The law adds new provisions to Ukraine’s Criminal Code covering the illegal collection, storage and use of personal data, banking secrecy information and payment instrument details for the purpose of taking someone else’s property.
The document introduces a formal corpus delicti to make it easier to prosecute systemic schemes, including so-called financial pyramids.
Zheleznyak added that the Criminal Code will now also include new articles on the creation and leadership of an electronic communications fraud organization, participation in such an organization, and recruiting others into it.
Earlier, National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) Director Semen Kryvonos said call center networks in Ukraine could amount to a Russian sabotage operation. According to him, tens of thousands of young people are effectively engaged in fraudulent activity. He said the call centers target Ukraine’s European partners rather than Russians.
Andrii Osadchuk, first deputy head of the parliamentary law enforcement committee, also told Radio NV that the criminal industry of scam call centers, which he said likely still exists, involves tens of thousands of people.
NABU’s Operation Carthage
On Sept. 4, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau said it had carried out a special operation exposing a criminal organization allegedly headed by an employee of the Office of the Prosecutor General.
NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) detained Serhii Kropyva, head of the cyber department of the Prosecutor General’s Office. The anti-corruption agencies said the official may have been involved in covering up a network of scam call centers and laundering illegally obtained property.
NABU said five people had been exposed in proceedings under Article 255 of the Criminal Code, creating, leading or participating in a criminal organization, and Article 209, money laundering. Those convicted could face up to 15 years in prison.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court later placed Kropyva in custody until Nov. 2, with the option of release on 120 million hryvnias ($2.7 million) in bail.
Kropyva is suspected of protecting illegal call centers and laundering more than 89 million hryvnias ($2 million) in assets. His lawyers said they plan to appeal the court’s decision.