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Russia central banker slams vast criminal cash export

Reuters

Russia’s central bank chief complained on Wednesday that some 2.5 percent of the national income was illegally siphoned abroad last year – a revelation critics said showed the extent of corruption under Vladimir Putin.

Bank of Russia chairman Sergei Ignatyev, who is about to retire, reckoned much of that sum, close to $50 billion, was controlled by a single group of people; he did not identify them but many saw it as an indictment of the “Kremlin capitalism” which has taken hold since Putin first became president in 2000.

One prominent critic called it “state money-laundering”.

“You get the impression that they are all controlled by one well organized group of people,” Ignatyev told Vedomosti newspaper in a front-page interview after a Bank study found more than half the flows involved firms linked to each other.

“With a serious concentration of efforts by law enforcement agencies, I think it is possible to find these people,” added Ignatyev, 65, who will retire in June after 11 years running an institution which has won widespread respect for integrity.