Financial Services, Latvia, Legislation, Real Estate, Taxation

The Corruption Prevention Bureau (CPB) indicates that during construction of the villa, the state has lost EUR 200,000 due to fraudulent activity.

On May 20, 2011, CPB began one of its biggest investigations – the so-called oligarch case, during which the bureau has carried out searches at 26 companies. Some of the searches were connected with Aivars Lembergs, Andris Skele, and Slesers. Investigators had wanted to perform a search of Slesers' residence, however, it required parliamentary permission, as Slesers was a deputy at the time. MPs rejected the move against Slesers, with only 35 of 100 voting "for". Two days later, a disgusted President Valdis Zatlers initiated the referendum to dissolve Saeima.

Since then, the so-called oligarch case lies dormant, and during the past three years since the initiation of the criminal process, not a single person has been named a suspect. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the investigation process has stopped. The CPB stresses that the case is "hefty" – it concerns the time period between 2004 and 2011.

This past spring, Financial Police of the CPB initiated a new process in the case. Recent information describes tax evasion and missing trader fraud, also known as VAT fraud. The law sets ten year imprisonment as the applicable penalty for such action. "There are no suspects at the moment. We have initiated a criminal process about criminal activity in an organized group – conspiracy, thus, the number of suspects is more than two," the head of the CPB's Financial Police, Kaspars Podins, said.

The Financial Police indicated that the investigation process involves a time period between 2007 and 2009, and that the amount of losses are more than EUR 200,000.

Investigators refuse to reveal any further information, however, unofficial sources indicate that investigators are analyzing the construction process of a villa that belongs to Slesers' family business Avadel. Slesers says that he is unaware of any such probe. "No one has told me anything about it," he says.