“Tour model “for zero dollars”, which a group of Chinese tourists buy “grey” the companies, occupied over 50% market share in the Chinese direction. In schemes involving guides and jewelry stores. Hundreds of millions of dollars in “gray” zone,” — said in the RNS of the tourist Association “World without borders”.
The scheme involved was in China a company that sells Chinese tourists special tours for “zero dollars.” The price of permits in these tours sometimes falls below the total cost of flights and accommodation, said the Deputy Executive Director of “World without borders” Alexander Agapov.
Touring for “zero dollars” saved travelers money paying off in Russia with the help of Chinese Cordilleras (representatives of the sending party, accompanying a tour group), as well as local guides who lead the group on stores where products are to be paid in cash at prices inflated several times.
30% of proceeds from the revenue get Cordillera and organizers of the scheme in China through the use of web-wallets. Get your share of the profits and the Russian guides. According to Agapova involved in this model of jewellery shops owned by Chinese companies.
For the trip, the Chinese spend about 1.5 thousand dollars, buying gold jewelry, amber goods European brands. “This purchase, which are not declared, and cause direct harm legal travel agencies, hotel business and retail trade,” says Agapov. In the result, the Russian economy loses approximately $ 500 million.
Shadow schemes of withdrawal of money abroad are operating in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Irkutsk and the far East. In this scheme of developing “individual businessmen, organized structures on the market there,” explained Agamov.
Tours for “zero dollars” focused on Chinese tourists coming to Russia under the visa-free group travel (5-50 people). The share of such trips account for 70% of Chinese tourist arrivals. In 2016, it entered Russia in a visa-free regime more than 760 thousands of Chinese tourists, said the head of the Federal tourism Agency Oleg Safonov.
The Central Bank against withdrawal
The efforts of the Central Bank in the fight against “grey” schemes of export of funds from Russia were not in vain. Over the past five years, the volume of doubtful transactions has decreased 70 times, have informed “news” the representative of the Central Bank.
In 2016 a new trend for withdrawal was the withdrawal of assets through transactions on the international transport of goods in the field of information technology. Experts support the rigid stance of the Central Bank in this matter. But bankers are increasingly worried that further tightening will lead to excesses, and normal business will fall into the category of questionable.
“Standard transactions have to pereprodaet documents, spend extra time. Thus, operations in the tourism sector is completely under the issue, now it is a priori dubious business”, — quote “Izvestia” the words of the Chairman of the Board Labanca Boris Lipkin. For such clients, the banks may at any time to the instruction from the controller, so with tourism, they tend not to work.
The situation is similar with importers. To prove that the company imports real goods provided pictures are the visits to the factories, but it does not always assure the regulator, which often includes the operations of the companies-importers in questionable.
So, in 2013, one of the Novosibirsk firms moved to Hong Kong more than 122 million roubles as advance payment for the supply of industrial equipment. However, upon expiration of the contract, the customs officers found that the equipment to Russia was not delivered, money not returned, and Novosibirsk firm-importer exists only on paper.
For the first three quarters of 2016, the volume of suspicious transactions amounted to 531 million dollars compared to $ 1.1 billion for the same period in 2015, follows from materials of Bank of Russia.
“Cleaning the banking sector in recent years has led to a significant reduction of the banks involved in laundering. And if 3-4 years ago, many banks are looking at customer transactions through his fingers, now they widely block the account in case of suspicion, fined customers and get rid of them. CB takes the position — a business working legally, either he was fast enough to block the oxygen,” — said the managing partner of “2K” Tamara Kasyanova. According to her, the revocation of the license of banks because of the involvement in dubious operations in 2014-2015 was the main reason, and in 2016, the licenses were withdrawn mainly due to insufficient capital or risky credit policy.
