1 June 2016 – Hermitage Capital Management has filed a criminal complaint with the Estonian General Prosecutor seeking an investigation of funds received by an Estonian company, Transgroup Invest AS, which was 50% owned by Maxim Liksutov, who is currently deputy Mayor of Moscow.

 

In 2012, Transgroup Invest AS received US$336,153 from Zibar Management Inc, an offshore company registered in BVI and used by the Klyuev Organized Crime Group to launder proceeds from the US$230 million fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky.

 

The funds were wired to Transgroup Invest AS from account of Zibar Management Inc with Cypriot branch of FBME, which had its licence revoked by the Central Bank in December 2015.

 

Zibar Management‘s nominal director, British citizen, Andrew Moray Stuart, served as director of hundreds other companies, including 214 BVI companies, 36 UK companies, 43 Irish and 4 New Zealand companies. While the company was dormant in BVI, it wired from its Cypriot account hundred thousands of dollars, including over $300,000 to Maxim Liksutov’s company in Estonia.

 

According to investigation of Panama Papers by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and Russian Novaya Gazeta, Maxim Liksutov had a 50% share in Transgroup Invest, registered in Estonia prior to becoming deputy mayor of Moscow. Several months after the receipt of funds from Zibar Management, Maxim Liksutov transferred his share in Transgroup Invest to his wife, Tatiana, who he soon divorced.

 

Maxim Liksutov was ranked 157 in the Forbes Russia rich list in 2013, with an estimated fortune of $650 million. In the Moscow City government, Maxim Liksutov is in charge of transportation.

 

Previously, it was reported that a son of the Transportation Minister and Vice Premier of the Moscow Region Denis Katsyv is facing Swiss and US money laundering investigations into his Cypriot company, Prevezon Holdings, which is alleged to have received proceeds of the US$230 million fraud. His father Petr Katsyv, currently Vice President of Russian state monopoly, Russian Railways, was ranked 65 in the Forbes list of Russia’s richest officials.

 

A cellist Sergei Roldugin, a close friend of Vladimir Putin, was recently identified as 

yet another recipient of funds connected to the US$230 million fraud into his corporate Swiss account, according to “Panama Papers” investigation.

 

Sergei Magnitsky, Hermitage’s lawyer who uncovered the US$230 million fraud and testified about the complicity of Russian officials in it, was falsely arrested, detained for 358 days without trial, tortured and killed in Russian police custody at the age of 37.

 

The unprecedented events of this case are described in the New-York Times best-seller “Red Notice. How I Became Putin’s No 1 Enemy” by William Browder, leader of the global Magnitsky justice movement, and in a series of justice campaign videos on Youtube channel “Russian Untouchables.”

 

For more information, please contact:

 

Justice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

billbrowder.com

twitter.com/Billbrowder

31 May 2016 – The White House has reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to the US Mag­nit­sky Act in a strongly-worded response to a peti­tion posted on the White House web­site in April 2016 by an anony­mous “R.T.” call­ing for the repeal of the US Mag­nit­sky Act.

 

“More than six years after his [Magnitsky’s] death, we remain dis­turbed by the impunity for this and other vio­lent crimes against activists, jour­nal­ists, and the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion. We are also con­cerned by the grow­ing atmos­phere of intim­i­da­tion toward those who work to uncover cor­rup­tion or human rights vio­la­tions in the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion,” said the White House in its state­ment in response to the petition.

 

The White House reit­er­ated its posi­tion on the Mag­nit­sky Act expressed ear­lier by the U.S. State Department:

 

“The Admin­is­tra­tion intends to carry out and fully imple­ment the Mag­nit­sky Act. It reflects our sup­port for human rights and that those respon­si­ble for human rights abuses should be held to account…That’s what the act says; that’s what we intend to do.”

 

The White House said that indi­vid­u­als added to the U.S. Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions list in Feb­ru­ary 2016 “play sig­nif­i­cant roles in the repres­sive machin­ery of Russia’s law enforce­ment sys­tems,” and their inclu­sion was effected “after exten­sive research, includ­ing con­sul­ta­tions with Russ­ian and/or inter­na­tional civil society.”

 

“Efforts to imple­ment the Mag­nit­sky Act have so far resulted in a sig­nif­i­cant list of indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for Magnitsky’s death and sub­se­quent cover-up, as well as oth­ers respon­si­ble for gross human rights vio­la­tions. The list pro­motes account­abil­ity for their actions,” said the White House in its online response to the petition.

 

The anti-Magnitsky peti­tion was a lat­est in a series of pro­pa­ganda and intim­i­da­tion attempts by the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment and its prox­ies since the begin­ning of the year to over­turn the Mag­nit­sky Act in the US and pre­vent its pas­sage in Canada and Europe.

 

These ini­tia­tives were launched by Russ­ian For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Sergei Lavrov at a Jan­u­ary 2016 press con­fer­ence where he alluded to new devel­op­ments in the Mag­nit­sky case. Since then, the Rus­sians set up an anti-Magnitsky Act NGO in Delaware called the Human Rights Account­abil­ity Global Ini­tia­tive Foun­da­tion. This newNGO is being rep­re­sented by Natalia Vesel­nit­skaya, the Russ­ian lawyer for alleged money laun­derer Denis Kat­syv, whose com­pa­nies are sus­pected by the US Jus­tice Depart­ment and the Swiss Gen­eral Pros­e­cu­tor of receiv­ing pro­ceeds from the US$230 mil­lion crime Sergei Mag­nit­sky had uncovered.

 

Another anti-Magnitsky ini­tia­tive included two anti-Magnitsky pro­pa­ganda films. The first one was aired in April 2016 in Russ­ian lan­guage on the main pro-Kremlin Russ­ian TV sta­tion. It claimed the dis­cov­ery of a CIA plot to mur­der Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Moscow deten­tion in order to blame his death on the Russ­ian author­i­ties. To authen­ti­cate the pur­ported CIA plot, the Rus­sians forged CIA doc­u­ments and retained Andrew Ful­ton, a for­mer UK diplo­mat, who now chairs GPW, a pri­vate spy firm in Lon­don, to sign a report “ver­i­fy­ing” the Russian-produced doc­u­ments as gen­uine CIA documents.

 

The sec­ond anti-Magnitsky pro­pa­ganda film was pro­duced for a West­ern audi­ence by film­maker Andrei Nekrasov, who claims Sergei Mag­nit­sky was not beaten in cus­tody and was not a whistle­blower despite pub­licly avail­able evi­dence to the con­trary. Nerkasov’s film bases its asser­tions on state­ments from ex-Russian Inte­rior Min­istry offi­cers Kar­pov and Lap­shov, both sanc­tioned by the US Gov­ern­ment for their role in the Mag­nit­sky case.

 

U.S. Pres­i­dent Obama signed the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­ity Act of 2012 into law on Decem­ber 14, 2012. In Feb­ru­ary 2016, U.S. Sec­re­tary of State John Kerry sub­mit­ted to Con­gress the third annual report out­lin­ing the U.S. Government’s actions to imple­ment the Mag­nit­sky Act, and a new list of per­sons added to the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions list.

 

“Despite widely-publicized, com­pelling evi­dence of crim­i­nal con­duct result­ing in Sergei Magnitsky’s deten­tion, abuse, and death, Russ­ian author­i­ties have failed to bring to jus­tice those respon­si­ble. This law [Mag­nit­sky Act] holds Rus­sians account­able for their roles in the Mag­nit­sky case or their respon­si­bil­ity for cer­tain gross vio­la­tions of human rights,” said the White House in its statement.

 

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.billbrowder.com

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder

 

White House online response to the petition

30 May 2016 – The widow of Sergei Mag­nit­sky has writ­ten to the Nor­we­gian Kort­film­fes­ti­valen request­ing the fes­ti­val to with­draw the film, which posthu­mously slan­ders her mur­dered hus­band, from its June 2016 program.

 

“The fam­ily of Sergei Mag­nit­sky opposes the dis­tri­b­u­tion of “The Mag­nit­sky Act” film by Russ­ian film­maker Andrei Nekrasov in any form, given its false and defam­a­tory con­tent, highly degrad­ing of the deceased Sergei Mag­nit­sky and hurt­ful to the feel­ings of the Mag­nit­sky mother and widow,” said the Mag­nit­sky fam­ily in their statement.

 

“There is no pub­lic inter­est in pub­lish­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing infor­ma­tion that is know­ingly false, espe­cially when this infor­ma­tion causes pain and suf­fer­ing to the fam­ily of the deceased and is degrad­ing to his mem­ory. The know­ing dis­tri­b­u­tion of mali­cious false­hoods about a deceased per­son will make the fes­ti­val com­plicit in it,” said Sergei Magnitsky’s widow.

 

Russ­ian film­maker Andrei Nekrasov claimed in his inter­view in a Nor­we­gian news­pa­per Dag­bladet on 26 May 2016 that he had con­ducted ”inten­sive research” on which the film is based.

 

The Mag­nit­sky fam­ily strongly dis­agrees, saying:

 

“Had Andrei Nekrasov gen­uinely con­ducted the research, he would have come across pub­licly avail­able evi­dence that con­tra­dicts his asser­tions, and demon­strates that they are untrue.” “It is clear from the review of the pub­lic record on the Mag­nit­sky case, how­ever, that no respon­si­ble research was conducted.”

 

In his film, Andrei Nekrasov claims that Sergei Mag­nit­sky was not a lawyer, when offi­cial Russ­ian court records and Magnitsky’s own tes­ti­mony demon­strates the fal­sity of this claim, show­ing that Mag­nit­sky rep­re­sented clients in courts and iden­ti­fied him­self as a lawyer.

 

Next, Nekrasov falsely claims that Sergei Mag­nit­sky did not blow the whis­tle on the com­plic­ity of Russ­ian police offi­cers in the fraud in his tes­ti­mony before his arrest, when Sergei Mag­nit­sky named the offi­cers 27 times in his 5 June 2008 testimony.

 

Nekrasov also falsely claims that Sergei Mag­nit­sky had not been beaten before his death in cus­tody, when this is con­tra­dicted by offi­cial autopsy pho­tos show­ing seri­ous injuries. It is also con­tra­dicted by: the Russ­ian state death cer­tifi­cate refer­ring to a cere­bral cra­nial injury; the Russ­ian government’s record describ­ing the use of rub­ber batons on Mag­nit­sky the night he died; and the Russ­ian government’s expert con­clu­sion describ­ing Magnitsky’s injuries com­ing from blunt force trauma.

 

In addi­tion, Andrei Nekrasov falsely claims that some­body else, not Sergei Mag­nit­sky, reported the US$230 mil­lion fraud, despite the doc­u­men­tary evi­dence that the first report about the US$230 mil­lion fraud was made in July 2008 by Her­mitage on the basis of Magnitsky’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the crime.

 

Because of the demon­stra­bly false and defam­a­tory con­tent, the screen­ing of the film by Andrei Nekrasov has been can­celled at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, by French TV sta­tion ARTE and Ger­man TV sta­tion ZDF.

 

The false and defam­a­tory infor­ma­tion about Sergei Mag­nit­sky pre­sented in this film is con­trary to the evi­dence from Russ­ian gov­ern­ment bod­ies, inves­ti­ga­tions by inde­pen­dent Russ­ian human rights organ­i­sa­tions, find­ings and con­clu­sions by numer­ous inter­na­tional organ­i­sa­tions includ­ing the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe, the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the OSCE, the Moscow Helsinki Group, theUS Helsinki Com­mis­sion, the US Con­gress, the Nor­we­gian Helsinki Com­mit­tee, the UN Rap­por­teur on Tor­ture and Other Cruel, Inhu­man and Degrad­ing Treat­ment, and others.

 

“In addi­tion to pre­sent­ing false infor­ma­tion about Sergei Mag­nit­sky, degrad­ing his mem­ory and his sac­ri­fice, the film presents a fic­tion­alised por­trayal of Sergei Mag­nit­sky as a per­son, cre­ates a fic­ti­tious iden­tity of him and presents his fic­ti­tious con­ver­sa­tions with oth­ers, that are untrue, and removed from real­ity, that also do not jus­tify and con­tra­dict the depic­tion of this film as ”doc­u­men­tary,” said the Mag­nit­sky family.

 

Kort­film­fes­ti­valen in Nor­way has been informed of the Mag­nit­sky family’s con­cern against dis­play­ing or in any other way dis­trib­ut­ing the film’s con­tent, con­trary to the Nor­we­gian Dam­ages Act, which pro­hibits dis­tri­b­u­tion of false infor­ma­tion to cause harm to people’s reputation.

 

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.billbrowder.com

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder

27 May 2016 – A US crim­i­nal grand jury has been con­vened to exam­ine the involve­ment of Denis Kat­syv, son of Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cial Petr Kat­syv, in the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky.  In 2008, Pre­ve­zon, a Cyprus-based com­pany owned by Denis Kat­syv, received funds traced by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice and the Swiss Gen­eral Prosecutor’s office to the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Magnitsky.

 

Since Sep­tem­ber 2013, Denis Katsyv’s com­pa­nies have been sub­ject to a U.S. civil for­fei­ture case brought by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice for money laun­der­ing. Under that case the US gov­ern­ment has frozen $14 mil­lion of assets belong­ing to Katsyv’s companies.

 

“The defen­dants [com­pa­nies owned by Denis Katsvy] were involved in the laun­der­ing of the pro­ceeds of the Russ­ian fraud, which itself amounts to an elab­o­rate series of crim­i­nal offences,” said US Jus­tice Depart­ment in its court fil­ing in New York.

 

“It is …entirely proper for the grand jury to inves­ti­gate whether the defen­dants [Katsyv’s com­pa­nies], who received pro­ceeds from the fraud, were involved in it,” said the US Depart­ment of Justice.

 

A Crim­i­nal Grand jury is a form of crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion in the United States used to deter­mine whether crim­i­nal charges should be brought against poten­tial defendants.

 

Pre­vi­ously, Katsyv’s com­pa­nies tried to chal­lenge the US and Swiss asset freez­ing orders, but courts in the US and Switzer­land denied those motions and con­firmed that the freez­ing was justified.

 

The wire trans­fers to Pre­ve­zon from the $230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky showed highly unusual pay­ments. Pre­ve­zon dis­guised incom­ing pay­ments for “san­i­tary equip­ment” and “auto parts,” which were sup­posed to be sup­plied but never deliv­ered because Pre­ve­zon was in fact a real estate company.

 

Accord­ing to the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice, the fal­si­fied con­tracts used to jus­tify Prevezon’s incom­ing wire trans­fers claimed that Pre­ve­zon was sup­posed to deliver 500 acrylic bath sets under the brand name “Doc­tor Jet,” man­u­fac­tured in Sicilia, Italy, with dimen­sions of 190 x 120/95 x 65, to two shell com­pa­nies in Moldova which did not do any legit­i­mate busi­ness and never in fact pur­chased the bath sets.

 

Pre­ve­zon explained these sus­pi­cious wire trans­fers to the US Court stat­ing that an agree­ment existed between its Russ­ian direc­tor, a stu­dent named Tim­o­fei Krit, and “investor Petrov,” and denied knowl­edge of false wire descriptions.

 

How­ever, dur­ing its inves­ti­ga­tion, the US Jus­tice Depart­ment iden­ti­fied fur­ther false and ques­tion­able wire trans­fers to Pre­ve­zon from com­pa­nies in Belize, BVI, etc. for an addi­tional amount of US$2 mil­lion. These wire trans­fers were sim­i­larly dis­guised as pay­ments for com­put­ers, video, home equip­ment, etc. that again were never delivered.

 

Pre­vi­ously, Denis Katsyv’s firm Mar­tash paid US$8 mil­lion under the 2005 money laun­der­ing case by the State of Israel.

 

Denis Katsyv’s father, Petr Kat­syv, has been Vice Pres­i­dent of OAO Russ­ian Rail­ways, a state trans­porta­tion monop­oly, since 2014. Before that, he was Vice Pre­mier of the Gov­ern­ment and Trans­porta­tion Min­is­ter in the Moscow Region. Con­tracts with Moscow Region’s gov­ern­ment struc­tures sup­ported the busi­ness of his son, Denis Kat­syv.

 

Sim­i­larly, Denis Katsyv’s Russ­ian lawyer Natalia Vesel­nit­skaya devel­oped her busi­ness in part on con­tracts with Moscow gov­ern­ment agen­cies, where her hus­band is Deputy Min­is­ter of Trans­porta­tion (and was deputy to Kat­syv senior dur­ing his time as Min­is­ter of Trans­porta­tion), and pre­vi­ously, between 1984 – 2000 was offi­cial within the Moscow Region’s Prosecutor’s Office.

 

Accord­ing to court fil­ings, Petr Kat­syv was pre­vi­ously in con­tact with the FBI to pro­vide infor­ma­tion on Russ­ian orga­nized crime but with­drew his pro­posal, when he was informed by the US author­i­ties that his coop­er­a­tion would not help set­tle the money laun­der­ing and civil for­fei­ture case by the US Jus­tice Depart­ment pend­ing in the South­ern Dis­trict Court of New York.

 

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who uncov­ered the US$230 mil­lion fraud and tes­ti­fied about the com­plic­ity of Russ­ian offi­cials in it, was tor­tured and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody at the age of 37. The unprece­dented events of this case are described in the New-York Timesbest-seller by William Brow­der, leader of global ‘Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky’ cam­paign, called “Red Notice. How I Became Putin’s No 1 Enemy,” and in a series of jus­tice cam­paign videos on Youtube chan­nel “Russ­ian Untouch­ables.”

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

billbrowder.com

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder