In Europe, a crypto fraud scheme involving the laundering of over 2.5 billion hryvnia was uncovered, — State Financial Monitoring

More than UAH 2.5 billion in criminal proceeds passed through a group of companies linked to a money laundering scheme derived from fraud and cryptocurrency scams in European countries.

This was reported by Filip Pronin, Head of the State Financial Monitoring Service.

According to him, the scheme was uncovered in cooperation with financial intelligence units of other countries. Analysis of foreign transactions combined with Ukrainian data helped establish connections between the companies, sources of funds, and the directions of their further movement.

In particular, one company’s account at a European bank was linked to the email address of a Ukrainian citizen. Another non-resident company that received funds from European shell companies as part of an investment fraud scheme is headed by a Ukrainian citizen. According to the financial monitoring data, both accounts were managed from Kyiv.

During the review of Ukrainian data on this individual, it was found that the bank had previously terminated its business relationship with him due to a debt of UAH 250,000. The right to claim the debt was later sold to a debt collection company.

According to Pronin, the man is currently wanted by investigators in a case involving the illegal transportation of people across the state border.

The individuals are linked to a large organization specializing in cryptocurrency fraud. The collected materials have been transferred to law enforcement agencies.

“Transactions involving virtual assets remain the most difficult to track — the market in Ukraine is still unregulated, and there are no transparent control mechanisms. Despite this, we detect cryptocurrency schemes by analyzing financial flows, connections between companies, and digital traces of their owners,” Pronin stated.