The State Customs Service of Ukraine has opened a criminal case on attempted smuggling by ArcelorMittal Kryviy Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region), as the company lowered the price of coking coal when importing it to Ukraine, Serhiy Semka, the deputy head of the state customs service has said at a press conference.
According to a service press release, a criminal case was initiated on the attempted smuggling of 67,600 tonnes of coal worth almost UAH 203 million.
"A cargo marked as coking coal was received by one of Ukrainian enterprises from abroad. According to the documents submitted for customs clearance, the value of the goods under the contract was UAH 107.5 million," reads the press release.
According to Article 74 of the Customs Code of Ukraine, the service selected some coal samples and sent them for examination to a special institution, which specializes in independent examination, quality controls and international certification.
As a result of the examination it was found that the coal tested differed from that declared in the documents and therefore its code should have been different, which affected its customs value. According to the experts, the actual value of the coal imported to Ukraine was UAH 203 million.
ArcelorMittal Kryviy Rih’s press service denied the allegations in a statement:
“ArcelorMittal Kryviy Rih as a part of the world’s largest steel producer and the biggest foreign investor in Ukraine is doing its business in the country transparently and fully in line with the current legislation. ArcelorMittal Kryviy Rih affirms that our customs declarations represent the fair value of the imported coal. Coal is a commodity product traded largely inside Ukraine and between CIS countries and it should not be a problem to prove the market price of it," read the statement.
"АrcelorMittal Kryviy Rih is supplying coal to Ukraine via big international trader on a long-term contract. We have already made supplies according to this contract this year, previous supplies were cleared by the Customs service without any remarks. We have not changed supplier or coal grade since then. We strongly reject any accusations and have already communicated all proofs of this to the customs. We are open to cooperate with the State Customs Administration to clarify the situation," said the ArcelorMittal Kryviy Rih statement.
