Russia loses $15bn in fictitious Belarusian imports

More than a quarter of capital outflow from Russia was made through the “Belarusian scheme”.

The Central Bank of Russia released the data on transactions from Russia via schemes of fake import from Belarus. The volume of transferred money appears to be worse than expected. As much as $15bn, more than a quarter of the net capital outflow from Russia, were transferred in 2012. Measures were taken against such schemes at many levels, but they haven't brought real results. The leadership of the Customs Union, the Central Bank, bankers, the Federal Financial Monitoring Service and law-enforcement bodies shift responsibility on one another, Kommersant (Russia) writes.

The Central Bank (CB) released letter 104-T “On Paying Increased Attention of Banking Companies to Certain Transactions by Clients” on Tuesday and assessed the volume of the capital outflow from Russia via fictitious imports from Belarus. More than $15bn, more than a quarter of the net flight of outflow from Russia, were transferred from the country only in 2012. Until recently, the scale of the problem, which has been existing for many years, wasn't unveiled. CB representatives only noted that the so called “Belarusian syndrome” replaced other schemes that became uncomfortable due to regulators' actions. The figure $15bn does not include capital outflow from Russia through similar “Kazakh schemes”. The Central Bank doesn't disclose their volume.

The sense of the scheme is that Russian residents make transactions through foreign trade contracts, under which goods are “imported” from Belarus and money is transferred to accounts of “sellers” in foreign banks outside Belarus and Russia. Banks cannot check if such supplies are real due to absence of the customs control within the territory of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. In the Customs Union, to import goods to Russia, one needs to have only waybills (which do not require customs control) instead of customs cargo declarations (which authenticity can be checked in the database of the Federal Customs Service).

Actually, the very existence of the Customs Union provokes similar schemes. The Union customs services already discussed the problem of “shadow schemes of indirect tax evasion” in spring 2012. The parties discussed the case when a Russian businessman bought goods in Kazakhstan and sold them outside the Customs Union without paying VAT to Russia. Struggling with such schemes through strengthening legislation conflicts with the aims of the Customs Union, which was founded to simplify trade between the Union member states.