Investigation of the Troika Dialog offshore companies is not included in the Vladimir Putin agenda

What happened next?
06.03.2019
Ouartz Media
Origin source
On March 4, Medusa published an OCCRP investigation into the offshore empire of Ruben Vardanyan, the former director of Troika Dialog investment bank. Investigation articles also published The Guardian, Suddeutsche Zeitung and other leading global publications. The next day, news in the wake of these investigations began to appear throughout Europe. Medusa talks briefly about the first effects of the OCCRP investigation.

English prince

From 2005 to 2011, almost 4.5 billion dollars passed through accounts controlled by Troika Dialog. The funds received from different sources (not all of them were directly connected with the crime), then distributed to various recipients.

As The Guardian wrote, the money from one of the offshore structures associated with Troika Dialog was received by Prince Charles charitable companies. In the period from 2009 to 2011, Quantus, for example, transferred $ 202,000 to the account of the Prince of Wales Foundation of Charitable Organizations in Ukio, a Lithuanian bank. According to BBC News, these funds were used to restore the historic estate in the south of Scotland.

Austrian Bank

OCCRP talks about dozens of offshore structures created by Troika Dialog. According to banking information, money passed through them, including from firms that were involved in criminal cases of money laundering, cashing or illegal withdrawal of billions of rubles from Russia. In particular, in the investigation it was reported that through the Troika Dialog offshore empire, funds derived from the illegal return of VAT for former companies of the Hermitage Capital investment fund were withdrawn.

According to Bloomberg, after the publication of the investigation, Hermitage Capital applied to the Austrian prosecutor’s office, stating that the local Raiffeisen Bank helped launder funds withdrawn from Russia with criminal origins. An investigation into this appeal has not yet begun, but the value of the bank’s shares on the London Stock Exchange on March 5 decreased by 10.78%.

the Moscow Kremlin
 
The final recipients of Troika Dialog offshore funds were often influential people in Russia, including top managers of state-owned companies, relatives of governors, and Vladimir Putin’s friend cellist Sergei Roldugin. In 2007–2010, related companies received $ 69 million from the Troika offshore system.

On March 5, the official representative of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, said that the information published in the investigation was not on the agenda of the head of state - the relevant fiscal departments should deal with such issues. “With all the necessary powers, financial institutions can evaluate this kind of publication for credibility or inaccuracy,” said Peskov.

Russian bank

In 2011, Troika Dialog was sold to Sberbank, the largest financial institution in Russia. 50% of Sberbank is controlled by the state, and its securities are traded on the London Stock Exchange. After publication of the investigation, OCCRP sent a call to British regulators to check the circumstances of the takeover of Sberbank Troika Dialog by Sberbank.

Sberbank stated that the information published in the investigation has nothing to do with it. “The facts stated in the article did not have and are not related to Sberbank,” quotes a representative of RBC Bank. - The operations mentioned were carried out from the accounts of companies that had never entered the perimeter of the transaction for Sberbank to purchase Troika Dialog. The structures of Sberbank did not participate in the operations. ”

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