On March the 5th.
DutchNews
reported that a money laundering operation which moved billions of
euros out of Russia shifted part of the cash through the Netherlands,
the
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project said on Monday.
In total, almost €1bn of the money ended up in the Netherlands, some of
which was used to buy two luxury yachts, said the research project,
which includes
Trouw and the
Groene Amsterdammer magazine plus Dutch investigative journalism collective Investico.
The OCCRP says Troika Dialog, once Russia’s largest private investment
bank, channeled billions of dollars out of Russia from 2004 via a
network of 70 offshore companies with accounts in Lithuania. The two
Lithuanian banks were closed down in 2011 and 2013.
The scheme was discovered in a collection of 1.3 million banking
transactions and other documents obtained by OCCRP and the Lithuanian
news site 15min.lt, which stem from the two Lithuanian banks.
Some of the money was channeled into the Netherlands via the Amsterdam
Trade Bank (ATB) and Turkey’s C. ATB, part of Russia’s Alfa Bank, is
already involved in corruption investigations.
Smaller amounts were moved through ING and ABN Amro, the Groene
Amsterdammer said. ‘The million euro payments came from the Troika Bank
and had many signs of money laundering,’ the magazine said.
In addition, €43m went to the Rabobank account of luxury yacht builder
Heesen, according to Dutch investigative news collective Investico.
‘How could all this happen under the watchful eye of the central bank
DNB?’ the magazine asked. ‘Banks are banned from carrying out
transactions if they don’t know who profits, but, the central bank says,
banks often have no idea who is really hiding behind anonymous
companies.’
The central bank declined to answer specific questions about the claims, the Groene Amsterdammer said.
EU-Digest
