MOSCOW, Sept 24 — The Russian state financial monitoring service said today it had independently reviewed suspicious transactions cited in a recent international banking investigation, leading to criminal probes and convictions.
Reporting by BuzzFeed News and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has concluded that potentially dubious transfers worth about US$2.0 trillion (RM8.3 trillion) took place at a host of international banks between 1999 and 2017.
Rosfinmonitoring told the Russian RBK business news portal that it and other Russian anti-laundering bodies had already reviewed and verified some of the cases cited in the investigation.
Not all of the cases cited in the investigation were illegal, it said, but “a number of these facts formed the basis of criminal cases, and some even resulted in convictions,” Rosfinmonitoring told RBK.
It did not give examples however, citing Russian legislation.
Russian billionaire and ally of President Vladimir Putin, Arkady Rotenberg was named in the FinCEN files and has denied using Barclays Bank to launder money and bypass sanctions.
Several other Russian oligarchs including Oleg Deripaska and Alisher Usmanov are also named in the report and accused of laundering money to bypass Western sanctions. — AFP
