Moldavian scheme. No money left? Hold it! A similar scheme continues to operate
The only person detained in Russia in this case, Alexander Grigoriev, was charged with a completely different episode.
Four years ago, on the outskirts of Chisinau, 28-year-old unemployed Vyacheslav Bass was sitting on a bench in his yard, indulging in sad thoughts about where to get money. The answer to this question came completely unexpectedly, in the form of a man in an expensive suit who appeared in the yard. “Do you want to earn $600?” - the man began sharply, and Bass recognized him as a childhood playmate. His name, I think, was Oleg. Having received immediate consent, Oleg offered to sign documents - according to these papers, Bass became a guarantor for some transactions. The unemployed Vyacheslav had nothing to lose, and besides, he heard that someone he knew had been feeding this way for a year, which means it was not a dangerous matter.
Three years later, when Vyacheslav was detained by employees of the National Anti-Corruption Center of Moldova, he learned that he had already signed eight documents (in six cases the signature was forged) and vouched for transactions totaling $1.1 billion. Vyacheslav became a participant in the Moldovan scheme on the withdrawal of funds from Russia - one of the largest money laundering machines in the last five years.
The head of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) of Moldova, Mihai Poalelungi, first publicly announced Moldovan schemes for withdrawing funds from Russia in April 2014. He told the Kommersant newspaper about the dubious decisions of Moldovan judges issuing orders (as writs of execution are called in the Moldovan court) to collect multimillion-dollar debts. The scheme described by Poalelunge worked as follows: offshore companies entered into a fictitious loan agreement, in which a Moldovan citizen and one or more Russian companies were joint defendants. A Moldovan passport holder was required in order for the debt to be collected through local courts. A variety of people were involved: homeless people, pensioners, taxi drivers. The judges promptly “stamped” orders, which were transferred to specific bailiffs, and the latter arrived at a certain Moldovan bank - Moldindconbank - precisely at the moment when money from Russian banks, transferred by guarantor companies supposedly to pay off the debt, arrived in its accounts.
The withdrawal scheme operated from 2010 to the beginning of 2014. During this time, 696.6 billion rubles were withdrawn from Russia through it. ($18.5 billion). An infographic illustrating the scheme for withdrawing funds took up almost half the wall in the office of the head of the Service for the Prevention and Combating of Money Laundering at the National Anti-Corruption Center of Moldova, Vasily Sharko: 100 Russian guarantor companies, 21 Russian banks and Moldovan Moldindconbank, 19 offshore companies, as well as individuals and legal entities from 59 countries - the final recipients of funds in the scheme. According to Charcot, the further path of the money was also traced. Some of them went to purchase real estate, securities, yachts, and cars. “Part of the funds was transferred to companies engaged in business activities, in particular the supply of office equipment,” he said.
In February last year, the anti-corruption prosecutor's office of Moldova opened a case under Art. 243 of the Criminal Code of Moldova “Money Laundering”. His investigation has still not been completed, and Moldovan law enforcement officers complain that the Russian side does not show much desire to investigate the case. “To claim that money laundering has taken place, you need to know for sure: the money was obtained by criminal means. The primary crime, if there was one, was committed in Russia. We sent a request to our Russian colleagues for legal assistance in this criminal case: we asked them to interrogate a number of people. They returned the request to us and set a condition - give the details of Russian companies and banks (participating in the withdrawal of funds. - “Money”),” Deputy Prosecutor General of Moldova Eduard Kharunzhen told our magazine. According to him, if Russia does not declare that a financial crime was committed on its territory and the money withdrawn is “dirty,” then there is no laundering. “And we won’t have a case. Moldova turned out to be just a transit country,” concluded Harunzhen.
But at the end of October this year, the matter moved from a dead point: Russian law enforcement officials announced that they had detained a businessman who, in their opinion, was one of the leaders of the group that was withdrawing money from Russia using Moldovan schemes. The detainee, 44-year-old Alexander Grigoriev, was not known to the general public until that moment. However, even after the arrest, there was no more clarity regarding his career as an entrepreneur.
In the story of the Moldovan schemes, Grigoriev appears as a banker, although little is known about him in the banking market. Three years ago, he began acquiring small shares in small Moscow and regional banks - no more than the third hundred in terms of assets: he bought and sold 16.35% of the Russian Land Bank, a stake in the Podolsk Promsberbank, and became a co-owner of the Zapadny and Transportny banks. and Rostov-based Doninvest. The Central Bank revoked the licenses of all these banks in 2014-2015 for various reasons - for violations of anti-money laundering legislation, high-risk credit policies, falsification of reports and conducting dubious transit transactions in large volumes.
Officially, Grigoriev’s arrest is not connected with Moldovan schemes. He is accused of withdrawing funds from Doninvest Bank in the amount of 105 million rubles. However, the investigation also announced that it considers Grigoriev one of the leaders of the largest organized crime group in Russia (more than 500 people, 60 banks, including with state capital), which was engaged in illegal cash withdrawals and withdrawing money using Moldovan schemes. According to operatives, over the past four years, the organized crime group has withdrawn a cosmic amount from the country - about $46 billion. In terms of the current dollar exchange rate, this is almost a quarter of Russian budget revenues for 2016.
The fight against money withdrawal schemes has so far only led to the emergence of new channels or the improvement of old ones. The uniqueness of Moldovan schemes is that they managed to exist for quite a long time and the volume of funds withdrawn through them is very large. In addition, outwardly they looked absolutely legal. However, the principle itself - the withdrawal of funds using court decisions - is far from new. “It is possible to withdraw money through Russian arbitration courts, but compared to Moldova, it is more difficult and expensive to do this,” said Den’s knowledgeable interlocutors.
Banker Alexander Grigoriev was arrested in Moscow, accused of illegal activity. He was a co-owner of several bankrupt financial structures, including Doninvest and the Russian Land Bank. According to investigators, Grigoriev led a criminal group with an annual turnover of about a trillion rubles. After the arrest, the special services took care of the safety of the “king of Russian cash.” The businessman was taken for questioning to the investigative department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in handcuffs, a bulletproof vest and with a bag over his head. Economic observer Pavel Anisimov talks about the shadow schemes under which the banker worked.
Alexander Grigoriev was detained last Friday in one of the capital’s restaurants, of which he is a co-owner. The operatives offered to return the stolen money, but the banker said that he knew nothing about any thefts. Investigators have a different opinion: Grigoriev and his criminal group, which included about 500 people, ruined banks, withdrawing assets from them. According to them, he transferred about 50 billion dollars abroad, said the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Elena Alekseeva. To withdraw money from Russia, scammers used the so-called “Moldovan scheme.” It worked like this. with an account in Chisinau Moldindconbank allegedly entered into a loan agreement for hundreds of millions of dollars with another offshore company. Moreover, both companies were dummies, that is, they did not have any assets. To guarantee the transaction, a citizen of Moldova was brought in - as a rule, from remote villages, so that further proceedings would take place in local courts, explains the leading analyst of the Bankodrom.ru portal. Vyacheslav Putilovsky:
“As practice has shown, the judges there are quite accommodating, given that some of them participated in the scheme. Well, most likely, there were connections there, because Moldindconbank worked closely with Russian banks that participated in this scheme. And I think the threshold entry into the banking market was very low, cheaper than, for example, in Russia."
The guarantors who will share the full responsibility of the offshore debtor company were Russian shell companies. Their accounts were opened in laundering banks. When an offshore debtor was late on a fictitious loan, the creditor filed a claim in the Moldovan court at the place of registration of the guarantor of the transaction, says the head of the analytical department of BKF Bank. Maxim Osadchiy. The judge made a decision according to which money from the Russian accounts of shell companies (as loan collateral) was written off and transferred abroad:
“The bank would not have missed a formally illegal transaction. That is, it was necessary to give this transaction a legal form. And what could be more legal than a court decision? According to this writ of execution, the “one-day” company owes hundreds of millions of dollars. It reached up to 800 million. Thus, The Russian bank had completely legal grounds to send money abroad."
About 60 Russian banks took part in the criminal scheme. Billions were transferred to bailiffs' accounts at Moldindconbank. There, rubles were converted into foreign currency and sent to the Latvian Trasta Komercbanka, to the accounts of foreign companies that allegedly issued the loan.
Alexander Grigoriev is suspected of two counts of fraud. However, the investigation does not exclude new cases. Meanwhile, experts doubt that it was Grigoriev who stood at the top of the “cash out” pyramid: the money withdrawal scheme was too elegant, which for 4 years did not give a single failure.
Moscow, March 30 - "Vesti.Ekonomika" The scheme for transferring capital abroad using writs of execution from various courts has become one of the main topics of discussion recently. At the same time, there is no ready-made solution to the struggle.
At the moment, it is not even clear whether legislation will need to be changed in order to stop such schemes.
Moldovan scheme
The withdrawal method received its name simply because it was based on falsified court decisions issued by Moldovan district courts.
The essence of the scheme is the conclusion of fictitious transactions between two companies, which are usually offshore, and the guarantors were citizens of Moldova with the guarantee of Russian shell companies.
Then the company and the guarantor refused to fulfill the obligation, so Russian companies created specifically for this had to pay, and such decisions were made by the courts in Moldova en masse.
Total from 2011 to 2014 Using this scheme, $22 billion were withdrawn, according to data from Rosfinmonitoring, but in 2015 figures of $50 billion were also cited.
More than 100 Russian companies participated in the scheme, and money was transferred to the UK, New Zealand and Belize.
But this scheme was closed two years ago, the Bank of Russia discovered it in 2013. Of the Moldovan banks, Moldindconbank was most involved, and of the Russian banks, 23 banks participated in the scheme, including the Russian Land Bank, Baltika Bank, "European Express", "Smartbank", "Mast Bank", "Intercapital Bank", banks "Zapadny", "Energobusiness". Among foreign banks, Danske Bank, Bank of China, HSBC and UBS were also involved.
Fraudsters are constantly trying to come up with various schemes for withdrawing capital from the Russian Federation, since the usual methods quickly cease to work or become no longer so effective.
Until 2010, the most popular scheme was with fictitious imports, but after the improvement of methods for controlling the movement of goods, it lost its meaning.
Now calling the current withdrawal scheme “Moldavian” is not entirely correct, although the meaning has hardly changed. Now it is also based on court decisions and the actions of the Federal Bailiff Service (FSSP).
Usually, to implement this method, two legal entities are needed, one of which must be Russian, the other foreign. After filing a lawsuit to collect debt from a company in Russia, the latter agrees to the demands. Therefore, the court fully satisfies the claim, the money passes through the FSSP, and then ends up in an account in a foreign bank.
In fact, this is not only a withdrawal method, but also a laundering method, since for foreign regulators the money is absolutely “clean”, since it went through the FSSP.
Over the last year alone, about 16 billion rubles were withdrawn in this way, according to the Bank of Russia, and this is about 10% of the total volume of dubious transactions.
Over three years, using fictitious transactions, about 1 trillion rubles were withdrawn, the Accounts Chamber noted.
Combating such schemes is not so easy, since from a legal point of view, a scheme involving the FSSP is legal and protected. Russian courts, confirming the decision of their foreign colleagues, can only consider the issue from a procedural point of view, that is, cancel it only if the procedure is violated. Therefore, in most cases there is no reason to overturn the decision.
Therefore, earlier, the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, asked at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin for help in combating such methods of withdrawing funds. After this, a meeting of the interdepartmental working group on combating illegal financial transactions was held under the leadership of Presidential Aide Yevgeny Shkolov.
According to Deputy Director of Rosfinmonitoring Pavel Livadny, the most correct thing would be to amend the legislation so that a representative of Rosfinmonitoring is invited to such court hearings.
Then the court will be able to use the basis for refusing the claim due to “violation of public interest,” he believes. And the deal will be recognized as imaginary. The prosecutor can exercise such a right if he participates in this process, writes Reuters.
But the problem of decisions by courts of foreign jurisdiction still remains. They cannot investigate the essence of the transaction, since they are obliged to recognize decisions of courts of foreign jurisdiction. And this is already work for the authorities and relevant bodies, which will have to achieve changes in the contractual framework between the countries.
A separate issue is the issue of fictitious decisions of arbitration courts, but in this case Rosfinmonitoring expects a rapid improvement in the situation due to changes in the relevant legislation.
At the same time, the final bill will be adopted in about a year, although this could happen faster, given “the complexity of the issue and the need for a prompt solution,” Livadny added.
What is the “Moldavian” scheme
In September 2014, the media learned that law enforcement agencies were checking a scheme for withdrawing almost 700 billion rubles from Russia through Moldova. This scheme involved. Many of them have already had their license revoked.Among these banks were Russian Credit, Transportny, Zapadny, Mast Bank, Antalbank, Russian Land Bank, Taurus, European Express, Rublevsky, Intercapitalbank. The Central Bank revoked the licenses of all these banks. This is evidenced by data from the Department for Combating Crimes in the Field of Financial Activities of the Main Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, provided to RBC. In addition, the Ministry of Internal Affairs data includes Mosoblbank, the reorganization of which is being carried out by SMP Bank, as well as the Sovetsky Bank, the reorganization for which has not yet been announced.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs also mentioned the banks Baltika, Oksky, Strategy, Morskoy Bank, Smart Bank, Kreditinvest and Tempbank.
Previously, the media wrote that the “large-scale scheme” for transferring funds from Russia to Moldova included the use of falsified court orders issued by Moldovan district courts. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is already conducting an investigation into "Moldovan" scheme.
Afterwards, Grigoriev managed to be the owner of three banks - Russian Land Bank, Doninvest, and Zapadny. All banks have been deprived of their license. To the board of directors of the Russian Land Bank entered Igor Putin.
Banks' reaction
In the list of banks provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, several credit institutions attract attention. Thus, in Mosoblbank (27th place in terms of assets), which is now being rehabilitated by SMP Bank, a large-scale criminal scheme was discovered to remove citizens’ deposits from the balance sheet; it operated from the end of 2011 until the decision to rehabilitate it was made on May 19, 2014. With its help, 76 billion rubles were withdrawn from the bank. At first, 129.2 billion were allocated for reorganization, and 43 billion rubles were added to them. Now the former deputy chairman of the board of Mosoblbank, Yulia Zedina, is under house arrest, and the former deputy chairman of the board, Dmitry Vasiliev, is under arrest. Alexander Malchevsky, son of the founder of Mosoblbank Andrzej Malczewski, put on the federal wanted list.The bank "Rossiyskiy Kredit", owned by Anatoly Motylev. After the license was revoked, the Central Bank estimated the hole in the balance sheet of the credit institution at 110 billion rubles. This was a record for the banking sector.
Another bank with a bad reputation is the Russian Land Bank. The bank for a long time belonged to the Inteko company, controlled by Elena Baturina, wife of the former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov. She sold the bank in November 2010 to a number of offshore companies. Alexander Grigoriev and Igor Putin became one of the owners of the bank. After the change of owners, the bank began to aggressively attract deposits. So, in 2013, while all banks’ deposit rates did not exceed 10% per annum, the Russian Land Bank offered the population 13–14%.
Igor Putin left the bank in November 2013. After the license was revoked, the media learned that at the end of June law enforcement agencies opened a criminal case into the illegal withdrawal of funds abroad by a client of the Russian Land Bank.
The temporary administration of the DIA was introduced at Sovetsky Bank on October 23. The audit revealed that the bank’s negative capital was almost half the volume of deposits (21.4 billion rubles as of October 1) - just over 10 billion rubles.
There are cases when a bank becomes an “unwitting” participant in a scheme, says Natalya Borzova, Deputy General Director for Work with Credit Institutions at Finexpertiza. A credit institution services client accounts, and if the operation does not fall under the criteria of being questionable, then it can be skipped by the bank on completely legal grounds, the expert notes. However, even in this case, the situation may still turn against the bank. “After all, the punishing sword of the Central Bank works both in one direction and in the other. There is a fact of participation in the scheme, which means that appropriate measures may follow,” warns Natalya Borzova.
As the press service of Mosoblbank said, “since the start of the reorganization, nothing like this has happened in Mosoblbank.” The Strategy Bank stated that the credit institution carried out interbank transactions with Moldinconbank, but all of them were exclusively within the legal framework and were already the subject of an inspection by the Bank of Russia in 2014. “The regulator did not make any claims against the bank in connection with these operations,” the bank said.
The remaining banks did not provide comment.
Original of this material© "Vedomosti", 09/22/2014, Photo: AllMoldova.com, Illustration: "RBK Newspaper"
How $20 billion flowed away
Daria Borisyak |
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The letters describe a “large-scale scheme” to siphon funds from Russia to Moldova using falsified court orders issued by Moldovan district courts. A source in Russian law enforcement agencies said that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is already conducting an investigation into the “Moldovan scheme.” A representative of Rosfinmonitoring told Vedomosti that financial intelligence is working with law enforcement agencies in this area. He declined to comment further, adding that the department would not talk about specific results for now. [...]
This letter provides a specific example: the offshore company Westrburn Enterprises Ltd (Great Britain) with accounts in the Moldovan BC Moldindconbank S.A. and the Latvian Trasta Komercbanka was indicated in the agreement as a creditor, another offshore company - Ksiliana Group Ltd - was listed as a debtor, receiving $500 million for 12 months. To guarantee the fulfillment of obligations, Moldovan citizen Gheorghe Munteanu was involved. He was obliged to find guarantors who would share the debtor's full liability. Four Russian LLCs were involved as guarantors: Skakel, Arcos-M, Alman and Pride. The debtor did not fulfill his obligations; the guarantor and sureties, in accordance with the agreement, were obliged to repay the debt. “It should be noted that Moldovan citizen Gheorghe Munteanu was included in this scheme for the possibility of holding a trial in the district court at his place of residence,” the letter says. The case was submitted to the Chisinau district court, which decided to recover funds from Russian companies.
They held accounts in Russian banks Rublevsky, Intercapitalbank, Smartbank, Baltika, Strategy, European Express, Russian Land Bank (RZB), Tempbank, Oksky. All these banks have correspondent accounts with BC Moldindconbank S.A., some of them have already been noticed in conducting questionable transactions.
The decisions on the basis of which funds were written off and withdrawn - in total from March 2011 to April 2014 they amounted to 696.6 billion rubles, follows from a letter from the Moldovan financial intelligence to the head of department "F" of the Main Directorate of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Russia to Oleg Borisov on July 1, - 13 sentences were handed down. The letter also lists the record bailiffs who transferred the most money: Svetlana Mocan recovered 530.4 billion rubles, Nikolay Zmeu - 50 billion, Gheorghe Botan - 39.8 billion, Nikolay Kilchik - 76.3 billion.
The funds were withdrawn from the accounts of approximately 100 Russian companies in 21 Russian banks, according to the letter to Solopov.
The collected funds were transferred to 19 companies registered in the UK, New Zealand, Belize and also having accounts in the Moldovan BC Moldindconbank S.A. and the Latvian Trasta Komercbanka. From December 2013 to May 2014, Seabon Ltd and Westrburn Enterprises Ltd (both UK), which received funds from Mokan and Zmeu, transferred money to I.C.S. Saagton S.R.L. (Moldova) and Dodia Proprietary Ltd (South Africa) “to pay for construction materials” to accounts in the same BC Moldindconbank S.A.
Well-known businessmen were also involved in the “Moldavian scheme”. Among them are Alexander Grigoriev, owner of the Construction Management-888 company, former co-owner of RZB (he owned 16.35% in the fourth quarter of 2012) and Zapadny Bank (19.98% as of March 31, 2014). Zapadny, like RZB, lost its license this year. This bank also carried out dubious transactions with Moldindconbank S.A., Novaya Gazeta wrote, citing documents from Moldovan law enforcement officers. The participation of “Zapadny” in such operations was confirmed to Vedomosti by a person close to “Zapadny”.
I.C.S. Saagton S.R.L. and Dodia Proprietary Ltd transferred $20.6 million and 0.75 million euros to Grigoriev’s account, the letter says, and he transferred $18.3 million and 2.2 million euros to his accounts in the Monegasque banks Compagnie Monegasque de Banque S.A.M. and Andbanc Monaco S.A.M. In May of this year, he also transferred 250,000 euros to the Montenegrin Soho Hotels DOO Bar (payment purpose - contribution to the authorized capital) and Teniski Klub TO Bar (loan).
Dodia Proprietary Ltd transferred 333,023 euros as loans to Alexey Seryshev (to his current account in Czech and Russian banks) and 1.4 million euros to Beslan Bulguchev (to Spain), the letter says. Bulguchev, like Grigoriev, was a co-owner of RZB: in the fourth quarter of 2013, he owned 16.35%. “It is possible that the identified individuals may be one of the beneficiaries of the illegal scheme described above,” this conclusion is given in the letter to Borisov.
Grigoriev told Novaya Gazeta that he had heard about transactions with BC Moldindconbank S.A., but did not know the details. All decisions related to operating activities were made, according to him, by executive bodies, and the board of directors only approved some major transactions or made some strategic decisions.
Vedomosti was unable to contact Grigoriev. The listed Russian banks and BC Moldindconbank S.A. did not respond to Vedomosti’s request. A representative of the Central Bank declined to comment.
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Zapadny Vladimir Semago reported to Vedomosti that the bank actually worked with BC Moldindconbank S.A., but did not participate in the “Moldavian scheme”, and the violation of the law under this scheme occurred on the territory of Moldova. Semago says that he does not know about Zapadny’s dubious transactions, since he came to the bank shortly before the license was revoked - in April.
Regulator doubts
36 billion rubles were cashed out according to a scheme in which Intercapitalbank and Oksky took part; the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported its disclosure in July 2013. In 2013, Strategy Bank was included in the list of credit institutions with a high degree of involvement in questionable transactions, follows from a letter (available from Vedomosti) from the deputy head of the Central Bank Main Directorate for the Central Federal District, Karen Galustyan, to the manager of branch No. 4 of the Central Bank Main Directorate for the Central Federal District, Andrey Cherepanov.15 billion rubles - this is the amount RZB conducted questionable transactions in 2013, for which the regulator revoked its license in March of this year. Rublevsky Bank also lost its license.
Global banks were involved in a money laundering scheme from Russia. According to The Guardian, British investigators had questions for representatives of HSBC and Barclays. It is believed that suspicious transactions were carried out through these and 15 other UK financial institutions. Money was withdrawn from Russia according to the so-called “Moldavian scheme”. With the help of this mechanism, a total of more than $20 billion “flowed” out of the country. How did it work? Will the largest banks have to answer for capital flight from Russia? About this - in the material of Elena Zharikova and Yulia Koshkina.
“Laundromat” is not only a self-service laundry, but also a way to easily “launder” $22 billion. This is the name given to a large-scale scheme to withdraw capital from Russia through Moldovan banks.
The mechanism was revealed two and a half years ago. At least 20 Russian credit institutions were involved in it. Among them are the Russian Land Bank, European Express, Western and Baltika banks.
It turned out that there is no more reliable cover for the withdrawal of funds than the court. To carry out the laundering operation, two offshore companies were created. One promised the other to pay a large sum of money, but then refused to repay the debt. The borrowing company had a nominal guarantor from Moldova, from whom they began to demand money through the courts. As a result, Russian companies saved him by transferring money abroad from their bank accounts.
The scheme worked flawlessly for four years and covered more than 700 credit institutions in 96 countries. Global players also carried out dubious transactions: HSBC, Barclays, UBS, Bank of China.
It is unlikely that the largest banks directly participated in the scheme. But if supervisory authorities find out that credit institutions have lost their vigilance, the latter will have to pay serious fines, noted FBK Legal partner Alexander Ermolenko: “Laundering implies that some kind of crime was committed somewhere, and as a result of this, some money. At the entrance it is even more or less possible to check, understand what kind of money it is, where it came from. After this money gets into a bank account, it is already “white” money, and then, moving from bank to bank, it is already quite difficult to track the original origin of this money. "In general there is regulation that banks have to act according to - if they haven't checked they will be punished."
More than 5 thousand companies in different jurisdictions received money from Russia, mainly in Denmark, Hong Kong, China and Cyprus. In Moldova alone, ten criminal cases have been launched regarding money laundering, with bankers and judges under suspicion. In Russia, an investigation is also underway, but specific suspects have not been named.
Novaya Gazeta, which conducted its own investigation, on Monday named the names of the beneficiaries of the “Moldovan scheme.” Among them are businessman Alexey Krapivin, close to Russian Railways, owner of the Lanit group Georgy Gens and co-owner of the Marvel IT holding Sergey Girdin. All of them denied their involvement in dubious transactions.
Hundreds of companies from Russia could have used the “Moldovan scheme”; it is unlikely that it will be possible to find all those involved in the withdrawal of assets, says Mikhail Alexandrov, partner of the A2 law office. “I don’t think there are one, two, three or five people behind all the money. As a rule, such volumes indicate that it was just a service, a money withdrawal business. Of course, this business had organizers who earned something from it, interest from these 22 billion, which is also a lot. It is theoretically possible to identify such persons. This scheme, of course, had clients who transferred this money. How much sense it makes to pursue them is a big question, because they may not even know how all this money was spent,” says the lawyer.
Reuters previously reported that Russian FSB officers may be involved in the Laundromat scheme. That is why the investigation cannot be completed - Russian law enforcement officers are interfering with the work of their Moldovan colleagues. However, Moldovan President Igor Dodon later stated that no one was throwing a spoke in the investigators’ wheels.
The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has already commented on the information about the involvement of British banks in money laundering from the country. Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Igor Zubov said that Great Britain has long been considered a safe haven for “criminal capital.” According to him, Russian law enforcement officers have repeatedly told their British colleagues about this.