Last June, the police searched many addresses related to ABLV Bank. Eight people were detained for a while. “We are looking at 200 customers. In total, the turnover is several billion euros. If we talk about account transfers and operations, they are hundreds of thousands. In order to draw even the preliminary conclusions, it was necessary to do a simple titanic job, ”explained Inese Gise, the head of the 1st Division of the Police Economic Crime Administration (ENAP) at the time.
In the so-called ABLV main criminal case, the police collected evidence to confirm or overturn the suspicions expressed by the US authorities FinCEN in early 2018 that the bank’s employees were laundering dirty money.
The investigation has clearly progressed because, as De Facto is aware, it was in the context of the main proceedings that the investigator seized property in February, including shares in Bernis-owned companies.
With the court’s approval, shares in Cassandra Holding Company were seized as belonging to Bern. Their value is estimated at almost 56.9 million euros. According to the Register of Enterprises, this company owns less than 14.76% of shares in ABLV Bank. However, for reasons that are still unclear, the arrest has not affected Cassandra Holding Company’s parent company, Syzygy, in which his wife Nika Berne and daughter Asya Berne were registered as the real beneficiaries at the end of February.
The arrest has also not been imposed on Syzygy’s subsidiary ASG Resolution Capital, which owns almost 28.76% of ABLV Bank.
The police did not comment in the interest of the investigation. It is apparent from the part of the investigator’s decision which has been disclosed that the seizure of Bern’s indirect property was appropriate to secure its possible future confiscation as an additional penalty. But why it does not affect each other’s valuable company is not clear.
In a comment to the media, Bernis stated that changing the real beneficiary was not a last-minute decision.
ENAP also seized Bofo in Berne and Omnia Analytics, owned by Bern and his former deputy Vadim Reinfeld, whose main activity is the analysis of the origin of funds and assets. The shares of Reinfeld’s Vincit Advisory and Vincit Online were also arrested, which also indicates Reinfeld’s involvement in the investigation.
Bernis, the former head of ABLV Bank, does not agree with the suspicions and emphasizes that the bank was supervised by the Financial and Capital Market Commission and the European Central Bank, audited by international companies, and transactions were investigated by the Control Service.
Unfortunately, seeing the recent statements of the officials that ABLV’s case involves probably the largest administrative resources in the world, I am concerned that the goal and task is to celebrate ABLV alone. And so for three years. However, I still believe that the investigation will take place objectively and legally, ”Bernis said in a written reply to the LTV program.
He also explained that arrests do not restrict the economic activity of companies.
The investigation of the so-called “ABLV” bank’s main case has been initiated regarding the possible large-scale money laundering in an organized group by bank employees and officials over a long period of time using the bank’s infrastructure.
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