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How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2014 5:57 pm
by JamesVincent
Not quite sure if this is the right area, taxes aren't my normal thing. Worth a read though.
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-tax-che ... itics.html
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — As Ukraine's tax chief tells it, the billion-dollar theft was planned at a see-through plastic table in a vault of sound-proof steel.
The table and six matching transparent chairs sit in a secret chamber on an upper story of the Tax Ministry in Kiev. It was the epicenter, he and other tax officials say, of a massive fraud suspected of squeezing 130 billion hryvnias ($11 billion) from Kiev's coffers over the past three years — an amount equal to more than half a year's tax revenue for the entire country.
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 3:35 pm
by Famspear
....a massive fraud suspected of squeezing 130 billion hryvnias ($11 billion) from Kiev's coffers over the past three years.....
Holy laughing hryvnias, Batman!
That's a lotta hryvnias!
I feel that a good old "hryvnia" joke should be inserted here, but at the moment I'm at a loss for words.....
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 3:38 pm
by Famspear
From the article:
Exhibit A is the steel vault built into the center of the Tax Ministry, just across from Bilous' office. He said it was here that Klymenko and his cronies worked out how to divide the spoils of a system that had some 1,700 companies in its clutch. The secret chamber was equipped with a white-noise generator to beat eavesdroppers, and plastic furniture that allegedly helped make sure nobody was recording the goings-on.
Using transparent furniture to beat surveillance "is straight out of the old-school, Eastern Bloc, counterintelligence playbook," said Vince Houghton, curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington. East Germany's intelligence service, for example, kept transparent furniture in a chamber at its embassy in Rome.
It appears these guys knew what they were doing!
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 3:49 pm
by Famspear
Exhibit A is the steel vault built into the center of the Tax Ministry, just across from Bilous' office. He said it was here that Klymenko and his cronies worked out how to divide the spoils of a system that had some 1,700 companies in its clutch. The secret chamber was equipped with a white-noise generator to beat eavesdroppers, and plastic furniture that allegedly helped make sure nobody was recording the goings-on.
Using transparent furniture to beat surveillance "is straight out of the old-school, Eastern Bloc, counterintelligence playbook," said Vince Houghton, curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington. East Germany's intelligence service, for example, kept transparent furniture in a chamber at its embassy in Rome.
I'm guessing that what caused the whole scheme to unravel is that they forgot to use the most important piece of high-tech anti-spy technology of all.......
.......the CONE OF SILENCE.......
......................from the TV series
Get Smart!........
"Sorry about that, Chief!"
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 3:53 pm
by Famspear
You know, every time I hear someone mention the name of the country, "Ukraine," I have a twisted, perverted, an almost overwhelming desire to conjugate it!
Hey, you know......
Ikraine
Ukraine
Hekraines
Wekraine
Ukraine
Theykraine....
I will have krained
You will have krained.....
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 4:00 pm
by Famspear
Regarding the title of the thread, "How to do it, Ukraine style", I seem to remember from my vast store house of knowledge of "Things Ukrainian" that when they do it Ukraine style, whoever has the hryvnia gets to be on top.
Or, maybe it's: "whoever has the biggest hryvnia gets to be on top".
I'm not sure. I did it Ukraine style so many times over the years, it affected my memory.
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 4:20 pm
by Famspear
What’s really tricky is learning how to say “hryvnia! hryvnia! hryvnia!" clearly, forcefully, and quickly -- without accidentally giving yourself a Ukrainian “hervnia”.
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 7:32 pm
by Pottapaug1938
"Hryvnia, Hryvnia, Hryvnia" sounds like the noise an old collective farm tractor makes when someone is trying to start it.
Actually, "hryvnia" comes from the Russian "grivennik", which is their term for a ten-kopek coin (much as the "dime" is our name for a ten-cent coin).
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 7:40 pm
by JamesVincent
Almost want to lock the thread before Famspear pops out a limerick....
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 8:14 pm
by Famspear
JamesVincent wrote:Almost want to lock the thread before Famspear pops out a limerick....
Not much danger of that, I guess. It's hard to fit "hryvnia" into a limerick.
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 10:51 pm
by JamesVincent
Famspear wrote:JamesVincent wrote:Almost want to lock the thread before Famspear pops out a limerick....
Not much danger of that, I guess. It's hard to fit "hryvnia" into a limerick.
If anyone could figure out how to fit that into a bad limerick you could.
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 11:27 pm
by Fmotlgroupie
Here's an attempt:
There once was a girl named Lavinia
Who found herself stuck in Bithynia.
Too cheap for a plane,
She sprung for the train,
The cost: one hryvnia.
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 10:06 pm
by Famspear
Fmotlgroupie wrote:Here's an attempt:
There once was a girl named Lavinia
Who found herself stuck in Bithynia.
Too cheap for a plane,
She sprung for the train,
The cost: one hryvnia.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 12:47 am
by notorial dissent
You really had to stretch to find that one, heaven help us!!!! 
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 1:17 am
by Cathulhu
I had to look this up:
http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=hryvnia&submit
Rhymes with charisma, guys. I'm way too ill to be poetic right now, so get busy, Famsy!
Re: How to do it, Ukraine style.
Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:03 pm
by Famspear
Rhymes with "charisma"? And I'm supposed to come up with
more poetry -- based on
that??!!?
By comparison, parsing the Internal Revenue Code is startin' to look easy......
