You must be thinking that I've gone B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Hetq found this bit of statistical curiosity and decided to investigate:
In 2006, Armenia exported 3002 tons of bananas to the Bahamas and 91 tons to Georgia. In 2005, 594 tons of bananas were exported to the Bahamas. The Republic of Armenia’s State Council on Statistics provided these figures.If you're thinking WTF, you're not alone. Surely bananas don't grow in Armenia, so how can they be exported to other countries? Funny you should ask.
...in 2005-2006 the "Ketrin Ltd" firm exported 59.44 kilos of banana oil to the Bahamas, an amount equivalent to the 755.4 tons of bananas imported on a temporary basis for reprocessing purposes...So some statistical bluffing, then? Sure seems wasteful to ship bananas from the Bahamas to Armenia only to ship it back, especially given the high cost of trasportation in the last couple of years. But there's more!
The "Godfather of Bananas" was Grisha Harutyunyan, the former Deputy Chief of the National Security Service. He in fact owns "Ketrin Ltd". He has been lining his pockets with untaxed profits for years on end. We’re not talking about $1 or $2 million, but rather tens of millions of dollars.A tale of greed and the shadow economy: that's more believable!
Source: Hetq
1 comment:
This is a classic case of money laundering, which even the least intelligent accountant could explain: you import X amount of bananas, resell them in the marketplace without declaring the revenues, make a fak statement if oil processing, ship few hundred liters of oil (what a hell Armenian customs know about oil) claming millions of revenues as if paid by a Bahama company for the oil. Being Minister of this or that only gives your the ability and the motive of the above, definitely not the world class business estute to ship bananas around a world amd sell a derrivative product right back.
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