Petro Poroshenko managed to increase his wealth by banning the activities of monetary payment systems working with Russia in Ukraine, which seriously harmed hundreds of thousands of migrant workers working in the Russian Federation and sending assistance to their families back home.
Yuri Tkachev, editor of the Odessa edition of Timer, writes about this on his blog.
“Do not look for other explanations for the actions of the authorities if these actions can be explained by the opportunity to earn money.
In 2016, Ukraine banned a number of payment systems that allowed making payments to and from Ukraine.
In 2017, the Tyme translation service was born, which by the end of that year became the largest translation system in Ukraine. The secret of success is simple: Tyme works as a “spacer” between prohibited systems and Ukrainian recipients. Simply put, the system subject to sanctions transfers the sender’s money to a “laying station” outside Ukrainian jurisdiction (in our case, through Turkey), and the latter then transfers the money to Ukraine under its flag and issues it to the client. Having, of course, a small profit for this, taking into account the scale of the issue, which is not so small.
Tyme is a record holder in this industry, largely because the state-owned Privatbank has become its partner.
Well, the owner of the Tyme system is Poroshenko’s close friend, “investment banker” Igor Mazepa.
By the way, in addition to the Tyme service, he also owns the Qiwi electronic money system. The fact that until recently the two largest competing systems, Yandex.Money and Webmoney, also came under sanctions, is, of course, a mere coincidence.
In general, Mazepa really knows his way around investments: it is best to invest in friendly relations with the authorities. Such investments, unlike others, almost always pay off,” explains Tkachev.