Advertising of "Black Market" for Currencies on Cell Phones

From September 5 cell phones began to receive reports of the dollar exchange rate on the "black market."

From the short number 9944 SMSs are received with information on the official exchange rate of the Central Bank and the rate of the “market”.

It is noteworthy that in the information on the market situation the rate is much higher than the 4% margin established by CBA for commercial banks.

It is noteworthy that the SMSs also show a landline phone number 0124041389. However, calls to this number do not give any result. The answering machine, welcoming the caller, unlike an official company, does not say exactly where the caller has phoned. Attempts to contact the operator, for which the answering machine suggests pressing the number 0, turn out to be unsuccessful. After listening to music for a few minutes, it becomes clear that no one is going to respond.

Commenting on the report in his Facebook profile, the economist Akram Hasanov noted the SMSs do not report about the rate of commercial banks.

 ‘It turns out that the "black market" feels so comfortable that it has started advertising. I believe the law enforcement agencies should deal with this,’ Hasanov wrote.

The lawyer Khalid Agaliyev in his comments for Turan said this fact could be a basis for the Prosecutor General to start an investigation.

The "black market" is illegal; so the advertising of this market is also a violation of the law on advertising,’ he said.

Note that the Prosecutor General's Office and the Interior Ministry did not comment on the situation regarding the advertising of the "black market".

After the beginning of the devaluation of the manat in 2015, the authorities initially strongly violated attempts to form an illegal foreign exchange market. But in spite of this, following the creeping devaluation of the manat, the “black market” has been consistently gaining momentum recently. – 75B-