Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions with varying definitions. It is usually a key operation of organized crime.
Banking in Switzerland dates to the early 18th century through Switzerland's merchant trade and has, over the centuries, grown into a complex, regulated, and international industry. Banking is seen as emblematic of Switzerland. The country has a long history of banking secrecy and client confidentiality reaching back to the early 1700s. Starting as a way to protect wealthy European banking interests, Swiss banking secrecy was codified in 1934 with the passage of a landmark federal law, the Federal Act on Banks and Savings Banks. These laws, which were used to protect assets of persons being persecuted by Nazi authorities, have also been used by people and institutions seeking to illegally evade taxes, hide assets, or generally commit financial crime.
The Financial Action Task Force (on Money Laundering) ('FATF, aka "Fatfee"), also known by its French name, Groupe d'action financière (GAFI), is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1989 on the initiative of the G7 to develop policies to combat money laundering and to maintain certain interest. In 2001, its mandate was expanded to include terrorism financing.
Sir William Felix Browder, is an American-born English financier and political activist. He is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, the investment advisor to the Hermitage Fund, which at a time was the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. The Hermitage Fund was founded in partnership with Republic National Bank, with $25 million in seed capital. The fund, and associated accounts, eventually grew to $4.5 billion of assets under management. In 1997, the Hermitage Fund was the best-performing fund in the world, up by 238%. Browder's primary investment strategy was shareholder rights activism. Browder took on large Russian companies such as Gazprom, Surgutneftegaz, Unified Energy Systems, and Sidanco. In retaliation, on 13 November 2005, Browder was refused entry to Russia, deported to the UK, and declared a threat to Russian national security.
Hermitage Capital Management is an investment fund and asset management company specializing in Russian markets founded by Bill Browder and Edmond Safra. Chief operating officer is Ivan Cherkasov. Hermitage Capital Management headquarters are in Guernsey; it also maintains offices in the Cayman Islands, London and Moscow.
Nicos Anastasiades is a Cypriot politician and businessperson, who served as the seventh president of Cyprus from 2013 to 2023. Previously, he was the leader of Democratic Rally between 1997 and 2013 and served as Member of Parliament from Limassol between 1981 and 2013.
Passport fraud is an act of intentional deception that involves forgery, alteration, or false use of a travel document, such as a passport. Common reasons to perpetrate passport fraud include illegally entering a country, avoiding deportation, committing financial crimes, and smuggling.
Financial crime is crime committed against property, involving the unlawful conversion of the ownership of property to one's own personal use and benefit. Financial crimes may involve fraud ; theft; scams or confidence tricks; tax evasion; bribery; sedition; embezzlement; identity theft; money laundering; and forgery and counterfeiting, including the production of counterfeit money and consumer goods.
Crime in Switzerland is combated mainly by cantonal police. The Federal Office of Police investigates organised crime, money laundering and terrorism.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a global network of investigative journalists with staff on six continents. It was founded in 2006 and specializes in organized crime and corruption.
The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2012, intending to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009 and also to grant permanent normal trade relations status to Russia.
Corruption in Cyprus is a salient concern for people in Cyprus: As of 2022, 94% considered that corruption was widespread in the country.
Natalia Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer. Her clients include Pyotr Katsyv, an official in the state-owned Russian Railways, and his son Denis Katsyv, whom she defended against a money laundering charge in New York. On 8 January 2019, Veselnitskaya was indicted in the United States with obstruction of justice charges for allegedly having attempted to thwart the Justice Department investigation into the money laundering charges against Katsyv.
Denis Katsyv is a Ukrainian, Russian and Israeli businessman based in Moscow and owner of Prevezon Holdings Limited. He was linked in a civil forfeiture case to money laundering through real estate investments in the United States, in violation of the Magnitsky Act of 2012; the case was settled in 2017 with the United States Justice Department by Prevezon agreeing to pay $5.9 million.
The Parties agree that the Complaints do not allege that any of the Defendants, Claimants, or Denis Katsyv, Alexander Litvak, or Timofey Krit, is responsible, directly or indirectly, for the arrest, detention, or death of Sergei Magnitsky, or that they have acted as an agent of, on behalf of or in agreement with a person in a matter relating to the arrest, detention, or death of Sergei Magnitsky.
The Danske Bank money laundering scandal arose in 2017-2018, when it became known that around €800 billion of suspicious transactions had flowed from Estonian, Russian, Latvian and other sources through the Estonia-based bank branch of Denmark-based Danske Bank from 2007 to 2015. It has been described as possibly the largest money laundering scandal ever in Europe, and as possibly the largest in world history. It includes incoming funds from Estonia (23%), Russia (23%), Latvia (12%), Cyprus (9%), UK (4%) and others. Outgoing funds were distributed between Estonia (15%), Latvia (14%), China (7%), Switzerland (6%), Turkey (6%) and others (52%)
The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom applying to the United Kingdom.
The Cyprus Papers was a leak of government documents related to the Cyprus Investment Program (CIP) obtained by Al Jazeera and released in August 2020. The CIP allows non-citizens to apply and obtain a Cypriot passport by investing at least 2 million Euros in Cyprus. The passports obtained through the CIP are nicknamed "Golden Passports".
The Executive Service of the Commission for the Prevention of Money Laundering and Monetary Offenses is the financial intelligence unit (FIU) of the Spanish Ministry of Economy. As FIU, the Sepblac is the supervisory authority for the prevention of money laundering and the financing of terrorism and the execution of sanctions and financial countermeasures of the 2010 Prevention of Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism Act. Since 30 October 2020, the director of the Executive Service is Pedro Manuel Comín Rodríguez.
Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, also known as Victor Muller Ferreira, is an alleged Russian intelligence officer working for the GRU, whose true identity was revealed by the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service in 2022. He was first sentenced by a Brazilian federal court to 15 years in prison for using a forged Brazilian government-issued document, but the sentence was later reduced to 5 years and 2 months.
The Cyprus Investment Program (CIP) was an immigrant investor program conceived by the Government of Cyprus in order to attract foreign investors in exchange for Cyprus citizenship. Details of the scheme were made public after a leak of documents, the Cyprus Papers, to Al Jazeera which caused a controversy in Cyprus and led to the end of the program.
