More than two months have passed since January 23, since the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) approved five steps designed to calm the indignation of business about the illegal actions of law enforcement agencies - the ESB, the SBU, and the Prosecutor General's Office.
People's Deputy of Ukraine Yaroslav Zheleznyak states in his TG channel that none of the five points promised to protect business were fulfilled. The guilty security officials from the Bureau of Economic Security (BEB), the economic department of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and the Prosecutor General's Office, who previously committed “nightmares” and continue lawlessness and racketeering against Ukrainian business and foreign investors, were not punished.
"Nothing. Zero. Zero. Maybe the Prosecutor General will be changed, but this will have nothing to do with protecting business. As well as changes in the economic department of the SBU,” writes People’s Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak, first deputy chairman of the Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy of the Verkhovna Rada.
Despite the fact that, in accordance with the decision of the National Security and Defense Council, business inspections will be limited, and law enforcement agencies must refrain from searches, detentions and blocking of accounts for three months, the pressure on businesses has only intensified.
It is not for nothing that the People’s Deputy writes about the economic department of the SBU, which in recent years has become the main source of problems for many businessmen. Businessmen, people's deputies, journalists and millions of Ukrainians understand that this chaos, unfortunately, cannot be stopped without outside help. For example, a year ago the media wrote that BEB employees, together with colleagues from the SBU, under the guise of searches, actually carried out an attack on a financial company engaged in foreign exchange operations and operating under a license from the NBU. The actions of the security forces were unprecedented, they shocked the employees of the organization and jeopardized the further normal work of the company.
Then the company was attacked by the head of the BEB territorial directorate in the Lviv region, Vitaly Dragunov, and senior SBU officers Andrey Poddubny, Stanislav Yalansky and Alexey Efimov.
According to available information, security forces demanded 1.5% of turnover, and those who refuse are subject to searches and further actual theft of funds.
At the same time, businessmen are increasingly calling the name of the head of the 1st Directorate of the Main Directorate for Counterintelligence Protection of State Interests in the Sphere of Economic Security of the SBU, Alexey Viktorovich Efimov.
As noted by one of the businessmen who owns a FinTech company providing services in the financial market of Ukraine, after the formal dismissal of Artem Shilo from the post of head of the Main Directorate for Counterintelligence Protection of State Interests in the Sphere of Economic Security of the SBU, it is his protege Alexey Efimov, through Anton Rudenko, who continues to put pressure on business, forcing them to pay kickbacks, and those who do not pay publicly lose their business.
As journalists from the publication Zerkalo Nedeli noted, the reason for Shilo’s dismissal was a critical mass of complaints to the president from business. Also one of the reasons was that Shiloh was not taken into account at the Bank meeting with Russian bookmaker companies making efforts to return to the Ukrainian market after rebranding.
As the media wrote, Artem Shilo and his colleagues from the SBU have also been lobbying Russian online casinos 1XBet for a long time, and after its closure - PIN-UP (Pin-Up Casino, Pin up), destroying other licensed players, in particular, the gambling company Cosmolot "(Cosmolot). According to information from gambling market participants, Artem Shilo and Alexey Efimov have a stake in PIN-UP, so their interest in destroying competitors is more than personal.
Despite the decision of the National Security and Defense Council, a few days later, in early February of this year, the Bank seized UAH 700 million in the accounts of one of the largest gambling companies in Ukraine, Cosmolot.
The main investor of Cosmolot, Arnulf Damerau, then announced an attempted raider takeover of the company. According to him, he invested money in the hope of a new Ukrainian democracy on the way to membership in the EU and NATO, but now they are trying to seize his business. The investor added that he personally met with the organizer of the attack in Vienna, and he said that if he owned 50% of Cosmolot, the problems would end
According to him, the company not only paid UAH 2.6 billion in taxes to the Ukrainian budget last year, but also provides military assistance to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The raider attack will also hit the country: at the very least, it could deprive the budget of billions of hryvnia in taxes. In addition, it will destroy the image of Ukraine in the eyes of the international community.
Damerau said he would be forced to talk about the situation publicly.
“So now I will make these attacks public: to Bloomberg and Reuters, to the international business and diplomatic community, to the White House and Rammstein. I begin my work in Kyiv together with all the appropriate ambassadors. In particular, I will also pay personal visits to business and political leaders in London, Berlin, Brussels and this week in Washington,” he said.
Judging by the statements of Western investors and business representatives, only the intervention of the US Department of State, USAID, US can stop the raider actions of the SBU officers Artem Shilo, Alexey Efimov and their assistants and controlled people in the BEB and the Prosecutor General's Office. Embassy in Ukraine, as well as Western embassies, foreign media, etc.
Ukraine has already received it, but there will be even more enormous reputational costs and a lack of any investment if the lawlessness of these “SBU officers” does not stop.
