Four bankers have appeared in a Swiss court charged with helping to hide tens of millions of francs on behalf of Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The men, who had senior roles at the Swiss branch of Russia\u2019s Gazprombank, are accused of helping Sergei Roldugin \u2013 a close friend of the Russian president who has been described as \u201cPutin\u2019s wallet\u201d \u2013 to move millions through Swiss bank accounts without the proper due diligence checks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The men \u2013 three Russians and one Swiss national who cannot be identified, under Swiss reporting restrictions \u2013 appeared at Zurich district court on Wednesday. They denied the charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roldugin, a godfather to Putin\u2019s eldest daughter, Maria, reportedly placed $50m in Swiss accounts between 2014 and 2016 with no credible explanation as to where the money had come from. He also allegedly planned to pump more than $10m a year into Swiss accounts via a complex web of shell companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Swiss prosecutors told the court that the bankers failed to do enough to determine the identity of the true beneficial owner of the funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roldugin was the officially named owner of two accounts opened at Gazprombank Switzerland in 2014. However, there was no evidence to prove the source of Roldugin\u2019s funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roldugin, a cellist and conductor, previously told the New York Times that he was not a businessman and certainly not a millionaire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll the evidence runs contrary to Sergei Roldugin being the real owner of the assets,\u201d the prosecutor Jan Hoffmann told the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The defence lawyer Bernhard L\u00f6tscher said there was no proof that Roldugin was not the real owner of the assets. \u201cDoubts about the identity of the true owner are not enough from a criminal law point of view,\u201d he told the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The indictment says: \u201cIt is well known that \u2026 Putin officially only has an income of 100,000 Swiss francs and is not wealthy, but in fact has enormous assets which are managed by persons close to him \u2026 The declared assets were in general in no way plausible as Roldugin\u2019s own assets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Putin has previously said Roldugin is a friend, a brilliant musician and a benefactor who has honestly earned some money from a minority stake in a Russian company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kremlin has previously dismissed suggestions that Roldugin\u2019s funds are linked to the Russian leader as anti-Russian \u201cPutinophobia\u201d. It says Putin\u2019s finances are a matter of public record as he has regularly declared his assets and salary to Russian voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roldugin\u2019s alleged role as a \u201cwallet\u201d for Putin was revealed in 2016 by the\u00a0Panama Papers, an investigation published by the Guardian in collaboration with other media, including the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in Washington and the German newspaper S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
source: guardian <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four bankers have appeared in a Swiss court charged with helping to hide tens of millions of francs on behalf of Vladimir Putin. The men, who had senior roles at the Swiss branch of Russia\u2019s Gazprombank, are accused of helping Sergei Roldugin \u2013 a close friend of the Russian president who has been described as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":21369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,12],"tags":[11261,7358,1451,9784,9194,10507,2808,2702,10954,549,10197,1152,10342,10776,12309,9683,5612,12692,990,11973,6045,3805,71,3457,5217,3852,5261,328,9713,9682,5348,694,2354,594,63],"class_list":["post-30064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-world-news","tag-accused","tag-bank","tag-businessman","tag-charged","tag-charges","tag-court","tag-daughter","tag-identity","tag-international","tag-international-consortium-of-investigative-journalists","tag-investigation","tag-kremlin","tag-law","tag-lawyer","tag-men","tag-millions","tag-money","tag-musician","tag-new-york","tag-one","tag-panama","tag-president","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-russians","tag-salary","tag-shell","tag-swiss","tag-swiss-banks","tag-switzerland","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-washington","tag-who","tag-world-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}