monitoring Department Tetyana Butkovska are likely involved in a scandalous case regarding gambling business operators evading taxes.

This is reported in the publication "Roof of miscoding: who in the National Bank helped the gambling business evade taxes?" writes the publication Fakty. 

As it is known, in the spring of this year, the SSU and BES initiated 45 criminal cases regarding the conspiracy of bookmakers and online casinos with nine Ukrainian banks to evade taxes through the implementation of miscoding schemes — manipulations with transaction codes, where instead of code 7995, related to gambling, banks indicated other codes, allowing operators to hide their real turnovers and evade paying taxes amounting to tens of billions of hryvnias.

The scheme involved the state-owned "Ukrgasbank" and private IBOX BANK, bank "Forward", "Sense Bank" (Russian "Alfa Bank"), Oksi Bank, Com In Bank, Concord Bank, as well as PUMB and Universal Bank. However, the publication emphasizes that such massive schemes at ten banks could not have occurred without the participation of the National Bank of Ukraine. Back in March 2023, it was stated by Member of Parliament Oleksiy Zhmerenetskyi that NBU employees were also involved in the conspiracy with banks and gambling operators.

"Until September 2022, no government agencies purportedly ’knew’ about these schemes. The National Bank ’did not notice’ that fraudulent transactions were being conducted through accounts until the entire staff of the relevant department was changed," the deputy stated.

Natalya Dehtyaryova, during her tenure from 2016 as the head of bank supervision, is accused of systematically ignoring financial violations of several banks and being lenient towards Russia’s "Alfa Bank" (Sense Bank) and Ukrgasbank. While Kyrylo Shevchenko was head of the NBU, Natalya Dehtyaryova did not see any violations in the operations of his native Ukrgasbank, where he was chairman of the board. However, after Shevchenko’s resignation from the NBU, an inspection at Ukrgasbank revealed over 2,000 violations, noted journalist Serhiy Lyamets.

Additionally, Dehtyaryova is accused of silently observing how money was transferred by the Russian bookmaker 1xBet through the company RoyalPay during the 10 months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which only at the end of the year attracted the attention of the NSDC and was sanctioned.

"Natalya Dehtyaryova did not notice and remained silently observing the massive gambling miscoding for many months, neither at her ’patronized’ Alfa Bank and Ukrgasbank, nor at all others. It was only noticed by the BES and the SSU," the publication states.

According to the publication, "Ibox Bank" conducted 1.4 billion UAH for the period from January to July 2022 under the "cybersport" code. "Concord Bank" conducted payments amounting to 132 billion UAH from October 2021 to January 2023, with 66% of them under the 7994 "video games" code. "ComInBank" had 90% of transactions over almost 1.5 years as video game purchases, through which 125 billion UAH passed under that code.

"Could it be unnoticed over a year and a half that suddenly during the war Ukrainians began massively purchasing computer games for tens and hundreds of billions of hryvnias? Hardly. But Natalya Dehtyaryova didn’t notice," journalists emphasize.

In April 2023, the new head of the NBU Andriy Pyshnyi dismissed Natalya Dehtyaryova. Before her dismissal, as was reported by the interlocutor in the NBU to UBR, Dehtyaryova was summoned for questioning — most likely related to miscoding cases. Tetyana Butkovska remains in her position to this day.

ukranews.com