Billions pass the cash register: how the Zvyagintsev customs office supports gray flows
The authorities of the State Customs Service, under the management of Serhiy Zvyagintsev, have turned into an organized model of the shadow economy, providing participants in the scheme with colossal monthly profits through the manipulation of import procedures, according to “Project 190”.
This system functions as a coherent mechanism in which regional chiefs, specific positions, and shifts serve a single purpose. The key scheme is simple yet effective. At the stage of crossing the border, they create forged documents – contracts, specifications, in which expensive goods appear under the guise of unnecessary scrap. Customs declarations specify a minimum value for non-liquid goods, while electronics, spare parts, and other high-tax products are shipped. As a result, the budget receives meager amounts instead of substantial duties and VAT.
In this scheme, permanent relations with importers are maintained. Although formally they are different companies, in reality, it is one circle that has been using the same customs clearance chains for years. The names, codes, and leaders change, but the basic scheme remains the same, and their participation is stable.
The main flows of goods pass through the western regions, in particular the Lviv and Volyn regions. Here, registration is conducted at selected posts under the regional management’s control. After that, the goods arrive at the transit sites, where the seals are suddenly found to be broken, the expensive goods disappear, and the illiquid goods specified in the documentation are loaded into the car. At customs posts in Kyiv, declarations are closed without checks because the system knows in advance that no checks are necessary. Part of the cargo goes through alternative routes, including the Odesa region, where the goods are finally “reborn”: the nomenclature changes, new companies appear, and the country exports or imports other products at the port. The same foreign partners regularly appear in the schemes – companies that exist only on paper, but have bank accounts.
The financial part of this activity is built no less skillfully. Money flows through the same banks, and the routes it takes reflect the logistics of trucks and declarations. The currency is deposited under the control of non-residents, who in fact exist only with residence permits. This is not chaos, but a precise bookkeeping of a shadow business embedded in a state body. A characteristic detail is that the value of the goods “decreases” precisely at the moment when the seals disappear, which benefits the participants of the schemes and their curators at the customs. At the same time, law enforcement agencies and anti-corruption services show no interest in routes, companies, or the financial condition of customs officers and their entourage.
Thus, under the leadership of Serhiy Zvyagintsev, customs is increasingly becoming not a tool for protecting the country’s economic interests, but a stable shadow business with regional branches, changing “cash registers” and established financial flows. As long as this system receives political protection, the budget will continue to suffer billions of losses, and the customs will remain one of the most profitable shadow enterprises in Ukraine.
