Far-East Trading and Industrial Company, commonly known as DTPK, is presently under criminal investigation by the Russian Federal Customs Service, for allegedly underpaying custom fees in Russia.

DTPK accused of falsifying documents

According to reports, the Russian Federal Customs Service opened an investigation immediately after Intel showed that DTPK falsified documents that were submitted to the customs office with many irregularities such as incorrect prices for the equipment procured, one of which included Bitmain’s Antminer S9-13.5, L3+ and D3 models etc. Furthermore, DTPK refused to remit over $1.2 million on about 6,012 Bitmain-manufactured ASIC miners imported in Aug 2017-Feb 2018. DTPK went on to implicate Korean firm, MSR Co., in relation to supplying it with miners, when contacted by the Russian customs officers, MSR Co. stated it did not have any contract with DTPK, again refuting their falsified claims.

MSR Co. 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.”

All efforts to reach Bitmain’s representative in Russia has proven abortive. Calls have not been picked up and mails are yet to be replied. The Russian customs service has declined to comment as well. This whole disarray was brought to the knowledge of the general public at the TerraCrypto mining conference in Moscow, when the founder of Intelion Mining, Alexander Shashkov, reported that Russian customs officers ransacked his company’s data center and sent armed personnel to his offices in Tula and Moscow because of his company’s involvement with DTPK-imported miners.

Shashkov further emphasized that Intelion played no part in DTPK miners under investigation, but added that customs seized 2,500 ASICs hosted by the company because the clients who owned them had not presented valid documentation to support ownership. He ended his speech by urging fellow mining companies and his fellow colleagues to always double check the documents and credentials of miners they accept for hosting.

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