A shocking but not so shocking revelation out of Russia today. In a slew of documents revealed by Buzzfeed News over the weekend, one of the major Russian banking institutions booted from most financial systems (hence, SWIFT) by the Americans and so on has a dark past. According to the documents, Promsvyazbank bank has a past dating back to 2011 that includes criminal conspiracy; money laundering, and essentially “washing” dirty money through a so-called Russian laundromat.
But it doesn’t stop there. The trove of documents further revealed that the same bank, which is owned by the Russian government, also apparently at one point in history tried to launder money through very high-end Manhattan based real estate but was largely unsuccessful. Russian officials took over the bank a few years ago to serve the defence industry, however, that may not have been the actual full truth as the bank was later flagged with SAR reports as time went on.
SAR reports for those that don’t know are called Suspicious Activity Reports. These reports are req’d by American law and the like to be filed if a bank detects suspicious transactions of any kind; money transfers, or pretty much any kind of banking activity that would otherwise typically have the ingredients to stand up to allegations of being a laundering case.
A VERY PROMINENT example of this would be the infamous Rotenburg family in Russia. The patriarch Arkady was sanctioned by the Americans back in 2014 following the unlawful annexation of Crimea (that’s a peninsula down in Ukraine.) Following the sanctions Arkady sold his stake in several companies to his son Igor, who then retained unfettered access to American financial markets through the mentioned bank because his father couldn’t.
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