Hungary involved in big Russian money laundering scandal

Hungary is also involved in the money laundering scandal having been stirring since almost three years now. Successor of KGB, international banks, Moldavian judges and also Putin’s cousin is involved in the case called Laundromat. Approximately 22 651 230 Euros flew through the banks, Index.hu reports.

The first article concerning a big Russian money-laundering scandal was published in an independent Russian daily paper approximately three years ago. According to the journalists, Index.hu informs, Russian white-collar criminals laundered a total sum of 22 billion Dollars of Rubells (22651230 Euros) in a complicated international structure of organization. With the help of an organization involving international investigative journalists, the source and the target of millions of Dollars of Rubels flowing through Hungary also turned out.

Putin seemed to have been trying to wage war against the economic frauds since the mid 90s: Russian citizens living elsewhere but Russia had to present a tax return at the Russian embassies. They even had to give details on their bank accounts. Later, authorities kept an eye on these because many tried to issue pro-forma invoices.

Therefore, white-collar criminals had developed another method being called Laundromat by the press. According to Index.hu, the essence of the new system operating between 2010 and 2014 was that ,at first, at least twenty fake companies were founded, the majority of them in Great-Britain, nominally managed by Moldavian and Ukrainian nominal directors. Companies lent money to one another and to individual persons, they signed fake contracts, and then they brought the cases to the justice. Each procedure took place in Moldavia, because, on one part, the majority of the nominal partners were Moldavian, on the other part; Moldavian judges were the easiest to pay off. Parties presented at the judge, they admitted their liabilities, and the paid-off judges delivering the sentences. Often, debtors were obligated to pay 500 millions of Dollars which they did accept. Russian companies and banks that undertook the guarantee of the businesses paid each time. This is how they could transfer millions of dollars from Russia legally, based on a sentence.

After the procedures, some Russians opened a bank account at the Moldavian Moldindconbank. The sum adjudicated was transferred to that account, and it was immediately forwarded to a Euro-based bank account. From that account, the money was transferred to a Baltic bank. After that, white-collar criminals had an easy job, because as soon as the money was on an account of a bank of the European Union, it was not so complicated to transfer it to other banks within the whole world. Majority of the money flew through the world’s greatest banks. According to The Guardian, Index.hu informs, London banks managed roughly 740 millions of Dollars of the laundered money. The money was later transferred to different offshore accounts so that it is spent on diamonds, fur, valuable real estates, furniture, and so on.

Index.hu informs, that the involvement of Russia in the issue is proven by the fact that the Russian authorities, so to say, are not willing to assist to the Laundromat-investigation. Index.hu notes that, after the Moldavian authorities asked for their Moldavian colleagues’ help, the Russian Federal Security Service sent security agents to Moldavia whose task might have been to find out how much the Moldavians know about the case, but the Moldavians kept the information. Index.hu says, based on the information of a Russian daily paper, that two young agents arrived to Moldavia in 2014 with passports issued one day before their arrival. Officially, the two agents should have helped the local Moldavian authorities to reveal further details in relation to the money laundering, however, Moldavians were not cooperating with them.

Two days later, the two agents returned to Russia after which one of the Moldavian diplomats was arrested, and the Russian journalist who wrote the articles was heard several times by the Russian security agency.

Ce: bm

Source: Index.hu