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The Land of Israel has historically been a point of attraction for Jews from all over the world. The Zionist movement, which began more than a century ago, only gained strength over time. Natives of dozens of countries around the world, who were scattered around the world of war and hard times, returned to the Promised Land, bringing their knowledge, skills, and culture to the common Jewish home, increasing its welfare and security.
But together with In a stormy stream that poured from the republics of the former USSR in the 70-the 90s of the XX century, streams of people who had a very indirect relationship to Jewry also infiltrated into Israel. Or none at all. Here it was a question of personal selfish interest. After all, an Israeli passport gave an unprecedented opportunity for a former Soviet person to travel the world without a visa, and from most claims, one could hide on the fertile beaches of Herzliya and Eilat.
By welcoming repatriates, Israel gave them a solid start in the form of absorption assistance, preferential housing loans, language learning, and, importantly, tax incentives. However, as in any country in the world, such preferences are not permanent. It was assumed that when an immigrant gets on his feet, then in ten years he can be equal in his obligations with the rest of the society, which gave him shelter and warmth. By doing this, he “repaid the debt”, thereby providing resources for accepting new visitors. This prospect made many people happy, but not those who chose an Israeli passport out of selfish interests. After all, they are not worried about the fate of the new Motherland, surrounded by benevolent bearded neighbours. They only care about personal gain.
We will tell about one of these “Jews” in our journalistic investigation. So, on July 16, 1984, a boy was born in the USSR, who was named the “typical” Jewish name Aleksey. And the surname of his father was also “usual” for Russian Jews – Eremenko. The boy grew up and decided that in Russia he was cramped and bad. Persecuted, apparently, for his Jewishness, he directs his footsteps to Israel and receives citizenship there. The investigation has yet to find out how legitimate this was. However, he transfers the centre of his life to the Promised Land and lives for many years, hiding behind its protection and a passport.
In 2020, his accountant turns to the tax authorities with a modest question about how his client can declare the small savings that have arisen from him as a result of certain operations in the crypto-currency market. However, when he announced the amount of these savings, the responsible workers were breathless. It was about the amount of more than 204 million shekels (about 70 million US dollars). Without asking any special questions, the tax authorities rolled out a “price tag” of 25%, which, is not so much for Israel. And on a global scale, this is a perfectly acceptable tax rate on capital gains. Approximately comparable percentages are applied in Germany and the USA, as well as in Holland and some cantons of Switzerland. Considering that a person earned it purely on speculation, and not with blood and sweat, growing vegetables in a kibbutz, then the question of justice does not arise at all. If, of course, he earned them, but more on that below.
Our “Jew” Aleksey angrily rejected the offer of the publicans and began looking for opportunities for tax evasion and money laundering. And not only for myself but also for my colleagues in the dangerous crypto business. For these purposes, he turned to specialized lawyers from Switzerland, to whom, without equivocation, he asked a question about how to minimize taxes on income, get a Swiss passport or residence permit, drag friends there, and generally invest in gold and silver without VAT. Alyosha did not know that there is such a well-known organization in narrow circles in Switzerland – FinMA, which licenses all these lawyers and financial intermediaries through self-regulatory organizations. Among other things, it fights against money laundering, tax evasion, and other delights of wild capitalism. And since the lawyers were contacted in open correspondence and indirect text, they, according to the law, had no right not to report an attempted violation at the instance. And, of course, without notifying the client. Such is the law in Switzerland.
Thus, from the point of view of Israel, Eremenko received income, being a resident (having the centre of life) in the country, which means that he is obliged to pay taxes for the period when they were received. Evasion of this honourable right means the onset of already quite a criminal liability in the context of Article 220 of Part 64 of Subparagraph 4. After all, the concealment of income implies the submission of incomplete reports, forgery of business papers, and other minor accounting delights. Will arrive, of course, and Lesha accountant, who signed and submitted documents. Licenses will be revoked. But this is all in the future, within the framework of administrative procedures.
But with Switzerland, Alexei did not grow together and he realized that he had been merged. Therefore, he rushed to where, as from Tortuga, there has been no issue since the 17th century – to Ukraine. It turned out that Eremenko was not a Jewish, but a Ukrainian surname. This is a surprise. And he became Oleksiy Eremenko – a boy-businessman. The anti-Semitic Ukraine in the recent past accepted our Jew quite amicably. Indeed, the “investor” did not come with empty pockets. He immediately opened two companies there, and at the same time applied for registration of copyright for trademarks. By the way, this is a classic withdrawal of funds – a horse deduction of certain royalties for brands that no one has ever heard of except the licensee.
The Israeli tax authorities tried, of course, to find Alexey through his parents, but they flatly refused to help them. Like, the child has gone far, far away. We don’t know where he lives. Don’t write or call. I completely forgot the old people in their cozy house in Netanya, which was probably bought for their hard-earned retirement savings. No, he, of course, helped his parents a little, gave money, there, for food, for this and that. But now, straight, there is no connection with him. However, no one expected other words from normal parents.
What in this whole story does not add up? Well, there was a certain Russian “Jew”, well, he lived in Israel, well, he fled with money to Ukraine. What is it? Tea, not a killer?
However, simple arithmetic paints us a slightly different picture. Lesha’s accountant said that Eremenko received income in 2020 from operations with bitcoin. Let’s say it’s true. Suppose that our Alyosha bought a “crypt” in 2020 at the lowest price level. Let’s say, in March, 5.5 thousand dollars per “cue ball”. And he sold them at the highest rate – $ 37.7 thousand. That is, he earned “his” 70 million dollars for about 1850 cue ball. But before that, he spent more than 10 million on their purchase. And they were not declared … Oops!
Developing our logic. Let’s say Lesha, having earned a net 60 million, could pay 25% of them and live in peace. This would leave him almost 45 million in profit (after taxes) or 440% per annum. Absolutely legal! Drug dealers, counterfeiters, and gun barons nervously smoke on the sidelines. And that, for some unfortunate 15 million, he had to betray and abandon his Motherland and parents to escape to Ukraine, where the war has been going on for 7 years?
The explanation lies on the surface. When Eremenko let slip that he wants to hide not only his money, but also the funds of his accomplices, he spoke not so much about some super-successful investors in crypto-currency, but about those who through it scrolls dirty money obtained illegally. And if the money was “entrusted” to him, then they are not his personal, but very even “common”. Therefore, Eremenko not only could not share them with the state of Israel – he risked his head. And since our frontrunner rushed not somewhere to the Baltic states, say, and not even to Belarus or Russia, but to the Ukrainian land, the original origin of money becomes clearer.
If we recall, what kind of businessman has recently come under sanctions, which has become toxic and is at risk of being handed out in the United States and other countries, then the name of Pavel Fuchs immediately comes to mind. This person involved in the Forbes list of Ukraine, criminal cases of Kazakhstan, and US lawsuits, it is believed, has not only Ukrainian citizenship, but also Russian, and also, according to rumours, Israeli. It must be assumed that the NSDC sanctions imposed against him personally were not something unexpected, and he searched for safe havens ahead of time. Although most of its assets are frozen, some fields, such as Sakhalinskoye, are quite generating solid dividends. And even now, when Gazprom has inflated prices in Europe by 5-6 times. It is clear that both Ukrainians and Americans are watching people like Pavel Fuchs very closely and are ready to impose a freeze order on everything and everywhere. Recent scandals with other famous Ukrainian Jews confirm this. Therefore, the Ukrainian oligarchy needs the emergence of such unexpectedly successful investors who allegedly acquired crypto-currency and earned untold wealth on it. The chain is simple. First, somewhere on the territory of Ukraine, crypto-currency is bought for shadow money. Then it can be resold several times through OTC platforms or crypto-exchanges to cover their tracks (but the blockchain “remembers” everything). Then the supposedly successful investor who bought the cue ball cheaply converts it into fiat currency. These funds, as we see in the example of Pan Eremenko, are then trying to legalize in a third country. For example, in Israel. There, however, the tax “price tag” was considered too high, so they decided to try it in Switzerland. But it didn’t work there either.
The funny thing is that the crypt, having made a circle after the laundering fiasco, is likely to be cashed into hryvnia and other fiat currencies. But now in Kyiv or, say, Odesa. There she will go to accounts in some garbage dump, such as Bank Pivdenny, which has long been suspected in the press of assisting in the money laundering of Yanukovych’s team. The same one whose assets, by a strange coincidence, were bought after the Maidan by the same Pavel Fuks.
This particular example of how greed ruins a stupid fryer shows how much more sophisticated and inventive Ukrainian criminal circles and oligarchs are becoming. By hook or by crook, they are trying to bring capital into the “comfort zone” and use it already there for corruption and corruption of the system. The Israeli police and tax authorities are constantly monitoring the situation and doing their best. But without international support, without real assistance from Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies, and the political will of its top leadership, all these efforts have a very limited result. Fortunately, Ukraine is changing for the better! NABU, for example, like its federal Swiss and American counterparts, works closely on such issues. This means that justice will inevitably prevail!