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"Everyone is doing this, if you arrest me you'll have to arrest the whole city!"

Investigators Unveil Charges Against Dismissed Ukrainian Ambassador To The US

Another top level Ukrainian official has been booted from office over significant corruption allegations, which comes at a moment of a broad shake-up of military and cabinet leadership initiated by President Zelensky.

Olha Stefanishyna was dismissed as Ukraine's ambassador to the United States earlier this week, both local media as as Reuters have confirmed.

via Associated Press

Reuters writes that she is "suspected of illegal enrichment and failing to declare assets, authorities said on Thursday, the latest high-ranking official targeted in an anti-graft probe" - after she reportedly hid two apartments along with other assets worth about $310,000.

She had been a deputy prime minister prior to being appointed top diplomatic representative to Washington, and it's believed that her concealed assets could not have been obtained with her official salary alone. She had also briefly served as Minister of Justice during the war with Russia.

Much of her additional properties and other assets were registered under the names of Stefanishyna's friends and family members. Kyiv Post reports Thursday:

The High Anti-Corruption Court on Aug. 6 set Hr 6 million ($130,000) bail for Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine's former ambassador to the U.S., in a corruption case.

She has been charged with illicit enrichment amounting to Hr 13.9 million ($310,000) and lying in her asset declarations. An anti-corruption prosecutor earlier proposed setting bail for Stefanishyna at Hr 13 million ($290,000).

Stefanishyna failed to declare two apartments, worth nearly Hr 11 million ($250,000), that were registered in the name of a friend, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).

She has in the meantime taken to social media to declare there's been no wrongdoing that she doesn't have anything to hide. But she voluntarily submitted her resignation earlier this week, upon which Zelensky dismissed her.

According to a newly published list of the undeclared assets, she tried to 'hide' the following:

• Two apartments in a residential complex in western Kiev, registered to a friend
• A luxury apartment in central Kiev, registered to her mother
• A parking space and several auxiliary premises at the same high-end property, registered to her father
• A Mercedes-Benz GLC 220 d, registered to a subordinate

"Any procedural actions are part of the lawful work of the law enforcement system and do not amount to a finding of guilt," she wrote on Facebook. "I take these developments calmly and without unnecessary emotion."

‼️BREAKING Ukrainian court sets ₴6 million (~$130,000) bail for Olha Stefanishyna, former Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States.
She is suspected of illicit enrichment and false asset declarations. Prosecutors had requested more than twice that amount. pic.twitter.com/5cnwBsruUG

— EMPR.media (@EuromaidanPR) August 6, 2026

Stefanishyna had served as ambassador to the US for the past year, going back to August of 2025. Local media says the alleged concealing of assets took place during that stint, and reports additionally say she was in the process of buying another property - an apartment valued at the equivalent of $550,000 - but backed out of the deal.

Broadly, the Ukrainian population has suffered immensely amid the conflict with Russia, with frequent blackouts and amid a battered wartime economy - and so ordinary citizens get increasingly frustrated and outraged when they see government officials living lavish lifestyles which include luxury cars and multiple homes and properties.

Tyler Durden Thu, 08/06/2026 - 18:00

We desperately need to know if there's another episode of Sterling Point after that twist!

Not another potentially deadly cliffhanger!

At least one Knicks assistant won’t be back next year. 

US Immigration Agency Asks Public To Report Fraud, Anti-Government Activities

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The federal agency that processes green cards, U.S. citizenship requests, and work permits this week called on people to report potential cases of immigration fraud through a newly created portal.

In an Aug. 4 post on X, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) wrote that anyone who suspects “immigration fraud, criminal activity, or actions by aliens that threaten national security or public safety” can report it to the agency, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“Reports should involve aliens suspected of fraud, unlawful acts, threats, violence, terrorism-related activity, or other conduct connected to immigration,” the agency said.

On Wednesday, it called on anyone who notices or suspects non-U.S. citizens are “committing immigration fraud of any kind, making false claims of U.S. citizenship, or advocating violence or terrorism against America” to report tips.

It then directed the public to a website, titled “Protect America Together,” which allows the public to submit details of suspected fraudulent activity. That can include noncitizens using fake or altered documents, as well as identity, marriage, visa, employment, and asylum fraud.

Tipsters can also submit reports of suspected fraud and abuse within the H-1B visa program, which has been used by companies to employ Big Tech workers for decades, and within the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program.

“Falsely claiming U.S. citizenship, including registering or voting in a federal election” can also be reported using the website, it said.

Other activities that can be reported include noncitizens “supporting terrorist ideologies or providing material support to terrorist organization,” “advocating for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government,” “expressing hatred for American values,” working with groups or individuals who are seeking to disrupt public safety or national security, or “engaging in activities that violate the principles of the Constitution or show disloyalty to the United States.”

A spokesperson for DHS told The Epoch Times on Wednesday evening that the website is a new push from USCIS.

“A single tip can help protect the United States from immigration fraud that exploits the American people and undermines America’s legal immigration system,” the spokesperson said.

Immigrants await their turn for green card and citizenship interviews at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Queens office in the Long Island City neighborhood of New York City on May 30, 2013. John Moore/Getty Images

When submitting details to the web portal, USCIS directs tipsters to include as many details as they can, including a name, date of birth, or address.

It also directs users to provide information about themselves, including their names, emails, and phone numbers. The reporting form allows for either businesses and companies or individuals to be reported.

According to the agency, users will soon be able to upload screenshots as they report tips to USCIS.

Since President Donald Trump took office last year, his administration has made mass deportations and enforcing laws against illegal immigration a priority. His administration has also moved to tighten legal immigration rules and suspend certain temporary deportation protection programs for certain countries.

The administration has also moved to denaturalize U.S. citizens such as those who were convicted of crimes including sexual abuse of a child, healthcare fraud, and immigration fraud, among other charges.

USCIS did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Tyler Durden Thu, 08/06/2026 - 17:40

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DeepSeek Resumes $74BN Mega-Raise - Then Warns It's Jacking-Up Prices

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is looking to raise roughly 50 billion yuan at a valuation of 500 billion yuan (US$74 billion) - while the company warned developers a day later that it's raising prices. The resumed funding round, first reported by Chinese business outlet Caijing (via The Standard), is expected to be signed by the end of the month, with the process kept deliberately quiet; some participating institutions reportedly haven't even been formally told the deal is back on. The pricing notice, posted Thursday to DeepSeek's developer platform, warns that API rates will rise across the board and that the increase is expected to be "significant."

Image:  Mojahid Mottakin - stock.adobe.com 

The round restarts barely two weeks after it was shelved, and roughly six weeks after DeepSeek's first-ever external raise in June, which pulled in some $7.4 billion from Tencent, CATL, Beijing's National AI Industry Investment Fund, NetEase, JD.com, Monolith Management and IDG Capital at a valuation north of $50 billion (corporate filings later implied a figure closer to $52 billion). The new target is a steep markup on a deal that closed weeks ago, and the prospective investor list reportedly blends returning backers with new money that couldn't get into round one.

As we noted last month, the round stalled because a transcript of founder Liang Wenfeng's May 20 closed-door meeting with investors leaked onto GitHub and went viral - a document in which Liang admitted China still trails the US in AI (a gap of compute and capital, not talent, per Liang), conceded DeepSeek remains heavily dependent on Nvidia hardware, described Huawei's substitutes as falling well short, and acknowledged the company could get its hands on processors he called "noncompliant." 

Liang - reportedly furious over the leak - simply froze the deal.

Meanwhile, questions about how DeepSeek is obtaining restricted silicon go back to the very beginning - with federal investigators probing whether Singapore-based third parties funneled blacklisted Nvidia chips to the lab as far back as early 2025, and by that April the House Select Committee on the CCP had formally concluded that DeepSeek's model appeared to run on tens of thousands of export-restricted Nvidia chips, branding the company a tool for "subverting" US export controls. Congress alleged it and now the founder has all but confirmed it, on (leaked) record telling investors the workaround exists - even as the company lays groundwork for a Shanghai STAR Market IPO it reportedly hopes to file this year. Should be a fun prospectus to read. 

Liang was able to hit the pause button so easily because DeepSeek's first round routed nearly every investor's money into a limited partnership Liang personally controls, complete with a five-year lock-up and zero voting rights. The lone exception was the state AI fund, which bought direct equity and kept its vote. Liang holds roughly 84% of the company and near-total voting control - meaning Tencent and CATL wired in billions for the privilege of watching, while Beijing holds the only outside seat at the table.

In the leaked transcript, he told investors that GPUs are the single best use of the company's capital, that he would happily convert the entire war chest into Nvidia hardware if supply allowed, and that spending 20 billion yuan a year on processors would count as a triumph for his purchasing team. He also told them the money doesn't go as far as it looks: even 50 billion yuan, he said, wouldn't train a model at the scale of the largest U.S. systems, which he estimated would take roughly 50,000 Nvidia GB300s or 200,000 Huawei Ascend 950s - before the experiments that precede any final training run. Beyond the hardware, the company plans to double headcount and push into data centers and AI agents, and Reuters reports it is quietly hiring chip designers to develop in-house inference silicon - an attempt to engineer its way out of the very dependence Liang lamented.

Price Hike

Which brings us to the other shoe - the company's announcement that API rates will rise across the board in a "significant" way - the company's second hike in under a month, following a "peak/off-peak" scheme TechNode reported in mid-July, which doubled rates during Chinese business hours.

No new rate card or effective date has been published - but this is the lab whose $0.14-per-million-token pricing dragged ByteDance, Tencent, and lately even the US majors into a price war. Demand has reportedly overwhelmed its infrastructure, and bargain-basement tokens are a hard pitch to pre-IPO investors. The catch: DeepSeek's weights are open, so any datacenter on earth can serve the same models. If they raise prices too far, customers may balk.

Tyler Durden Thu, 08/06/2026 - 17:20

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