Posts Tagged ‘andrew rettman’
EU ministers to debate Cyprus money laundering report
An EU-mandated report on money laundering in Cyprus contains nothing shocking, sources say. But you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given the level of secrecy.
The report was drafted by Moneyval, a branch of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, and an Italian unit of Deloitte Financial Advisory, a US-based accountancy firm.
Moneyval interviewed people at Cypriot government institutions to see how they implement international standards.
EUobserver understands that Deloitte audited a sample of Cypriot banks, but not Cyprus-based branches of foreign banks, to see how private firms do it.
One EU source familiar with the content told EUobserver: “They discovered much less [wrongdoing] than people expected.”
Another EU source said: “It’s not as bad as many people thought it would be.”
But in fact, expectations were quite low.
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MEPs ponder parliament-level Russia sanctions
It is early days, they have no majority and it has never been done before, but MEPs in the Liberal group are pondering the creation of a European-Parliament-level travel ban list on Russian officials.
Group leader and former Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt floated the idea in a statement on Thursday (2 May).
“I fully believe that the European Union should follow the US Congress and Senate in adopting a sanctions list. If the European Council fails to act in this regard, then the European Parliament should establish its own list based on the US Congress visa ban list,” he said.
Verhofstadt was referring to a US ban on 18 Russian officials said to be involved in the murder of Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky.
The 37-year-old accountant died in suspicious circumstances in prison in 2009 after exposing corruption by high-level officials in the interior ministry.
The US Congress forced a reluctant State Department to put his alleged killers on a blacklist by threatening to block a US-Russia trade treaty if US diplomats did not act.
Under the EU treaty, the European Parliament has no powers on sanctions.
The EU foreign service can propose them and EU countries decide by unanimity whether or not to go ahead.
A Liberal group contact said one option is the US model – threatening to block other legislation where MEPs do have jurisdiction.
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Russia threatens Ireland with adoption ban
Russia has threatened to impose a US-type adoption ban on EU presidency country Ireland if its MPs pass a tough resolution on the late anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky.
Its ambassador in Dublin, Maxim Peshkov, made the threat in a letter to deputies on the Irish parliament’s foreign affairs and trade committee dated 11 March and seen by EUobserver.
Referring to the committee’s draft resolution of 4 March, which urged the Irish EU presidency to push for an EU-level visa ban on Magnitsky’s alleged tormentors, Peshkov said: “This approach … can have negative influence on the negotiation of the Adoption Agreement between Russia and Ireland being proceeded.”
Magnitsky, a Russian accountant, died in pre-trial detention in prison in 2009 after exposing a scam by Russian officials to embezzle $230 million from the Russian treasury.
His former employer, UK-based investment fund Hermitage Capital, has amassed evidence that prison guards starved him of pancreatic medication and subjected him to a brutal beating in the final hours of his life.
Its case was strong enough for the US to impose sanctions on 18 Russian officials earlier this month.
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EU audit on Cyprus money laundering – whitewash in the making?
EU Observer
Auditors on an EU-sponsored mission to see if Cypriot banks launder money for Russian criminals began work last Wednesday (20 March).
The project has slipped out of view amid dramatic talks on Cyprus’ new bailout.
But it is likely to come back with a vengeance when the Dutch, Finnish and German parliaments vote in April on whether the EU should lend Cyprus the €10 billion it needs.
The German government pushed for the probe in the first place because the Social-Democrat opposition threatened to veto a Cypriot rescue on money laundering grounds.
“This is a matter of concern … for public opinion in several of our member states,” European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso noted on Monday.
There are two units supposed to do the job.
One is Moneyval, a specialist branch of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, whose top man, John Ringguth, a former British prosecutor, was in Nicosia last week to kick things off.
The other is a “private international audit firm” to be hired by Cyprus’ central bank.
The auditors’ terms of reference (what powers they have, which banks they will check) are “confidential,” to use the phrase of one German official.
Moneyval told EUobserver its task is to “focus exclusively on the effectiveness of Customer Due Diligence (CDD) measures in the [Cypriot] banking sector.” In other words, to see if banks check who their customers really are.
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EU audit on Cyprus money laundering – whitewash in the making?
Auditors on an EU-sponsored mission to see if Cypriot banks launder money for Russian criminals began work last Wednesday (20 March).
The project has slipped out of view amid dramatic talks on Cyprus’ new bailout.
But it is likely to come back with a vengeance when the Dutch, Finnish and German parliaments vote in April on whether the EU should lend Cyprus the €10 billion it needs.
The German government pushed for the probe in the first place because the Social-Democrat opposition threatened to veto a Cypriot rescue on money laundering grounds.
“This is a matter of concern … for public opinion in several of our member states,” European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso noted on Monday.
There are two units doing the job.
One is Moneyval, a specialist branch of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, whose top man, John Ringguth, a former British prosecutor, was in Nicosia last week to kick things off.
The other is a “private international audit firm” to be hired by Cyprus’ central bank.
The auditors’ terms of reference (what powers they have, which banks they will check) are “confidential,” to use the phrase of one German official.
Moneyval told EUobserver its task is to “focus exclusively on the effectiveness of Customer Due Diligence (CDD) measures in the [Cypriot] banking sector.” In other words, to see if banks check who their customers really are.
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EU and Russia in visa-free talks, despite Magnitsky ‘regret’
EU officials will in Moscow on Thursday (21 March) try to pin down details on a visa-free travel deal, despite “regret” on Russia’s handling of a prominent human rights case.
The European Commission visit, including a tete-a-tete between commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, is part of a good will programme dating back to 1997.
A big point on the agenda is whether to let Russian officials enter the EU without a visa, while relaxing visa rules for Russian businessmen, journalists and students.
“There is now a majority of member states who are in favour of including service passport holders [officials] … If everything goes well, it [a deal] might take place this summer,” a commission official told EUobserver ahead of the trip.
The progress on visas comes despite EU criticism of Putin’s behaviour in the past 18 months – on rigged elections, on his crackdown on NGOs and dissidents and on lack of respect for the rule of law.
In the latest episode, Russian authorities this week closed an investigation into the death in 2009 of anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky, saying there was no crime.
They did it despite evidence he was put in prison, starved of medication and finally beaten to death because he exposed tax fraud by Russian officials.
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Magnitsky relatives: Russian diplomat lied to EU parliament
The mother and widow of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian anti-corruption activist who died in prison, have accused a Russian diplomat of lying to the European Parliament about his case.
The women – Natalia Magnitskaya and Natalia Zharikova – spoke out in a letter on 25 February to the parliament’s subcommittee on human rights.
They said that Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian foreign ministry’s special envoy on human rights, misled MEPs at a hearing in Brussels on 20 February when he told them that Magnitsky’s own relatives want him to be tried posthumously in order to clear his name.
According to a transcript of the hearing, Dolgov said: “The court cannot close the case unless the relatives, or people who represent the interests of the deceased, make it clear that they are not against the closing of the case. The relatives of Mr Magnitsky made it absolutely clear that they are against closing the case without his acquittal.”
Russian authorities accused Magnitsky, an accountant, of financial fraud after he exposed a scam by tax officials to embezzle hundreds of millions of euros from the Russian treasury.
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EU countries launch joint probe into Magnitsky affair
Financial sleuths from six EU countries are joining forces to see if millions of euros of stolen Russian mafia money was laundered through their banks.
The move comes after the European Commission introduced a request for a joint investigation at a meeting of the so-called Financial Intelligence Units platform (FIU.net) on 7 February.
FIU.net holds regular meetings of anti-corruption experts from EU interior ministries and operates a secure IT network helping them to exchange data.
Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were already looking into allegations that some of the €230 million euros embezzled by the “Klyuev group,” an organised crime syndicate, from Russian tax authorities in 2007 was wired via Russian and Moldovan banks to companies in their jurisdictions.
Austria and Finland have also carried out probes.
Their prosecutors earlier said there is no evidence that crimes were committed on their territory.
But an EU commission source, who asked to remain anonymous, noted that they are taking part in the 7 February initiative. “There was no negative reaction from any member state … The FIUs are working on the case and there will be a follow-up meeting before the summer,” the contact said.
The Kluyev investigation is a potentially explosive issue in EU-Russia relations.
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Two EU countries shut down money laundering probes
Austria and Finland have said their companies did no wrong in a case of suspected Russia-EU money laundering. But victims of the crime disagree.
The sums involved are not so big – $150,000 in Austria and $199,500 in Finland.
But according to documents obtained by the UK-based investment firm Hermitage Capital, the money is part of the largest white collar crime in Russian history, a money laundering operation involving six EU countries and a plot to murder its Russian accountant, Sergei Magnitsky.
Bank statements sent by Hermitage to Austrian authorities show that in 2008 a Moldovan firm wired $150,000 to Austrian company Colop, which makes rubber stamps.
Documents sent by Hermitage to Finland show that the same year a second Moldovan firm made a payment to Finnish fur supplier, Saga Furs.
The money originated in the embezzlement of $230 million from Russian tax authorities by an organised crime group, the so-called Kluyev group, and went through a maze of Russian and Moldovan banks before coming to the EU.
When Magnitsky exposed the fraud, he was jailed and died in suspicious circumstances while in custody.
But for his part, Christian Hubmer, a spokesman for the local prosecutor in Linz, Austria, the home of Colop, says his people can find no record of the dodgy payment.
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