France found Rietumu Banka guilty of money laundering. According to the program De facto (LTV), sentence entered into force.
Rietumu Banka played an important role in the tax evasion scheme, which operated from 2008 to 2012.
The storyline is like this. French businessman Nadav Bensusan and his company France Offshore helped clients avoid paying taxes. For this purpose, offshore companies with accounts in Rietumu Banka were founded. France Offshore customers were issued cards that allowed them to secretly withdraw money in France.
IN materials The case notes that in total, at least 200 million euros were laundered in the France Offshore case.
Accusations of legalizing criminally acquired funds were brought against, among other things, the chairman of the bank’s board of directors, Alexander Pankov, and the head of the bank’s representative office in France, Sergei Shchuka.
In 2017, Nadav Bensusan was sentenced to five years in prison (three of them suspended) and a fine of three million euros. In addition, he was banned from working in the field of taxation; he was seized an SUV and more than 150,000 euros on more than 20 accounts in Rietumu banka.
Alexander Pankov was sentenced to four years’ probation, and Sergei Shchuka to one year’s probation. Rietumu banka was fined 80 million euros. In addition, all those involved had to pay the French authorities a solidarity compensation in the amount of 10 million euros.
The bank appealed the verdict, and in 2021 the Court of Appeal reduced the sentence considerably, to 20 million euros. And Pankov’s suspended sentence was reduced to two years.
Rietumu Banka refused to be interviewed by the program.
The largest shareholders of the bank are Esterkin Family Investments (33.12%), the Maltese company Boswell (International) Consulting Limited (33.11%), and Suharenko Family Investments (17.34%).
The sole owner of Esterkin Family Investments is Leonid Esterkin, and the sole owner of Suharenko Family Investments is Arkady Sukharenko.