Posts Tagged ‘SOCA’
The yoga guru and the British firms at the heart of Sergei Magnitsky’s death
To her students Lana Zamba is simply an experienced yoga teacher, expert in a 500-year-old form of the mystic Eastern discipline. But Mrs Zamba is equally pliable, it appears, when it comes to choosing business directorships.
The yoga instructor, who lives in Limassol in Cyprus, has been a director of no fewer than 24 British-based companies including one at the centre of an alleged multi-million-pound fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, the Moscow lawyer whose death in a Russian jail became an international cause célèbre.
Quite why a yoga instructor, who describes herself on the internet as “the leading teacher and representative of the Patanjali International Yoga Foundation”, should head so many different businesses is unclear.
But Mrs Zamba, 47, is named in a series of letters sent to authorities demanding a criminal investigation in Britain into a fraud that led to Mr Magnitsky’s death.
Mr Magnitsky, 37, who worked for Hermitage Capital Management, a British-based hedge fund, had uncovered evidence of a £150 million fraud committed by Russian tax officials and an organised crime syndicate.
He was then arrested on tax evasion charges and held in the notorious Butyrka prison for 358 days before his death in 2009, developing pancreatitis for which he did not receive proper medical treatment. He was also beaten in jail.
Despite being dead for four years – and to the anger of the outside world – Mr Magnitsky is being tried posthumously in Moscow for tax evasion.
Hermitage’s investigations into the fraud suggest as much as £35 million was laundered through 10 British companies. One of those companies – Nomirex Trading Ltd, based in an office block in Birmingham – lists only two directors: Mrs Zamba and a company based in Cyprus.
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Police ‘ignored dossier in dead Russian witness case’: ‘Victim’ accuses City force, FSA and SFO of inaction Agencies ‘given evidence before unexplained death’
The Guardian
Police and anti-fraud agencies have been criticised by the alleged victim of a multimillion-pound fraud for ignoring dossiers of evidence – including death threats and intimidation – linking the crime with the UK, months before a witness connected to the case was found dead.
The body of Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44, was found outside his Surrey home on 10 November. His death is described as “unexplained” following two postmortems, with toxicology tests to come.
He was a key witness in a case involving the theft of pounds 140m in tax revenue from the Russian government. The alleged fraudsters are said to have stolen three companies from a UK-based investment firm, Hermitage Capital, and used them to perpetrate the fraud – leaving Hermitage in the frame for the criminal acts.
The case is known as the “Magnitsky case”, after one of Hermitage’s Russian lawyers, Sergei Magnitsky, who was found dead in a Russian prison in 2009 with his body showing signs of torture.
A motion from the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe said Magnitsky had been “killed . . . while in pre-trial detention in Moscow after he refused to change his testimony”.
Bill Browder, the founder of Hermitage Capital, has been trying to secure convictions for the death of Magnitsky, as well as those implicated in the alleged fraud against his company, for four years. Documents seen by the Guardian show that in January and February Browder’s lawyers passed a criminal complaint to the City of London police, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).
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Police ‘risking lives’ by passing data to Russia
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has been accused of endangering the lives of British residents by passing confidential details to Russian investigators implicated in the death of the whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
British businessman Bill Browder and employees of his hedge fund Hermitage Capital have been pursued by Russian investigators ever since they went public about a £144m tax scam orchestrated by a corrupt network of police, judges and interior ministry officials.
Mr Magnitsky was hired by Hermitage’s Moscow branch to investigate the scam – the largest in Russian history. He named a network of corrupt officials but was promptly arrested by the same men he had accused. He died nine months later in custody having been beaten and denied vital medicine.
The case has become something of a cause célèbre in Russia, illustrating the often murky connections between the country’s powerful security services and organised crime syndicates. The UN, EU and the US government have spoken out against Mr Magnitsky’s death whilst the Kremlin’s human rights council claims he was tortured and probably beaten to death.
Despite grave concerns about the investigation it has emerged that Soca forwarded confidential details, including the home address of London-based Hermitage employee Ivan Cherkasov, to Russian officials implicated in the case.
Letters unearthed by a court in Moscow reveal that Soca handed the data to Russia’s interior ministry following a request made through Interpol. The move came as a surprise to Hermitage, who say they were told by Soca in 2009 that the Russian requests for information might contravene clauses which forbid the Interpol system from being used for political purposes.
Speaking to The Independent yesterday, Mr Browder accused Soca of endangering his employees’ safety. “The Russian interior ministry murdered my lawyer and is now publicly threatening my colleagues in the UK,” he said. “I would have expected the British authorities to do everything possible to protect us. Instead they are passing on crucial information to the Russians to carry out their plans. This is either evil or gross incompetence.”
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British aristocrat linked to Sergei Magnitsky case
A British aristocrat has been linked to the suspected laundering of the fraudulent gains of Russian criminals involved in the death of anti-corruption campaigner, Sergei Magnitsky.
Andrew Moray Stuart, heir to the Viscountcy of Stuart of Findhorn, has been named alongside other Britons in a legal complaint filed with the City of London police and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).
Lawyers for Hermitage Capital Management, the UK hedge fund whose Moscow lawyer – Mr Magnitsky – uncovered the alleged $230m (£140m) fraud, have called for a formal investigation by the economic crimes department into alleged money laundering.
Mr Stuart, who lives in Mauritius and Dubai but is named as a director of more than 500 UK companies, is alleged to have transferred about $1.4m through a British Virgin Islands’ shell operation on behalf of Vladlen Stepanov, the husband of a senior tax official at the centre of the alleged fraud.
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UK Businessman Fears Danger From Russia after ‘Police Leak’
A senior executive from Hermitage Capital fears his life may be in danger after his home address in London was leaked to officials involved in the pre-trial detention death of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Newly released court documents suggest Soca, the UK’s Serious Organized Crime Agency, passed the information to the Interior Ministry, who forwarded it to an official accused of blocking Magnitsky’s lawyers from visiting their client before his death, the Guardian reported Saturday.
The official is on the list of 60 people who would be banned from entering the US under proposed legislation to punish those involved in the 37-year-old lawyer’s death.
Magnitsky died in a detention center in 2009 after being refused medical treatment. He had been jailed on charges of tax evasion after accusing Russian officials of a $230 million tax fraud.
The executive whose address was revealed, Ivan Cherkasov, has been the subject of death threats from Russia, and he is also facing criminal accusations and an arrest warrant from an Interior Ministry official implicated in the tax fraud. Cherkasov says he and his family are now in danger of retaliation.
Senior Hermitage staff have received numerous death threats since Magnitsky’s death, and Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism unit has offered protection against potential Russian hit men.
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Financier fears for life over ‘UK police leak’ to Russia
British police face questions over the apparent leaking of a businessman’s London home address to Russian officials implicated in the suspected murder of a prominent lawyer.
Newly disclosed court documents suggest the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) passed confidential information to staff at Russia’s interior ministry, who are accused of being involved in the death of Sergei Magnitsky.
Magnitsky, 37, was working for a British-based investment fund, Hermitage Capital Management, when he exposed a tax fraud worth £144m, the biggest in Russian history. After accusing interior ministry officials of fraud, he was detained in Moscow’s Butyrskaya prison, where he died in November 2009 after having had his medication withdrawn. The Kremlin’s human rights council claims he was tortured and probably beaten to death.
Now a senior employee of Hermitage – who has already received a number of death threats from Russia – claims his family has been placed in danger by the apparent collusion between UK police and Russian interior ministry officials.
In the two years since Magnitsky’s death, senior Hermitage staff have received death threats that prompted them to contact Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism unit, SO15, who offered security in case they were targeted by Russian hitmen operating in London.
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