Tag: fraud

Book: Yuri Voskresensky “Voskresensky’s Gambit, or How I Overthrew Alexander Lukashenko”

When I started reading Voskresensky’s Gambit, my wife looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Like, do I really have nothing better to do with my time than read something like this. Because it was obvious that this creation has no documentary value whatsoever.

First, a few words about the author of this “book.” Yuri Voskresensky has been in politics for a long time: he served as a district council member in Minsk’s Pervomaisky District, he was involved in business (there are plenty of questions there too, but that’s not the point), and later he joined Viktor Babariko’s campaign team—until Babariko was arrested on fabricated charges in 2020 and thus removed from the presidential race in the Republic of Belarus.

Yuri Voskresensky himself was arrested as well; he spent some time in the “Amerikanka,” the Belarusian KGB detention facility, and then changed his views and set about building a supposedly democratic and positive opposition under the name “Round Table of Democratic Forces.” He also actively helped (by his own claim) secure the release of several political prisoners (who, in the view of the official Belarusian authorities, are not political prisoners). And the charges against Voskresensky himself were never fully dropped and still haven’t been to this day—which, however, doesn’t stop him from engaging in politics and publishing books that receive glowing reviews in the very first days after publication.

Read more

Euronet ATMs: A Relatively Honest Way to Take Money from Foreigners

In Cyprus (as in many other European countries, by the way), you can often come across Euronet ATMs. I remember someone once told me to be wary of them, but didn’t go into much detail about why.

I hardly ever saw these ATMs in the capital, Lefkosia (Nicosia), but in tourist areas, they’re on almost every corner—brightly designed to catch your eye and offering the option to withdraw large amounts of cash. That’s appealing, since most ATMs have withdrawal limits. And when you’re abroad, cardholders usually pay an additional fee for each transaction, so it’s more cost-effective to withdraw less frequently but in larger sums.

For a long time, I didn’t really look into what made these ATMs so problematic—especially since I live far from any tourist zone and don’t have any of them nearby. But I kept hearing negative feedback, so at some point I decided to dig into the issue.

Read more