Ukraine’s parliament passes law to fight scam call centers

Filed 52m ago · Via NV · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Mary Celeste

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Jason Krüger for Wikimedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada passed bill No. 10190 on Sept. 16 with 313 votes, adding new Criminal Code provisions targeting electronic communications fraud, illegal use of personal and banking data, and the operation of fraudulent call centers. The law creates specific offenses for organizing, leading, participating in, or recruiting for such schemes, and adds a formal path to prosecute financial pyramids.

The timing lands awkwardly. NABU says call centers may function as a Russian sabotage operation involving tens of thousands of young Ukrainians, and just weeks ago it detained Serhii Kropyva, the Prosecutor General's Office's own cyber department head, on suspicion of shielding such networks and laundering roughly $2 million.

Opendatabot data cited in earlier reporting found only two real prison sentences from call center cases since 2022, despite at least 18 verdicts. The new law adds articles; whether it adds convictions is a separate question.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Passing a law against something is the easy part, the same way promising to mow the lawn is easier than starting the mower. Ukraine already had rules on the books, and the problem was never a shortage of paper, it was enforcement, since two real sentences out of eighteen verdicts tells you where the leak is. When the man running the cyber crimes desk is the one accused of covering for the scammers, a new statute reads less like a fix and more like a fresh coat of paint on a barn with a hole in the roof.

Source: Read the original at NV → Scored: Mary Celeste · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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