4 former bankers with the Swiss affiliate of a key Russian financial institution have been discovered responsible of failing to correctly test accounts opened within the identify of a Russian cellist with longtime ties to President Vladimir Putin
ByJAMEY KEATEN Related Press
GENEVA — 4 former bankers with the Swiss affiliate of a key Russian financial institution have been discovered responsible Thursday of failing to correctly test accounts opened within the identify of a Russian cellist with longtime ties to President Vladimir Putin.
The defendants have been handed suspended sentences in Zurich district courtroom that, if violated, may lead collectively to tons of of hundreds of Swiss francs in fines.
The decision follows a one-day trial on March 8 primarily based on details about secret monetary flows revealed within the Panama Papers leaks in 2016 that implicated musician and Putin’s childhood buddy Sergei Roldugin. It took years for prosecutors to unravel the online of cash and produce the case to courtroom.
The trial opened a uncommon window into allegations from the Panama Papers {that a} member of Putin’s circle of mates helped funnel tens of millions overseas and that monetary staff might have turned a blind eye to such inflows. Putin has denied the accusations.
The previous Gazprombank staff — three Russian-born and one Swiss-born, who couldn’t be named beneath Swiss legislation — have been charged with failing to adequately test whether or not Roldugin really owned the belongings within the accounts. He was a financial institution buyer from 2014 to 2016.
All 4 defendants denied the costs, which embody allegations of violating Swiss anti-money-laundering legislation. Gazprombank Switzerland is within the technique of winding down its operations and was not itself dealing with costs.
In a press release, the Zurich regional prosecutors workplace stated it welcomed the verdicts as “an necessary sign that due diligence obligations beneath cash laundering legislation should be noticed.”