Four bankers sentenced
“Putin’s wallet” trial in Switzerland
Four bankers have been found guilty by a Swiss appeals court in connection with the management of funds belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The employees of a Gazprom Bank subsidiary in Zurich had failed to identify the true account holder.
The Russian musician Sergei Roldugin was named as the beneficial owner of the account, which was opened in 2014. According to media reports, the cellist and conductor is also the godfather of one of Putin's daughters. Shortly after Russia's attack on Ukraine, he was placed on Switzerland's sanctions list. According to the list, Roldugin is known in Moscow as "Putin's wallet".
Where did unknown singer get so much money?
Two of the three judges were in favor of a guilty verdict. They came to the conclusion that the defendants had deliberately failed to check who the beneficial owner of the accounts was, which had been filled with dividends from a Russian media company. Based on the dividend payments, Roldugin's stake in the media company must have been worth over 100 million Swiss francs (around 104 million euros), the presiding judge said.
Roldugin was largely unknown until 2016. "Even in St. Petersburg, you can't make that much money in a hurry. Clarifications would have been necessary." The judge did not consider the claim that the stake in the media company had been financed by salaries and loans to be a plausible explanation. "This could indicate straw man financing," it said in the grounds for the judgment.
Conditional fines imposed
However, the trial was not about the question of whether the funds came from illegal sources or who they belonged to, but solely about the fact that the bank employees had breached their auditing duties. Conditional fines of up to 330,000 Swiss francs (around 344,000 euros) were imposed on the defendants. An appeal to the Federal Supreme Court, Switzerland's highest court, is still possible.
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