BES receives information about Ukrainian users of OnlyFans: searches begin

The investigating judge of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv has decided to provide the Bureau of Economic Security with information about all Ukrainian citizens registered on the OnlyFans platform who receive income there. The court made thedecision on September 20, Ekonomichna Pravda reports.

In particular, the court granted a group of BES detectives temporary access to information "about all citizens of Ukraine and other persons residing in Ukraine who have registered profiles (created accounts) on the OnlyFans platform, namely: surname, name, patronymic, date of birth, registration number of the taxpayer's account card, as well as other information (data) regarding the creators of paid content, which is at the disposal of the State Tax Service."

After receiving information about OnlyFans users, BES employees began to visit them with searches as part of a criminal case opened under Article 212(3) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (tax evasion on a large scale).

The day before, Lesya Mykhaylenko, a lawyer at the law firm "Have the Right", reportedthat such searches had begun . According to her, the detectives came to the homes of OnlyFans models who had already registered as individual entrepreneurs, filed declarations and paid taxes.

"Last week, the BES started to come with searches to those who had paid and declared their income. That is, according to this ruling, the BES took a list from the State Tax Service and is now working on a list of models from OnlyFans who have nothing to do with the case of July 2024," she said.

She notes that in early fall, Danylo Hetmantsev, chairman of the Rada's tax committee, said that the State Tax Service had received information about Ukrainian OnlyFans models and their income. Soon after, these individuals began receiving "happiness" letters from the tax office demanding that they pay taxes.

After contacting consultants, most of the models decided to voluntarily register as individual entrepreneurs, declare their income and pay tax to the budget. However, thanks to a decision of the Shevchenkivskyi Court, the BES received information about them.

MPs have already responded to the information about searches of OnlyFans models. In particular, Yaroslav Zheleznyak, deputy chairman of the Rada's tax committee , said that it was abnormal to "simultaneously demand that people pay taxes for porn and at the same time leave criminal liability for its production."

He added that he hoped that law enforcement would not come to the OnlyFans model in relation to Article 301 of the Criminal Code (production, storage and distribution of porn).

The day before, the head of the Tax Committee, Danylo Hetmantsev, said that OnlyFans models had declared UAH 305.4 million in income and paid UAH 59 million in personal income tax and military duty to the budget. He also noted that the fact that "the girls did not pay the tax on time" cannot be the basis for a criminal case.

"And separately, the prosecution under Article 301 of the Criminal Code. It seems to me that the festival of hypocrisy, when society "morally condemns" with one hand and takes money for the army with the other, or when content creators are persecuted by its users, should be ended," the MP added.

Yaroslav Vinokurov