Annually, the budget of Ukraine receives about 50 billion hryvnias due to the shadow market of excisable goods — Denis Monastyrsky
On November 1, by order of the Minister of Internal Affairs Denis Monastyrsky, the Ministry of Internal Affairs began the operation “Excise”. The main objective is to stop illegal trade without paying taxes in the markets of fuel, spirits and tobacco products.
Only in the first month of operational measures, police officers have drawn up protocols on violations of the rules of trade in excisable goods more than in the past year and a half.
Since November 1, the police have checked more than 86 thousand objects, conducted 384 searches, opened 141 criminal proceedings. Law enforcement officers seized more than 1 million packs of tobacco products and 400 kg of crushed tobacco, more than 246 thousand liters of alcohol products, almost 103 thousand liters of ethyl alcohol, 18 cars that transported the excise group of goods. And also 3.5 thousand stamps of excise tax with signs of falsification.
During the inspections of the illegal fuel market, 87 administrative and 13 criminal proceedings have been initiated in the last 10 days alone. Almost 8 thousand tons of fuel were seized from illegal circulation, estimated at about 100 million UAH, as well as 141 units of specialized equipment.
For example, in Kharkiv the police exposed the underground production of fuel - products and equipment worth 192 million UAH were seized. As law enforcement officials established, illegal production of fuel on an industrial scale was organized by a private entrepreneur from Kharkiv, attracted the owner of the gas station network and employees of companies in the field of production of petroleum products. For the manufacture of low-quality “goods”, an underground mini-factory was equipped on the territory of one of the settlements of Kharkiv district. By adding various chemical additives, “gasoline” was obtained, which was sold under the guise of “Euro-95”.
In the Mykolaiv region, the activities of four workshops with the production of counterfeit alcohol products were exposed and stopped, 14 thousand liters of counterfeit alcohol were seized, and more than 53 thousand excisable packs of tobacco products were also discovered.
An underground workshop for the production of tobacco products has been exposed in Lviv region. Local police officers during only two special operations seized equipment and illegal products worth more than UAH 30 million.
