Lithuania Freezes Bank Accounts and Joins Three Other European Countries in Launching Investigation into Magnitsky Case

January 21, 2013

The author­i­ties of Lithua­nia have joined three oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries in launch­ing mon­ey laun­der­ing inves­ti­ga­tions into the funds stolen from the Russ­ian trea­sury through a scheme exposed by late Her­mitage Fund’s lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, accord­ing to Busi­ness Week magazine.
The Lithuan­ian author­i­ties have also frozen funds in Lithuan­ian banks fol­low­ing the com­plaint filed by Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment in July 2012, said Busi­ness Week in an arti­cle “A Russ­ian Lawyer’s Death Trig­gers a Glob­al Mon­ey Hunt” (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013 – 01-17/a‑russian-lawyers-death-triggers-a-global-money-hunt#p2).
The arti­cle quotes Donatas Puz­i­nas, a Lithuan­ian pros­e­cu­tor, on the inves­ti­ga­tion cur­rent­ly underway.
“It’s quite com­plex ana­lyt­i­cal work,” Mr. Puz­i­nas told Busi­ness Week.
“The mon­ey gen­er­al­ly is split up among sev­er­al com­pa­nies. Some of the mon­ey, after being trans­ferred, goes back to the orig­i­nal account and then is trans­ferred some­where else,” said pros­e­cu­tor Puzinas.
Now author­i­ties in four Euro­pean coun­tries — Switzer­land, Cyprus, Latvia, and Lithua­nia – are inves­ti­gat­ing the trail of $230 mil­lion stolen mon­ey from the Russ­ian bud­get through a sophis­ti­cat­ed scheme involv­ing Russ­ian offi­cials and crim­i­nals which has been exposed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky. After Mr Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied against offi­cials involved, he was him­self arrest­ed and killed in Russ­ian police custody.
Through inves­ti­ga­tions car­ried out by Her­mitage and a team of inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ists from the NGO, Organ­ised Crime and Cor­rup­tion Report­ing Project, $130 mil­lion of the stolen $230 mil­lion have been traced to eight for­eign juris­dic­tions. That infor­ma­tion formed the basis for crim­i­nal com­plaints filed in those eight countries. 

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