Posts Tagged ‘buzzfeed’
Companies Linked To Ousted Ukrainian President Connected To Magnitsky Investigation
Documents found at Viktor Yanukovych’s country residence link his business activities to Russian corruption uncovered by lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Newly found documents show that three companies with links to ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych are also connected to the money-laundering scandal uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer who died in prison after exposing high-level fraud and embezzlement among Russian officials.
An investigation by Hermitage Capital Management, the investment firm for which Magnitsky was employed, shows the companies named in the documents uncovered at Yanukovych’s presidential palace are registered at the same United Kingdom address, and share the same offshore shell companies and Latvian directors as were found in Magnitsky’s investigation.
An employee of Hermitage, Vadim Kleiner, sifted through the documents uncovered by Ukrainian journalists after Yanukovych’s flight from Kiev and posted his findings to YanukovychLeaks.org, a website created to compile the nearly 200 folders of documents found at the estate. He found that three companies mentioned in the documents as holding some of Yanukovych’s assets or being otherwise tied to the president — Navimax Ventures, Roadfield Capital LLP, and Fineroad Business LLP — had strong links to entities exposed in Magnitsky’s investigation into $230 million in tax revenues which were stolen by Russian officials from Hermitage holding companies. The results of Kleiner’s inquiry were provided to BuzzFeed by Kleiner and William Browder, the head of Hermitage.
In his investigation, Magnitsky followed $40 million to a Latvian bank account for Technomark Business Ltd., a U.K.-registered company with an ownership in Nevis. Technomark shared the same registering address as Navimax, and the names of its Latvian directors also appear in documents relating to the other two companies.
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Sens. McCain And Murphy Working On Ukraine Sanctions Bill
A Magnitsky Act-style bill would target those behind violence that has killed dozens of protesters in Ukraine. Updated with statement from McCain and Murphy.
Sens. John McCain and Chris Murphy are writing a bill that would enact sanctions against people responsible for violence against anti-government protesters in Ukraine, two sources with knowledge of the bill told BuzzFeed.
“Folks are working on it,” a senior Senate aide said on Wednesday. “Would be targeted sanctions against individual Ukrainians responsible for ordering or carrying out violence against peaceful protesters, as opposed to blanket sanctions against Ukraine.”
The specific details of the bill are not yet clear. McCain and Murphy will announce the bill today, a source said. The two senators visited Ukraine in December to lend support to protesters who have been demonstrating against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to turn the country closer to Russia and reject a deal with the European Union.
Pressure to enact sanctions against Ukraine has mounted after dozens of anti-government protesters were killed and hundreds injured in clashes with police this week.
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Sweden Won’t Guarantee Russia Critic Against Extradition
London-based investor William Browder cancelled a trip to brief Sweden’s parliament on his sanctions campaign against Russia after the justice ministry refused to protect him from Russian charges Interpol says are politically motivated.
Sweden’s parliament has cancelled a briefing on potential sanctions against Russian officials accused of corruption after the campaign’s leader, London-based investor William Browder, was refused safe passage by the country’s justice ministry.
Browder, once a major foreign investor in Russia, was sentenced in absentia to nine years in prison by a Moscow court this summer on charges widely seen as politicall motivated. Russia continues to seek his extradition.
He accused Sweden of bowing to pressure from Moscow by refusing him safe passage as he lobbies European governments to sanction officials involved in the prison death of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, four years ago.
“This is a Russian appeasement strategy,” Browder told BuzzFeed. “They don’t want to do anything that will upset Russia. They’ve chosen the ease of diplomacy over the right thing to do.”
In a letter to Browder’s lawyers dated September 11 and seen by BuzzFeed, Sweden’s justice ministry said that Russia had not requested it extradite Browder and that it could not legally intervene prior to a request being filed. “Neither is the Government authorized to instruct an authority on how to act on individual cases,” State Secretary Martin Valfridsson wrote. Sweden restated its refusal last Monday after Browder appealed.
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Russians Laundered $23.7 Million In Corrupt Cash Through NYC Real Estate, Says U.S. Attorney
American officials are seeking to seize $23.7 million in high-end Manhattan real estate they say were purchased with money from a huge fraud exposed by a lawyer who later died in prison.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara filed a civil forfeiture complaint Monday against properties held by nine offshore companies and the assets of two other companies they say laundered part of the proceeds of a huge Russian tax fraud that caused a rift in U.S.-Russian relations.
“Today’s forfeiture action is a significant step towards uncovering and unwinding a complex money laundering scheme arising from a notorious foreign fraud,” Bharara said in a statement. “A Russian criminal enterprise sought to launder some of its billions in ill-gotten rubles through the purchase of pricey Manhattan real estate. While New York is a world financial capital, it is not a safe haven for criminals seeking to hide their loot, no matter how and where their fraud took place.”
The complaint says that the real estate was purchased with money traced to a $230 million Russian tax fraud known as the “Magnitsky case” for the whistle-blowing lawyer who uncovered it. Sergei Magnitsky alleged in 2008 that corrupt officials and criminals conspired to steal subsidiaries of his client, Hermitage Capital Management, and claim a $230 million tax refund. He was jailed by the same officials he accused and died in prison a year later, aged 37. A report by Russia’s presidential human rights council in 2011 found that he had been systematically tortured, but President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied there was any criminality in Magnitsky’s death.
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