The Netherlands: Dutch subsidiary of Russia's Alfa Bank raided, moneylaundering

Palinurus

Palinurus

The Living Force
Source: https://nltimes.nl/2017/12/14/amsterdam-trade-bank-raided-money-laundering-investigation

Amsterdam Trade Bank raided in money laundering investigation

By Zack Newmark on December 14, 2017 - 17:00

Amsterdam Trade Bank, the Dutch subsidiary of Russia's Alfa Bank, was raided as part of a money laundering investigation last week, Marieke van der Molen of the Public Prosecution Service confirmed to NL Times.

The Dutch tax authority's investigative service FIOD launched a criminal investigation into the bank "for serious fraud, environmental crime and asset management", Van der Molen said. The investigation is led by the Public Prosecutor. The bank is suspected of failing to report unusual transactions and not carrying out adequate customer due diligence, as is required by Dutch law.

The investigation is still ongoing, and Van der Molen could give no further comment. "In the fight against money laundering it is very important to report unusual transactions in time and to carry out adequate customer due diligence. Banks, accountants, notaries and other gatekeepers are required to report unusual transactions", she said in general. "If those companies do not fulfill their gatekeeper function adequately, they may become subject to criminal investigations."

A source with knowledge of the case confirmed to NL Times that the raid started at the Herengracht building just after business hours began on December 4th, and ended later that day.

Amsterdam Trade Bank was previously involved in a corruption scandal surrounding Russian telecom company Vimpelcom, now known as Veon. Last year Vimpelcom paid a total settlement amount of 716 million euros to the Netherlands and United States authorities to avoid criminal prosecution for bribing its way into the Uzbekistan market.

An NL Times review of internal documents shows that investigators are looking at the bank's handling of Vimpelcom, transaction monitoring and compliance. FIOD officers seized documents dating as far back as 2005, including minutes of supervisory board meetings, executive board meeting minutes, internal interview notes, and memoranda related to discussions with Dutch central bank DNB. They also seized red files from Moody's Analytics and two transparent sealed bags presumed to contain secret holders documents.

The troubles at Amsterdam Trade Bank do not stop with the current investigation. In July of this year the DNB wrote a letter stating that it was concerned about the bank allegedly breaching capital requirements over four separate periods of time in 2015 and 2016, each lasting for months at the time, and that the bank did a poor job putting protections in place to prevent this from happening. Amsterdam Trade Bank was cautioned three times by DNB. The DNB gave the bank until the end of the year to be in full compliance with a capital plan, capital policy, and an internal review of procedures.

Earlier this year Amsterdam Trade Bank was also listed as one of 732 banks that helped Russian criminals launder money. According to international journalist collaboration OCCRP, a total of $19 billion was laundered through these banks between January 2011 and October 2014. The collective added that it is unclear whether the banks were aware of these illegal activities.

"We are aware of the investigation into the bank", a spokesperson for DNB said to NL Times. The DNB would give no further comment as the organization has oversight over the Amsterdam Trade Bank.

The Amsterdam Trade Bank mainly provides international trade financing to companies, according to Reuters. Its most recent annual report states that its total assets were worth 1.3 billion euros at the end of last year.
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All part and parcel of the accusations against Russia. I could be wrong but the new home affairs minister and her handlers seem to have stepped up the anti-Russia propaganda and hysteria.

Yesterday the Russian ambassador in The Netherlands gave an interview (in English) in which he spoke about fake news and MH17 and the role of Bellingcat, calling them "home-grown" detectives. :D
Note that there are no Dutch subtitles (just snippets) which means that many people will not be able to hear the Russian side if they would want to nor understand how biased the interviewer was, putting words into the Russian ambassador's mouth, and basically accusing the Russians of MH17. No surprise there, but toe-curling nevertheless.

_https://nos.nl/artikel/2207662-russische-ambassadeur-wij-maken-geen-nepnieuws-in-nederland.html
 
Thank you for your contribution, Mariama.

As for the remarks of the Russian ambassador, I mentioned those here. You will notice that some of the remarks about the MH17 investigation team and Bellingcat were NOT included in that news-item. :rolleyes:
 
Other news about the Russian Alfa bank from SOTT:

https://www.sott.net/article/373148-Major-Russian-bank-reveals-Yeltsin-era-tendencies-by-courting-American-favor

Alfa-Bank, Russia's seventh biggest by asset value, says it will phase out business contacts with internal defense enterprises to avoid falling foul of latest US sanctions which come into force this month.

"These companies have been notified. It doesn't mean that we are just closing down all accounts this moment. But we are trying to minimize risks," Oleg Sysuev, deputy chair of Alfa-Bank's board of directors, told the Ekho Moskvy radio station.

Sysuev said defense companies represented a "significant part" of the bank's credit portfolio. Last month, the bank's founder, Mikhail Fridman, whose net worth is estimated at $16.2 billion by Forbes, told the magazine that Alfa-Bank was cutting ties with the Russia's defense industry, saying, "What can we do?"

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees Russia's defense industry, offered an alternative explanation for Alfa-Bank's decision.

"I make no ethical judgement of the behavior of the Alfa-Bank board,"Rogozin wrote on his Facebook page. "But I will draw your attention to the fact that the bank asked for, and was refused, a license to operate with defense procurement funds."

In the comments section, Rogozin added that Alfa-Bank, Russia's largest privately held financial institution, "wanted to make a good impression on the Americans."

The 'Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act' passed by Congress in July last year, stipulates separate sanctions on entities that have "significant transactions" with sanctioned Russian companies or individuals. A fresh list of sanctioned Russian companies, which include multiple defense enterprises, was published last October, with the new regulations taking effect on January 29, 2018.
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New report on Russian money laundering also mentions Alfa Bank among others.

Source: Russian money laundering machine shifted millions through the Netherlands - DutchNews.nl

Russian money laundering machine shifted millions through the Netherlands

March 5, 2019

A money laundering operation which moved billions of euros out of Russia shifted part of the cash through the Netherlands, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project said on Monday.

In total, almost €1bn of the money ended up in the Netherlands, some of which was used to buy two luxury yachts, said the research project, which includes Trouw and the Groene Amsterdammer magazine [in Dutch] plus Dutch investigative journalism collective Investico [in Dutch].

The OCCRP says Troika Dialog, once Russia’s largest private investment bank, channeled billions of dollars out of Russia from 2004 via a network of 70 offshore companies with accounts in Lithuania. The two Lithuanian banks were closed down in 2011 and 2013.

The scheme was discovered in a collection of 1.3 million banking transactions and other documents obtained by OCCRP and the Lithuanian news site 15min.lt, which stem from the two Lithuanian banks.

Some of the money was channeled into the Netherlands via the Amsterdam Trade Bank (ATB) and Turkey’s GarantiBank. ATB, part of Russia’s Alfa Bank, is already involved in corruption investigations.

Smaller amounts were moved through ING and ABN Amro, the Groene Amsterdammer said. ‘The million euro payments came from the Troika Bank and had many signs of money laundering,’ the magazine said.

In addition, €43m went to the Rabobank account of luxury yacht builder Heesen, according to Dutch investigative news collective Investico.

‘How could all this happen under the watchful eye of the central bank DNB?’ the magazine asked. ‘Banks are banned from carrying out transactions if they don’t know who profits, but, the central bank says, banks often have no idea who is really hiding behind anonymous companies.’

The central bank declined to answer specific questions about the claims, the Groene Amsterdammer said.
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Source: Russian Amsterdam Trade Bank declared bankrupt due to sanctions

Saturday, April 23, 2022 - 09:49
Russian Amsterdam Trade Bank declared bankrupt due to sanctions

The Amsterdam Trade Bank (ATB), a Dutch subsidiary of the Russian Alfa Bank, has been declared bankrupt. The bank's thousands of customers can get their savings back up to 100,000 euros through the Dutch deposit guarantee scheme.

The bank itself submitted an application for bankruptcy, which was subsequently granted by the court in Amsterdam. British and American sanctions ultimately proved fatal to the bank, according to curator Toni van Hees. For example, software suppliers could no longer do business with ATB due to the sanctions, making it very difficult to continue banking. In addition, the large Dutch banks refused to carry out payment orders from ATB, regulator De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) wrote to the Ministry of Finance.

Earlier this week, there were already signals that a change was about to happen at ATB. Het Financieele Dagblad the bank was trying to approach investors. Van Hees said that attempts had been made to find a solution to the problems through the sanctions.

The bank has 23,000 private account holders, nearly 6,000 of whom live in Germany, according to DNB. Bank balances of account holders at ATB are protected up to an amount of 100,000 euros. In total, customers will receive 700 million euros through the guarantee system. Under certain conditions, customers who purchase investment services from the bank can receive a maximum refund of 20,000 euros.

ATB has been in existence since 1994 and, according to the bank's own website, it employs about 150 people. Its parent company, Alfa Bank, is a large Russian bank founded by Russians Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman. They are on the sanctions list of the European Union because they belong to the circle of Putin confidants.

Fridman has an interest in ATB between 25 and 50 percent, according to a register of the Chamber of Commerce. Due to ATB's Russian roots, DNB tightened its supervision of the bank from February. For example, the supervisor asked the bank located in the Amsterdam Zuidas for extra guarantees that the sanctions would be properly observed.

This meant, among other things, that ATB was no longer allowed to trade with its own shareholder Fridman and other sanctioned owners. The shareholders were also placed at a distance from the day-to-day management of ATB.

Reporting by ANP.
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Similar: Amsterdam Trade Bank goes bust as Ukraine war sanctions bite - DutchNews.nl

In Dutch: Russische Amsterdam Trade Bank failliet, spaarders gecompenseerd
 
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