In January 2002, the State Department of Financial Monitoring was created within the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine. That same year, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Law of Ukraine "On Prevention and Counteraction to Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime," which became the foundation for building a national system to counter new challenges and threats. In 2005, a regional department was created in our oblast. The main task: conducting an active process of tracking possible facts of money laundering, financial intelligence on the ground.
During 2006, the State Financial Monitoring Service transferred to law enforcement agencies of Volyn oblast materials indicating suspicion of laundering (legalization) of criminally obtained funds totaling over UAH 1 billion 100 million. Based on the results of reviews of such materials, 8 criminal cases have already been initiated and are under investigation, where the total amount of laundered funds is UAH 511 million. Some of the transferred materials are at the stage of review.
The most common schemes for laundering criminal funds among business entities of Volyn are fictitious export-import operations. Foreign economic operations have become one of the main channels for capital outflow beyond the borders of the state. These are primarily undervaluation of prices for exported goods, untimely return of foreign currency earnings, overvaluation of prices for imported goods, as well as fake import contracts aimed at unjustified VAT refunds. Part of the exported shadow capital later returns to the country in the form of foreign investments. At the same time, there is a risk of penetration and legalization of foreign criminal funds in Ukraine. For example, one of the commercial firms registered in Kamin-Kashyrskyi raion, which was represented by only one director, carried out illegal financial operations where the total amount of legalization (laundering) is over UAH 104 million.
Also common are already known operations involving conversion of funds into cash. Such operations are usually conducted by so-called conversion centers, which are a peculiar type of financial structure with a clear division of duties and powers, and have a network of fictitious enterprises or individuals through whose accounts non-cash funds are directly converted into cash. Fictitious firms are mostly created by a group of persons who have significant experience in this activity and are closely connected with credit and financial institutions. At the same time, the accounts of such enterprises are opened specifically in controlled banking institutions, which provides the ability to fully control the money flows passing through the "transit" firm. In particular, a number of fictitious commercial structures of the Kyiv region, through proxy individuals — residents of Lutsk — laundered criminally obtained funds in the amount of over UAH 55 million.
The securities market is no exception for Volyn either — a potentially attractive mechanism for laundering criminally obtained funds, since it is characterized by diversity and simplicity of trading conditions (for example, electronic trading). In this case, a business entity — a resident — sells securities belonging to an individual — a non-resident. The sale is carried out on the basis of an agreement for commission activity or agency agreements. In fact, under the guise of selling securities, dirty funds from various enterprises of Ukraine are accumulated in the enterprise's account, which are subsequently transferred to the account of an individual — a non-resident with further direction to the latter's account in a foreign bank.