Swiss Authorities Freeze Accounts of Russian Government Officials Implicated in $230 Million Fraud Uncovered by Hermitage Lawyer Magnitsky

May 6, 2011

According to Barron’s, Swiss authorities have frozen the bank accounts and assets of Russian government officials exposed for their role in carrying out the largest illegal tax refund in Russian history.

 

The asset freezing was taken as an emergency measure by Swiss General Prosecutor as part of their criminal investigation opened on March 7, 2011 in response to a complaint filed by Hermitage Capital against the Russian officials involved in the theft of $230 million.

 

“The net around the corrupt Russian officials is tightening. Their access to illicit wealth is being cut off step by step. Tragically, Sergei Magnitsky did not live to see the first results of his investigation – the freezing of assets stolen from the Russian state. He would have wanted to see all the stolen money returned to the Russian people where it rightly belongs after he had so bravely exposed the corrupt officials who perpetrated the crime,” said a Hermitage Capital representative.

 

The officials exposed by Hermitage Fund lawyer Sergei Magnitsky for orchestrating the theft of $230 million of government funds, have since acquired $47 million in Swiss bank accounts, sports cars and luxury properties around the world. These officials who were implicated as perpetrators in the theft, were then appointed by Russian authorities to conduct the investigation into the stolen funds. Russian investigators apparently “cannot” locate the stolen funds because the truck carrying the bank records “exploded”, according to Irina Dudukina, press secretary to the Russian Interior Ministry.

 

To date, not a single official has been prosecuted for this theft in Russia. Instead, the same investigator who falsely arrested Sergei Magnitsky and kept him in detention without trial for 358 days in order to pressure him to withdraw his testimony against government officials, was put in charge of the investigation into the theft. Magnitsky died as a result of his torture in custody at the age of 37, leaving a wife and two children.

 

Two weeks ago, as part of the campaign seeking justice for Sergei Magnitsky, his former colleagues released a third video on YouTube in the “Russian Untouchables” series. This video shows the huge wealth acquired by Russian government officials and their families shortly after the illegal tax refund was approved. The video exposes money transfers into Swiss bank accounts and the use of those same Swiss accounts to purchase luxury real estate in Dubai and Montenegro. The video also shows how officials of the Russian Interior Ministry aided the fraudulent refund and subsequently silenced the whistle blower, Sergei Magnitsky, by slowly killing him in detention.

 

This week, Russian Interior Ministry officials retaliated against the video exposé and the Swiss criminal complaint by issuing an unlawful arrest warrant for a London-based executive of Hermitage Capital, Ivan Cherkasov. Judge Kovalevskaya of the Moscow Tverskoi court approved the petition based on materials shown to be falsified. In breach of the judicial procedure, the judge also refused every one of the two dozen complaints filed by Mr Cherkasov’s lawyers to verify the materials submitted by investigators and to review documents requested by the defense.

 

The investigation by the Swiss General Prosecutor continues.

Comments

• Link