National police exposed a network of illegal commodity exchanges
All of them carried out their activities without the corresponding licenses.
In early October 2021, the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police was contacted by the National Securities and Stock Market Commission regarding the illegal activities of certain commodity exchanges. Contrary to the established legal norms, they carried out professional activities to organize trade in products without obtaining a license.
Investigators of the Main Investigation Department of the National Police, together with the operatives of the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police, established more than 10 commodity exchanges in different areas of the country that were operating illegally. Therefore, they illegally conducted trade in forest products on their sites. All funds received from operations went exclusively into the “pocket” of the owners.
On the basis of court decisions, the police conducted sanctioned searches in the offices of commodity exchanges on the territory of Vinnytsia, Sumy, Volyn, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Lviv, Zakarpattia regions and in the city of Kyiv. They seized economic documentation, seals, “draft” records, money, as well as arrests were made on the accounts of commodity exchanges.
Criminal proceedings are opened under Article 190 (fraud) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, procedural guidance is carried out by prosecutors of the Office of the Prosecutor General.
The pre-trial investigation is ongoing.
Department of Strategic Investigations
National Police of Ukraine
