Press Release
Hermitage Capital

15 February 2013 – The Russian Interior Ministry has opened a new criminal case against colleagues of the late Sergei Magnitsky, who was killed in Russian police custody in 2009. Details of the new criminal case are not yet known other than that it alleges ‘fraudulent actions’.

The new case was opened on January 24, 2013 following public statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a December 2012 press conference that he needed to “dig deeper” into the Magnitsky case.

Under this new criminal case, the Russian Interior Ministry is now pressuring HSBC Bank Moscow to provide wide-ranging financial and banking information concerning the companies of the Hermitage Fund and its advisers dating all the way back to 1996.

The Russian Interior Ministry has threatened to use “special forces” to obtain the documents if HSBC doesn’t cooperate.

“Otherwise, the documents which have the force of evidence under the criminal case and are with OOO HSBC Bank RR can be seized by force during a seizure or search, including with the prarticipation of employees of special units,” said the request sanctioned by major G.Sungurov, head of 4^th section within the Interior Ministry’s Investigations Department.

Under the Russian law, banking information can be provided to the police only if it concerns specific acts and circumstances of the investigation. The Interior Ministry has failed to identify any circumstances connecting the companies in question to their request, yet they demanded that banking information on transactions of “each day of operations” for 8 different companies be provided in Russia.

 

For further information please contact:

Hermitage Capital
Phone:             +44 207 440 1777
Email:              info@lawandorderinrussia.org
Website:          http://lawandorderinrussia.org/
Facebook:        http://on.fb.me/hvIuVI
Twitter:           @KatieFisher__
Livejournal:     //hermitagecap.livejournal.com/

Office of the Prosecutor: 10 November 2012 – 19 December 2012

 

Office of the Prosecutor: 20 December  2012 – 28 January 2013

Press Release
Hermitage Capital

13 February 2013 – Ahead of the upcoming posthumous trial in Russia of Sergei Magnitsky, scheduled in Moscow for next Monday, European lawmakers called upon the European Commission Vice-President Catherine Ashton to implement EU-wide visa sanctions and asset freezes against Russian officials implicated in the Magnitsky case. The recommendation to introduce visa sanctions and asset freezes was adopted by the European Parliament last October in an overwhelming vote in favor.

“The broad parliamentary support for this recommendation reflects the widespread indignation, in Russia and around the world, over the arrest of Mr Magnitsky, the inhuman conditions of his detention and the serious allegations surrounding his subsequent death in custody,” said the group of lawmakers on behalf of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament.

“The continuing posthumous prosecution of Sergei Magnitsky is a further violation of international and Russian law and clearly indicates the malfunctioning of the Russian criminal justice system and the systemic failure of the Russian state to protect its citizens,” wrote the European parliamentarians Guy Verhofstadt, Kristiina Ojuland, Marietje Schaake, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff in their formal address posted on the European Parliament’s website.

“While recognising that visa restrictions and other restrictive measures are not traditional judicial sanctions per se but constitute a political signal of the EU’s concern to a larger target audience and thus remain a necessary and legitimate foreign policy tool, does the VP/HR [vice-president of the European Commission] intend to raise this matter at the Foreign Affairs Council?” asked the European parliamentarians writing on behalf of the ALDE group in the European Parliament.

Parliamentarians are calling for answers on the position of Catherine Ashton, EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, on the “need to establish a common EU list of officials responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky and for the subsequent judicial cover-up, to impose and implement an EU-wide visa ban on these officials and to freeze any financial assets they or their immediate family may hold inside the European Union.”

 

For further information please contact:

Hermitage Capital
Phone:             +44 207 440 1777
Email:              info@lawandorderinrussia.org
Website:          http://lawandorderinrussia.org
Facebook:        http://on.fb.me/hvIuVI
Twitter:           @KatieFisher__
Livejournal:     //hermitagecap.livejournal.com/

See Question from ALDE on European Parliament website:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=OQ&reference=O-2013-000010&format=XML&language=EN

Press Release
Hermitage Capital

11 February 2013 – The Moldovan authorities have opened a criminal money laundering case on the basis of $53m of funds laundered through Moldova connected to the $230m theft identified and exposed by Russian anti corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The case was opened in response to a formal complaint filed by Hermitage Capital Management in June last year, reported the EU Observer (http://euobserver.com/justice/118988). In the complaint, lawyers for Hermitage Capital identified 2 accounts at Moldova’s Banca de Economii which received the funds stolen from the Russian treasury via the scheme exposed by Sergei Magnitsky. Those funds were then sent to Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Switzerland, Austria, Finland and Hong Kong.

“A criminal prosecution was started by…the National Anti-Corruption Centre – on money laundering in December 2012. The case is now being investigated,” wrote the Moldovan anti-corruption agency in response to EU Observer.

By opening a criminal investigation into money laundering, Moldova joins Switzerland, Cyprus, Latvia and Lithuania who all have launched money laundering investigations into the trail of funds stolen from the Russian treasury with the involvement of Russian government officials and organized criminals.  So far, no bank accounts have been frozen in Moldova in relation to this case.

“Moldova was chosen as a transit point by the Russian organised criminal group behind the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars and the arrest and death of Sergei Magnitsky. An investigation held in cooperation with European law enforcement bodies could help identify further recipients and beneficiaries of the stolen and laundered funds across the EU,” said a Hermitage Capital representative.

According to the Moldovan National Anti-Corruption Centre, Moldovan Prime Minister Vlad Filat said he would personally monitor the case, reported the EU Observer.

For further information please contact:

Hermitage Capital
Phone:             +44 207 440 1777
Email:              info@lawandorderinrussia.org
Website:          http://lawandorderinrussia.org
Facebook:        http://on.fb.me/hvIuVI
Twitter:           @KatieFisher__
Livejournal:     //hermitagecap.livejournal.com/

 

Article courtesy of:
ISISC Secretariat
ISISC- Istituto Superiore Internazionale di Scienze Criminali
International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences
Via Logoteta 27, 96100 Siracusa, Italia
Tel.: +39 0931 414515 / 21495
Fax: +39 0931 67622
email: segreteria@isisc.org
website: www.isisc.org