Magnitsky – Financial Treason & Crime

JILL LAWLESS , 26 April 2021

LONDON — Britain imposed asset freezes and travel bans Monday on 22 people accused of bribery, kickbacks and fraud in its first use of new sanctions powers to target corruption around the world.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told lawmakers that the sanctions would prevent the U.K. from being used as “a haven for dirty money.”

The list includes 14 Russians implicated in a $230 million tax fraud and three members of the Gupta business family who are enmeshed in a corruption scandal in South Africa. Britain is also sanctioning businessman Ashraf Seed Ahmed Al-Cardinal, accused of stealing state assets in impoverished South Sudan, and individuals from Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. Continue reading “Article: Britain targets 22 people with new anti-corruption sanctions”

11/25/202003/11/2021

Article: Bill Browder threatens legal action over Swiss bank accounts linked to Magnitsky scandal

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Bill Browder threatens legal action over Swiss bank accounts linked to Magnitsky scandal

Sam Jones, 25 November 2020

High-profile Kremlin critic and investor Bill Browder has threatened Credit Suisse and UBS with legal action for breaching US sanctions if they unfreeze accounts belonging to three Russian clients accused of a huge tax fraud against his investment company.

The two Swiss banks hold assets worth more than $24 million (CHF21.8 million), which Browder says were gained from fraud perpetrated in Russia against his investment business, Hermitage Capital, in 2007. Continue reading “Article: Bill Browder threatens legal action over Swiss bank accounts linked to Magnitsky scandal”

07/14/202003/11/2021

Article: Does the EU’s anti-money laundering strategy ignore the (Russian) elephant in the room?

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Does the EU’s anti-money laundering strategy ignore the (Russian) elephant in the room?

Portia Kentish, 14 July 2020

With Europe’s parliament having now approved the European Commission’s new “high-risk” list of third countries deemed a threat to the bloc’s anti-money laundering (AML) efforts, several high profile critics are already voicing fears that it will do little to prevent illicit funds from being washed through Europe’s banks. This is particularly true for the Baltic states, whose vulnerability to money laundering networks based in neighbouring Russia remains an acute problem for the region. Continue reading “Article: Does the EU’s anti-money laundering strategy ignore the (Russian) elephant in the room?”

03/08/201903/10/2021

Article: Factbox: European banks hit by Russian money laundering scandal

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Factbox: European banks hit by Russian money laundering scandal

Reuters Staff, 08 March 2019

Several European banks are facing allegations of being involved in a Baltic money laundering scandal and failing to prevent tainted Russian money from flowing through their branches across the world. Continue reading “Article: Factbox: European banks hit by Russian money laundering scandal”

10/10/201803/11/2021

Article: Russian Whistleblower Assassinated After Uncovering $200 Billion Dirty-Money Scandal

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Russian Whistleblower Assassinated After Uncovering $200 Billion Dirty-Money Scandal

Nico Hines, 10 October 2018

A crusading Russian official traveled to Estonia in the summer of 2006 to warn the authorities that an unprecedented money-laundering scheme had been established in the tiny Baltic financial sector. The scam he had uncovered would go on to become the biggest dirty-money operation in history: the $200 billion Danske Bank scandal.

Three months after Andrei Kozlov, the first deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank, tried to raise the alarm, he was dead. Continue reading “Article: Russian Whistleblower Assassinated After Uncovering $200 Billion Dirty-Money Scandal”

05/10/201703/11/2021

Article: Millions in suspected Russian crime proceeds flowed through Canadian banks, companies

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Millions in suspected Russian crime proceeds flowed through Canadian banks, companies

Diana Swain and Jennifer Fowler, 10 May 2017

A powerful Russian crime syndicate that’s accused of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars around the world appears to have also flowed millions through nearly 30 Canadian bank accounts.

A CBC News investigation has spent months tracking down some of the individuals and companies attached to those accounts and found the $2 million sent to Canada was spread among recipients ranging from a boxing manager in Montreal to a construction company in Calgary. Continue reading “Article: Millions in suspected Russian crime proceeds flowed through Canadian banks, companies”

10/27/201603/11/2021

Article: Investigators track millions of dollars from Russian tax fraud coming to Canada

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Investigators track millions of dollars from Russian tax fraud coming to Canada

DANIEL LEBLANC, 27 October 2016

Investigators have tracked millions of dollars associated with an elaborate tax fraud in Russia to bank accounts in Canada, bolstering their call for Ottawa to adopt legislation to freeze the assets of corrupt foreign officials.

Anglo-American financier Bill Browder and a team of investigators and lawyers compiled the data on the transfers of the funds, which indicate a clear Canadian connection to a $230-million (U.S.) swindle in 2007 by Russian officials who used his Russian-based hedge fund, Hermitage Capital Management. Continue reading “Article: Investigators track millions of dollars from Russian tax fraud coming to Canada”

07/18/201303/11/2021

Article: How Putin Uses Money Laundering Charges to Control His Opponents

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How Putin Uses Money Laundering Charges to Control His Opponents

ANDREW S. BOWEN, 18 July 2013

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) speaks with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (right) and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov during a flight to watch military exercises in Russia’s Zabaykalsky region July 17, 2013 (Reuters/Aleksey Nikolskyi)

Last Thursday, Sergei Magnitsky was convicted of tax evasion. The only problem was he was not there to hear the verdict read. Magnitsky was killed in Moscow’s Butyrka prison in 2009, likely as a result of beatings and a lack of medical treatment. His crime was uncovering a $230 million tax fraud involving members of the government while working as a lawyer for William Browder (an American investor who was also convicted in absentia). Continue reading “Article: How Putin Uses Money Laundering Charges to Control His Opponents”

07/11/201303/10/2021

Article: Sergei Magnitsky verdict ‘most shameful moment since Stalin’

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Sergei Magnitsky verdict ‘most shameful moment since Stalin’

Miriam Elder, 11 July 2013

The courtroom cage in Moscow stood empty on Thursday as a judge found the late whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky and his London-based employer guilty of tax evasion in a move likened to Stalin-era justice.

The case against the two defendants – Magnitsky, allowed to die an excruciating death in prison in 2009, and William Browder, banned from entering Russia since 2005 – has come to symbolise the brutality of Russia’s system and the penalties incurred by those who uncovering official wrongdoing. Continue reading “Article: Sergei Magnitsky verdict ‘most shameful moment since Stalin’”