In the summer, the news feed was filled with high-profile disclosures of dozens of “call centers”, staffed by hundreds of young people, aimed at misleading the most vulnerable categories of the population - pensioners, people with disabilities and others.
People's deputies of Ukraine also joined the high-profile investigations, forming a Temporary Investigative Commission to investigate the activities of illegal “call centers”. As often happens, its flagship was People’s Deputy Nikolai Tishchenko, who during his tenure changed a dozen areas in his activities. At the beginning of their activities, the people’s representatives demonstrated the enormous scale of the problem - in fact, daily news appeared about the “covering up” of a new “call center” in the largest Ukrainian cities - Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov, Lvov, Dnieper and others. Despite this, their activities did not become less large-scale: there were cases when a fraudulent office was closed by law enforcement officers one day, and the next day it was working quietly. A logical question arises: did they pay off or decide? It seems so. Almost no one hears about illegal activities anymore, although the “call centers” work as they always did. Antikor investigative journalists managed to communicate with people close to the main “office officials” of our country. Our material contains an exclusive about how one of the most profitable illegal activities in Ukraine works.
King of call centers
An Antikor source shared with our journalist what is happening behind the scenes of the “offices”. According to him, the work of illegal “call centers” in Ukraine against the backdrop of war brings enormous profits. The shadow business segment brings owners billions of US dollars annually.
“The problem of “offices” is actually not a problem, because you have no idea how many people “feed” on this “business.” In Kyiv, most luxury real estate, expensive cars, and luxury items are bought by “office workers.” Tens of thousands of people are involved in the region, and if in social. networks you see a 20-year-old “cryptocurrency specialist” or “IT specialist”-dollar millionaire, 90% of whom are related to call centers,” said an informed Antikor source.
To the question of who is at the top of this pyramid, our journalists did not immediately receive a definite answer, because, as the interlocutor said, “there is no single leader, there are entire groups, regional, although in recent years one prominent character has appeared who is “working” mainly foreign market. His nickname is “Moldovan”. This is due to the fact that he is a citizen of Moldova who came to Ukraine several months before the start of a full-scale war. His real name is Eduard Chapkis.”
As we were able to establish, such a person really exists and has already appeared in Antikor publications. In August 2023, when the Temporary Investigative Commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine discovered one of the call centers in the capital Obolon, where dozens of operators worked, Eduard Chapkis was caught on camera for the first time.
A profile photograph of a young man with a beard from several tens of meters is the only publicly available photograph of Eduard Chapkis. The business is not transparent, and therefore the supervisor behind it “encrypts” his identity as much as possible. However, in the modern world it is not so easy to hide all information about yourself, especially when you have a multi-million dollar fortune of unknown origin.
The footage from the discovery of an illegal call center in August last year is truly shocking. In an elite business center in the capital Obolon, hundreds of operators sat simultaneously and lured tens of millions of hryvnias out of gullible Ukrainians.
The last photo shows a solid Mercedes S580 Maybach, which, according to Antikor, is used by one of the call center bosses, Eduard Chapkis. He bought the car in the spring of 2023. According to the information posted on the specialized car sales website Avtoria, a 2021 vehicle with 9 thousand kilometers was sold in April 2023 for $286,000. Chapkis became the happy owner of a precious German car.
From April to the end of July, Chapkis drove the Merc for 6 thousand kilometers and subsequently decided to sell it. Information about the sale of Maybach reappeared on Avtoria at the end of July 2023. True, a citizen of Moldova decided to make decent money on the deal by selling a car purchased for 286 thousand dollars for 340 thousand.
Probably, there were no stupid people, and already in August 2023 the car was taken off the market. Around the same time, he was photographed near an illegal call center in the capital Obolon.
In addition to Mercedes, Chapkis owns Toyota, Tesla and Range Rover. A good fleet of vehicles with a total cost of 500 to 700 thousand US dollars.
In addition to valuable transport, Chapkis also owns an apartment in the most expensive area of Kyiv - Pechersk. As we were able to establish, until October 2021 he lived in a modest apartment in a typical 5-story building, which is located on Stroiteley Street in the Dnieper district of Kiev.
From Khrushchev, Chapkis moved straight to the Alter Ego business-class housing complex in the center of the capital. Prices for renovated one-room apartments, according to information from specialized services, start from 150-180 thousand dollars.
Despite the fact that Chapkis did not and cannot have confirmation of the origin of the funds (more on this later), such purchases did not raise questions from banks, the tax office, or law enforcement officers. According to Antikor's sources in law enforcement agencies, there are no criminal proceedings in which Chapkis is a suspect or accused. This is despite the fact that in August, during the disclosure of one of the illegal call centers, he was caught red-handed.
Businessman in poverty
Officially in Ukraine, Chapkis owns 7 legal entities and is also registered as an individual entrepreneur. Chapkis’s main activity as a self-employed entrepreneur is computer programming (typical for organizers of “call centers”). Considering that for individual entrepreneurs the income limit in 2023 was almost 8.3 million hryvnia (of which 5% of the single tax and a single social contribution still need to be paid), Chapkis’ maximum income from business activities could be 7.8 million. hryvnia This would not be enough to even buy a Mercedes S580 Maybach, let alone anything else. Perhaps the 7 companies in which he is the owner bring super-profits to the citizen of Moldova? But not here either. Most of Chapkis's enterprises did not file financial statements for 2022-2023 at all, and those that did show a "minus". For example, the Limited Liability Company Interfold Creative, owned by Chapkis, declared income of 26 million hryvnia during 2022-2023. At the same time, the net profit of the enterprise amounted to -4.5 thousand hryvnia, that is, it is officially unprofitable. Officially, there is only one person working in the company - probably the director Stanislav Chuprikov. Interfold Creative has no liabilities, as well as no assets, which means the big question is where the company gets its funds and where they disappear.
For some reason, none of the companies owned by Chapkis are registered at the address where he owns office space. As we were able to establish, the Moldovan entrepreneur is the owner of premises No. 6 in the Wave Tower business center near the Pochayna metro station in Kyiv.
It was in this business center that in August 2023 a large-scale call center was discovered, which we wrote about above. It is not surprising that Edik Moldovan did not register his companies here, having property in a modern office building, because then not only by cause-and-effect relationship it would be possible to determine that there is a criminal call center run by Chapkis, but also by direct evidence base.
But this array is not all the “skeletons in the closet” of the “gray eminence” of the capital’s call centers, Eduard Chapkis.
To be continued…
