Br 10.5 million fine for buying dollars from profiteers

The state control committee has started dealing with both profiteers and their clients. The official website of the SCC has informed about a detention in Lida. A local inhabitant bought 2500 dollars from a profiteer standing not far from one of currency exchange offices. Then he approached another office and bought 2300 dollars from another “shroff”.

The financial police of the State Control Committee detained all the three and drew administrative protocols against them. The men had more than 25 thousand dollars in different currencies on them.

Each of the detained may be fined for up to 10.5 million Belarusian roubles.
  
“All the three men will be subjected to administrative responsibility, - said employees of the SCC press service to ERB. – Illegal currency exchange operations will result in a fine from 50 (1 million 750 thousand roubles) to 300 (10.5 million roubles). The exchanged money will be confiscated”.

Despite the struggle against profiteers, their number is not decreasing. There are all kinds of “moneychangers” wandering around every currency exchange office like before 2000. 

“There are long queues to currency exchange offices. That is why profiteers are making money on it. They are artful and send elderly women there instead of themselves, - said an entrepreneur Maryna working in Minsk exposition centre “Happiness”. – Thus they buy and sell as much as possible.  I do not buy dollars from them, I manage to get them in currency exchange offices. People are not that silly now, they are afraid of being cheated. That is why the majority of people still go to currency exchange offices”.

The law indicates that both the profiteer and the client should be subjected to responsibility for illegal currency exchange operations; however, this practice is not common. This is what one of employees of Homel Region SCC financial police told us.   

Employee: “They are both infringers: the profiteer and the client. However, our employees always take circumstances into account. We usually punish profiteers. The main thing is that you should give the right explanations if you are caught buying dollars from profiteers. You should say that you did not look for the profiteer and that he or she came up to you and suggested exchanging your money”.

ERB: “Can they punish me together with profiteers should I buy dollars from them?”

Employee: “They can, but they usually forgive it”.

Profiteers are being caught all over the country and in all kinds of places. Minsk policemen noticed an Azerbaijanian buying 50 dollars from a profiteer in Zhdanovichy market. Both were detained in the profiteer’s car. There is no general Belarusian statistics of detentions for illegal currency exchange operations being gathered now. However, it is evident that there have been more than a dozen cases of the kind…

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