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Norvik: Rimsevics has been extorting bribes for years

BC, Riga, 20.02.2018.Print version
The CEO of Latvia’s Norvik Banka, Oliver Bramwell, told the AP news agency that Bank of Latvia governor Ilmars Rimsevics has been extorting bribes from the bank for years, cites LETA.

An international complaint filed by Norvik Banka alleges that a "senior Latvian official" repeatedly sought "to extort monetary bribes," and retaliated against the bank when its owners refused to pay up. The claim filed before a World Bank arbitration body left the identity of the senior official anonymous. "The high level official mentioned in our request for arbitration is Rimsevics," Bramwell now told the AP.

 

The bank's majority shareholder and chairman, Grigory Guselnikov, meanwhile claimed that persons related with Rimsevics asked him to launder money coming from Russia.

 

Guselnikov claims that Rimsevics has regularly demanded bribes through a middleman since 2015, threatening to hit his bank with tougher regulations if he did not comply. These, he was told, were the “rules of the game” in Latvia.

 

Rimsevics has told Guselnikov that he could help him because the Latvia’s financial regulator was loyal to him personally. All he had to do was “cooperate” with Rimsevics’ middleman Renars Kokins.

 

„Kokins sat Guselnikov down at a table. He pulled a pen out and wrote on a piece of paper: “100,000 per month.” Kokins did not use the word “payment.” He explained to the banker that all Latvian banks “cooperate” in this manner,” reported the AP.

 

Guselnikov decided not to pay, fearing that once he paid a bribe he would forever be blackmailed for more cash, but every time he refused to pay, his bank would get hit with new regulatory measures. The legal complaint lists these measures as sudden increases in the amount of capital the bank needed to hold, forcing it to write down the value of assets.

 

The AP reported that Guselnikov says he met with Kokins and Rimsevics a few more times to try to clarify his position and with each meeting, Rimsevics was increasingly impatient and said that if Guselnikov did not cooperate, his bank would be hit with enough regulatory problems to put it out of business. Rimsevics took great care to not be seen at these meetings.

 

Guselnikov says that Kokins did not only ask him for bribes, he wanted Norvik Banka to launder money. At one meeting, Kokins suggested that Norvik Banka allow the transit of USD 100 million from Russia, and keep USD 1 million as a payment for the service. He said the transfer would be arranged by a man named German Miloush from Russia.

 

Miloush himself is an internationally wanted criminal. He was convicted in 2007 in Latvia for bribing politicians and fled the country. Ten years later, he was arrested on an Interpol warrant upon arriving in Cyprus, an EU member state, from Moscow. Once again, he fled. He reportedly failed to show up for a court date in September 2017 and has been at large since.

 

Russian border records obtained by the AP show that Kokins flew from Moscow to Cyprus just before Miloush dodged his extradition hearing. The data, which could not be independently verified by the AP, also show Kokins has been travelling about once a month to Russia, sometimes only for a few hours, since at least 2010.

 

The data also show Rimsevics has visited Russia regularly in recent years — making at least eight trips since 2010. Most of those were before Latvia was allowed into the EU’s currency union, the euro, in 2014 and before the invasion of the Crimean Peninsula that triggered Western sanctions against Russia. After that, the data show Rimsevics visited Russia via Belarus, a neighboring Russian ally that shares border data with Moscow.

 

On one trip, in 2010, Rimsevics went on what appears to be a hunting trip, according to photos obtained by the AP. In one of the photos, he is pictured with Dmitry Pilshchikov, who was then the head of the Research Institute of Information Technology, a Russia-owned military tech company later sanctioned by the U.S.

 

As reported, the Latvian State Police has launched a criminal procedure at the application of Norvik Banka on extortion of a bribe from the bank’s largest shareholder by a high-ranking official in the financial sector, Criminal Police chief Andrejs Grisins told the press on Monday. Grisins did not elaborate on the case.

 

LETA also reported that the largest Norvik Banka shareholder, Russian-British businessman Grigory Guselnikov and other Norvik Banka shareholders had turned to an international court of arbitration. Their claim says that former insolvency administrator Maris Spruds and a high-ranking financial official in Latvia extorted money from the shareholders, promising in turn that Latvia's Financial and Capital Market Commission would not put pressure on the bank.

 

Guselnikov's accusations are part of Norvik Banka's legal dispute with the State of Latvia over the Winergy wind farm. The company that was implementing the Winergy project ended up owing several dozen million euros to the bank, but the bank and the company reached a settlement and the bank is now the owner of the wind farm. Nevertheless, Winergy is still at the center of several legal disputes.

 

Norvik Banka believes that Spruds was a key person who helped Winergy obtain loans from the bank, although Spruds' name is not mentioned in the Winergy criminal case.

 

One instance mentioned in Norvik Banka's claim states that a high-ranking financial official tried to extort money from Guselnikov in 2016 and 2017, at personal meetings and through go-betweens, telling Guselnikov that Norvik Banka would otherwise face sanctions from the Financial and Capital Market Commission.

 

Guselnikov explains that he never gave in to extortion and that is why, he believes, the Financial and Capital Market Commission tightened the screws on Norvik Banka. The commission is trying to make the bank insolvent so it would have reason to take the bank over.

 

As reported, the Corruption Prevention Bureau (KNAB) detained Bank of Latvia Governor Ilmars Rimsevics last Saturday after searching his office and home. Rimsevics is suspected of demanding and receiving a huge bribe - at least EUR 100,000.


Jekabs Straume, the chief of the Latvian Corruption Prevention Bureau (KNAB), though said in a press conference today that Rimsevics’ case is not related with any credit institutions operating in Latvia – neither ABLV Bank accused of involvement in money laundering and corruption by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of Treasury nor potential litigation between the Latvian state and Norvik Banka. Rimsevics has paid a EUR 100,000 bail and was released from the detention facility on Monday evening.

 

In terms of assets, Norvik Banka was the eighth largest bank in Latvia at end-September 2017.






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