Financial Services, Legislation, Lithuania, Post Office, Transport
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Thursday, 25.04.2024, 20:00
Nigerian citizens laundered money via Lithuanian post
Ruta Andriuskaite, spokeswoman for FNTT, told BNS
that the probe into money laundering by the Nigerian citizens involved Lietuvos Pastas. In her words, the
authorities cannot rule out that the laundering was possible due to the postal
service's weak money laundering prevention scheme.
"We cannot rule out that the money received form illicit operations
were withdrawn at postal offices of Lietuvos
Pastas due to possibly weak system of money laundering prevention instruments.
The board of Lietuvos Pastas has been
notified about the possibly weak laundering prevention and the investigation in
connection to the African citizens," Andriuskaite said.
In her words, FNTT specialists suspect that some of the cash was being withdrawn
in offices of Lietuvos Pastas by
using forged personal ID documents of citizens of African countries.
In May, FNTT announced having launched a probe involving citizens of
Nigeria studying at a university in Kaunas who were suspected of withdrawing money
transfers with forged ID. The total amount of money transfers was about 1.5
million euros.
The service then did not reveal the institution used to withdraw the cash.
Minderiene was on Friday dismissed from the top position at Lietuvos Pastas, which has a license of
electronic money institution. The decision to sack her was taken based on
conclusions from the central Bank of Lithuania and the FNTT probe.
The Transport and Communications Ministry of the Bank of Lithuania did not
officially specify the ways, in which Lietuvos
Pastas failed to ensure prevention of money laundering.