Bastrykin accused the insiders of the devaluation of the ruble

One of the reasons for the devaluation of the Russian ruble was the illegal spread of insider information. According to Interfax, this was stated by the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin.

According to him, "such a deep devaluation of the ruble was associated not only with the fundamental factors of the economy - the decline in world energy prices, a great import dependence of the Russian economy, the tightening of the US monetary policy, the global recession, but also with the strongest speculative pressure on it."

"Some major participants in the foreign exchange market built their speculative strategies with financial instruments in such a way as if they were known in all details about the dynamics of further course fluctuations in the national currency," Bastrykin said, without specifying who he means.

In his opinion, without the possession of insider information, market participants would hardly have made such speculative transactions associated with high risks and use almost all the liquidity available to this.

"Meanwhile, for three years of the articles of 185.3 and 185.6 of the Criminal Code, providing for liability for the market manipulation and the illegal use of insider information, only three cases have been instituted on them," Bastrykin said. In his opinion, this is due not only to the lack of skills to identify this kind of crimes, but also with the fact that the articles are formulated so that their application is almost impossible.

In December 2014, Bastrykin proposed to introduce criminal punishment for foreign exchange speculation. “This phenomenon has recently acquired such a massive nature that, along with the fundamental factors of the economy, has a significant impact on the exchange rate vibrations of the national currency,” the head of the UK explained.

Prior to this, Vladimir Putin in the annual message to the Federal Assembly called on "to recapture from speculators a desire to play on the ruble." The authorities know who these speculators were assured by Putin, and there are tools on them. “It's time to use them,” he said.