The Russian Federal Customs Service has started an investigation into the activities of a Bitcoin mining machine importer in Russia.
According to a CoinDesk report, the importer deals exclusively in Bitmain machines, the world’s largest maker of mining rigs used to process Bitcoin transactions.
Russian authorities said the company called Far-East Trading and Industrial Company, or DTPK is now under a criminal investigation for underpayment of customs fees totaling to about $1.2 million.
Authorities alleged that DTPK worked in cahoot with custom officials to falsify documents with the incorrect prices for the equipment, which included Bitmain’s Antminer S9-13.5, L3+ and D3 models, along with power elements for them, says the search warrant, dated July 17′.
CoinDesk reported that the company also allegedly lied to the customs service that it received the miners from a Korean firm, MSR Co., via a Hong Kong-based company called Manli. However, when contacted by customs officers, MSR said it didn’t have a contract with DTPK, except an expired one signed back in 2012, the document says.
The warrant, translated from Russian, claims:
“In an undefined time, but no later than August 8, 2017, [DTPK CEO] Artem Aleksandrovich Bublik … got involved in a criminal conspiracy with undefined individuals, the goal of the conspiracy being avoiding due customs fees in especially large amounts while importing into the Eurasian Economic Union of ASIC miners and power elements for ASIC miners.”
Bublik did not respond to CoinDesk inquiries on further clarifications on the matter.
