Hermitage Seeks Money Laundering Investigation In Estonia Into Deputy Mayor of Moscow in Magnitsky Case

June 1, 2016

PRESS RELEASE

For Imme­di­ate distribution

Her­mitage Seeks Mon­ey Laun­der­ing Inves­ti­ga­tion In Esto­nia Into Deputy May­or of Moscow in Mag­nit­sky Case

1 June 2016 – Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment has filed a crim­i­nal com­plaint with the Eston­ian Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor seek­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion of funds received by an Eston­ian com­pa­ny, Trans­group Invest AS, which was 50% owned by Max­im Lik­su­tov, who is cur­rent­ly deputy May­or of Moscow.

In 2012, Trans­group Invest AS received US$336,153 from Zibar Man­age­ment Inc, an off­shore com­pa­ny reg­is­tered in BVI and used by the Klyuev Orga­nized Crime Group to laun­der pro­ceeds from the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky.

The funds were wired to Trans­group Invest AS from account of Zibar Man­age­ment Inc with Cypri­ot branch of FBME, which had its licence revoked by the Cen­tral Bank in Decem­ber 2015.

Zibar Man­age­ment’s nom­i­nal direc­tor, British cit­i­zen, Andrew Moray Stu­art, served as direc­tor of hun­dreds oth­er com­pa­nies, includ­ing 214 BVI com­pa­nies, 36 UK com­pa­nies, 43 Irish and 4 New Zealand com­pa­nies. While the com­pa­ny was dor­mant in BVI, it wired from its Cypri­ot account hun­dred thou­sands of dol­lars, includ­ing over $300,000 to Max­im Liksutov’s com­pa­ny in Estonia.

Accord­ing to inves­ti­ga­tion of Pana­ma Papers by Ger­man news­pa­per Süd­deutsche Zeitung and Russ­ian Novaya Gaze­ta, Max­im Lik­su­tov had a 50% share in Trans­group Invest, reg­is­tered in Esto­nia pri­or to becom­ing deputy may­or of Moscow. Sev­er­al months after the receipt of funds from Zibar Man­age­ment, Max­im Lik­su­tov trans­ferred his share in Trans­group Invest to his wife, Tatiana, who he soon divorced.

Max­im Lik­su­tov was ranked 157 in the Forbes Rus­sia rich list in 2013, with an esti­mat­ed for­tune of $650 mil­lion. In the Moscow City gov­ern­ment, Max­im Lik­su­tov is in charge of transportation.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, it was report­ed that a son of the Trans­porta­tion Min­is­ter and Vice Pre­mier of the Moscow Region Denis Kat­syv is fac­ing Swiss and US mon­ey laun­der­ing inves­ti­ga­tions into his Cypri­ot com­pa­ny, Pre­ve­zon Hold­ings, which is alleged to have received pro­ceeds of the US$230 mil­lion fraud. His father Petr Kat­syv, cur­rent­ly Vice Pres­i­dent of Russ­ian state monop­oly, Russ­ian Rail­ways, was ranked 65 in the Forbes list of Russia’s rich­est offi­cials.

A cel­list Sergei Roldug­in, a close friend of Vladimir Putin, was recent­ly iden­ti­fied as 

yet anoth­er recip­i­ent of funds con­nect­ed to the US$230 mil­lion fraud into his cor­po­rate Swiss account, accord­ing to “Pana­ma Papers” investigation.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Hermitage’s lawyer who uncov­ered the US$230 mil­lion fraud and tes­ti­fied about the com­plic­i­ty of Russ­ian offi­cials in it, was false­ly arrest­ed, detained for 358 days with­out tri­al, tor­tured and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody at the age of 37.

The unprece­dent­ed events of this case are described in the New-York Times best-sell­er “Red Notice. How I Became Putin’s No 1 Ene­my” by William Brow­der, leader of the glob­al Mag­nit­sky jus­tice move­ment, and in a series of jus­tice cam­paign videos on Youtube chan­nel “Russ­ian Untouch­ables.”

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

billbrowder.com

twitter.com/Billbrowder

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