Four bankers convicted after helping Putin’s friend set up Swiss bank accounts
Four bankers have been convicted for managing the bank accounts of one of Vladimir Putin’s friends.
The unnamed workers, three Russian-born and one Swiss, were employed by Gazprombank Switzerland.
Cellist Sergei Roldugin was a customer of the bank between 2014 and 2016. Suspicions raised about his activity in the 2016 Panama Papers leaks.
Prosecutors accused Roldugin, a friend of Putin, of helping to funnel millions abroad and said financial employees may have turned a blind eye to such flows.
The US Treasury Department describes him as ‘part of a system that manages president Putin’s offshore wealth’.
His income was listed at the bank as a million Swiss francs a year (£886,000) and his assets at 10 million francs (£8.8 million).
But his occupation was registered as a musician, indicating that the money flows were ‘in no way plausible as Roldugin’s own wealth’, the indictment said.
On top of this, Gazprombank maintained Roldugin’s accounts despite ‘abundant’ media reports about his relationship to Putin, including that he was godfather to one of the president’s daughters.
Roldugin is one of the multiple people who has faced sanctions from western nations for their close ties with Mr Putin’s government.
The four bankers involved in this case charged with failing to adequately check whether Mr Roldugin owned the assets in the accounts and violating Swiss anti-money-laundering law.
They all denied the accusations against them but were convicted after a trial on March 8.
They were sentenced at Zurich district court with seven-month suspended prison sentences.
If these sentences are violated, they could lead collectively to hundreds of thousands of Swiss francs in fines.
Lawyers for all the defendants immediately announced plans to appeal.
In a statement, the Zurich regional prosecutors’ office welcomed the verdicts as ‘an important signal that due diligence obligations under money-laundering law must be observed’.
Gazprombank Switzerland, a Zurich-based channel of the Russian bank which is in the middle of shutting down operations, did not face charges as an organisation.
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