It's no secret that the current Ukrainian MP from the 136th electoral district, Odesa native Dmytro Golubov, is a high-profile cybercriminal of international significance. He even has a nickname, both in the media and among ordinary citizens: "MP MMM" (international fraudster).
The figure "$12 million" is traditionally cited as the amount Golubov stole from the world's largest banks. However, the ICTV channel, through host Ostap Stupka in the program "12 Best Shahrai," claimed that the sums in question were much larger, in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Imagine for a moment a situation where money starts disappearing from the accounts of the world's most powerful banking systems, with impeccable reputations and the best security. Big money! Clearly, it's via cards—and this is where electronic payment system giants like MasterCard and Visa come into focus.
Experts—people familiar with the details of the infamous criminal case, in which the FBI and Interpol identified the leader of an Eastern European cybermafia—are also talking about stolen funds amounting not to tens but to hundreds of millions of dollars. Ironically, he turned out to be the son of a musician and composer who, since childhood, dreamed not of sheet music, but of money. Dmitry Golubov was charged under Articles 4 of the Criminal Code, and his arrest was carried out secretly and meticulously—to prevent the fraudster from escaping and spending the stolen goods. Golubov spent six months in the Lukyanovsky pretrial detention center.
And here's where things get interesting. At a time when the FBI, Interpol, Visa, MasterCard, and the world's leading banks are all watching Kyiv's Solomensky Court (after all, it's not just about data and specific stolen money, but about global trust in the banking system and its reputation), Judge Volodymyr Skoryk decides to "release the defendant on bail to members of parliament"—Party of Regions members Volodymyr Demyokhin and Volodymyr Makeyenko.
These people had everything except... modern intellect. They, like their main boss—the country's then president—had learned to build careers and businesses in the "proletarian" realm. They were the garden managers, collective farm chairmen, and "grab-and-grab" purveyors of communism, who lacked the resources to compete with the young, brash competitors for a place "in the sun" alongside the Yanukovych family.
But they certainly had the practical, businesslike mind to realize that a "boy" sitting at a computer, stripping respected banking systems of millions of dollars, was the perfect gift for the president's son, Sasha Yanukovych, who had just begun building his corporation, Management Assets Company, in late 2005. Golubov had little choice: serve 12 years (the exact sentence the law prescribed for him) in prison and be released at 45 with his reputation tarnished internationally, or surrender to the Family and Sasha the Dentist, who had so esteemed the cyber-fraud star that witnesses like Visa and MasterCard were simply barred from the court. The denouement was truly theatrical and corrupt – the extensive case materials collected by Interpol and the FBI, which were sufficient to initiate a criminal case, apprehend the fraudster, and bring an indictment, were not enough for the Solomensky Court of Kyiv. Dmitry Golubov was released "due to lack of evidence of a crime."
I wonder what the village of Kotovsky, which elected Dmitry Golubov to the Verkhovna Rada, expects? Our people must truly be unhappy if they consider a paved road, a playground, and a couple of benches in the yard to be the height of their needs. All these "virtues" should be close to our homes without any parliamentary favors. Enough taxpayer money flows into the budget to ensure this. Yet, without a second thought, we applaud the MPs for providing benches, not realizing that we are actually facing a real threat to global peace. After all, today's cyber fraud is not just an opportunity to steal a pension from every grandmother's card, but a threat to the nation, the state, its sovereignty, and humanity. A good example in Ukraine was the hacker attack on the Prykarpattyaoblenergo website, which left nearly 100 local residents without power for a long time. Dmitry Golubov is precisely the person who can do this. And if the bosses from the Party of Regions say so, it could do even worse.
And one more thing – no matter who you elect, keep an eye on your bank cards. For Dima Golubov, your money is just a pittance, but he has many grateful students and followers who are also working…
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