Posts Tagged ‘occrp’
USA: Lawmakers Seek To Expand Magnitsky Act Beyond Russia
Extending the reach of the 2012 Magnitsky Act, US Senators have introduced a new bill that aims to block human rights abusers from any country, not just Russia, from entering the United States and using its financial institutions, reports RIA Novosti.
The Magnitsky Act, which was signed by US President Barack Obama in December 2012, places visa and financial bans on individuals linked to the 2009 death of Russian lawyer and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky.
After Magnitsky uncovered and reported a US$230 million tax fraud to Russian authorities, he ended up in prison, charged with having committed the very fraud he reported. He later died in prison.
The newly introduced Global Human Rights Accountability Act expands upon the Magnitsky Act by targeting not only Russian officials but also “human rights abusers from anywhere in the world,” denying them entry into the US and banning them from using American financial institutions.
According to Senator Ben Cardin, who co-introduced the bill with Senator John McCain, the act ensures that “Gross violators of human rights from Zimbabwe to Ukraine, and Honduras to Papua New Guinea, are put on notice that they cannot escape the consequences of their actions even when their home country fails to act.”
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The Magnitsky Money: From Russia…And Then What?
What if $230 million went missing and no one wanted to get it back? That is the puzzling question posed by Russia’s years of unwillingness to investigate the well-documented fraud claims made by lawyer and auditor Sergei Magnitsky.
At least half a dozen European Union countries, plus Switzerland, have been looking into where the so-called Magnitsky money might have gone. But Russia has done virtually nothing to investigate the allegations and documentation that Magnitsky brought to authorities before his death in pretrial detention in 2009.
Earlier this month, attention was focused on Moldova, which is looking into a complaint filed in June 2012 by Hermitage Capital Management, the firm that Magnitsky represented and which was also an alleged victim of the fraud.
‘Documentary Evidence’
Hermitage CEO William Browder — whom Russia has accused of fraud in an unrelated case — told RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service what he is seeking in Chisinau.
“We have given [the Moldovan authorities] documentary evidence that shows money flowing into accounts at Banca de Economii and then money flowing out from those accounts,” Browder says. “We’d like to have the information on who managed those accounts, who was responsible for opening those accounts, what kind of due diligence was done in terms of who was behind those accounts. And ultimately we’d like to have the police and the prosecutor prosecute any person in Moldova or elsewhere who was responsible for laundering this money through Moldova.”
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A Russian Lawyer’s Death Triggers a Global Money Hunt
In 2009, a lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow jail after uncovering the biggest known tax fraud in Russian history—a theft of $230 million from the national treasury. The case has touched off a diplomatic row, with the U.S. imposing sanctions on Russian officials accused of having a role in Magnitsky’s death and Moscow retaliating on Dec. 28 by barring Americans from adopting Russian orphans.
Now about that $230 million. Russian authorities said it couldn’t be found because essential records were destroyed in a truck crash. A sawmill worker and a convicted burglar pleaded guilty to masterminding the heist, which involved filing bogus tax-refund claims. Both got five-year sentences.
Magnitsky’s associates, though, keep looking for the cash. An investigation spearheaded by his former client, Hermitage Capital Management, a London-based investment fund, has traced $134 million through bank accounts and shell companies in at least 17 countries. Banking records obtained by Hermitage and reviewed by Bloomberg Businessweek show that millions wound up in offshore accounts and real estate owned by Russian officials, their relatives, and the former owner of a Russian bank. Authorities in four of these countries confirm that they have opened money-laundering investigations.
In the Magnitsky case, Hermitage accuses government officials of stealing from taxpayers, and the Kremlin has made no apparent effort to recover the money. “That’s the most awful thing—it is our money,” says Roman Anin, a reporter at the Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta who has worked with Hermitage on its investigation. Russia’s Interior Ministry did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
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Whatever happened to the Magnitsky money?
Efforts to track down hundreds of millions of stolen dollars from one of Russia’s loudest scandals suggest it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Sergei Magnitsky’s brutal death in a Moscow prison in 2009 has come to symbolize the confluence of corruption, repression and human rights abuse that’s flowered under President Vladimir Putin. His imprisonment and torture, detailed in a documentary film and many journalistic accounts, have brought the Kremlin condemnation from around the world.
But one key part of the scandal remains unsolved: What happened to the $230 million Magnitsky claimed bureaucrats had embezzled?
Now a recent investigation by a media NGO called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, together with Barron’s and the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, has gathered documentary evidence apparently tracing some of the stolen money to two well-connected businessmen.
A workaholic lawyer hired by the London-based fund Hermitage Capital Management to track down money stolen in its name, Magnitsky was jailed by same police he had accused of taking part in Russia’s largest tax fraud.
He died a year later at age 37, alone and in a pool of his own urine after being beaten by prison guards, allegedly to make him recant his accusations. He had been refused medical aid for the pancreatitis he developed in prison.
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OCCRP Names Aliyev “Person Of The Year “
Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan, has won the first ever Organized Crime and Corruption Person of the Year bestowed by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). The award is given for the person who figured prominently in 2012 on stories on crime and corruption in its coverage area. Aliyev was chosen because of new revelations this year about how his family had taken large shares in lucrative industries including the telecom, minerals and construction industries often through government related deals.
The award is chosen by the 60 reporters and 15 news organizations that make up the OCCRP consortium. Runners-up included Albanian drug lord Naser Kelmendi, President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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Russia’s Counter To Magnitsky Bill
Russia is planning to sanction all supporters of the Magnitsky Act, Russian Izvestia daily reported. The US Senate approved a bill last week that would impose financial and visa restrictions on foreign officials connected to human rights abuse. The bill is named after a Russian anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was allegedly killed in prison by police.
Russia reacted to the Magnitsky Act with threats, as the bill was originally drafted to impose sanctions specifically on Russian officials involved in human right abuses. Izvestia reported on Friday that the Russian Parliament is discussing a long list of individuals who might be banned from Russia under a draft “Law On Measures against Individuals Involved in Violation of Russian Citizens’ Rights Abroad.” This law was introduced in June 2011.
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US: New Bill Sanctions Magnitsky Officials
The United States House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill on Thursday to impose sanctions on a group of Russian officials connected to the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian anti-graft lawyer who died in a Russian prison.
Magnitsky was arrested in November 2008 on charges of tax evasion, days after he accused Russian state tax authorities of participating in a $230 million tax refund fraud. He died a year later in a Moscow pre-trial detention center.
According to the US Committee of Foreign Affairs, the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 will impose “sanctions [visa ban and asset freeze] on those responsible for the harassment, abuse, and death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was murdered during his investigation of corruption in the Russian government.”
The bill was introduced in April, by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission co-chairman Jim McGovern.
The opponents of the bill expressed fears that the new legislation would have a negative effect on the US-Russia relations, and could harm US exports to Russia. The U.S. National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) urged the Congress on Wednesday to oppose the bill.
According to the NFTC President Bill Reinsch “The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act is seriously flawed.” He adds that “This legislation would harm U.S. relations with Russia and many other nations, and would jeopardize the significant benefits arising from Russian concessions during its WTO accession negotiations.”
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The Proxy Platform
While governments and citizens of Eastern Europe were struggling with the recent financial crisis and trying to borrow money from international financial institutions, billions of euros circulated in the region in an illegal, parallel system that enriched organized crime figures and corrupt politicians.
The system is built on hundreds, maybe thousands, of ever-morphing phantom companies. They exist on paper only and appear to be run by scores of common people, who are, in fact, simply proxies. Many are unaware that their names appear in official documents as the human face of a company. Others are naïve or don’t care.
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