Swiss prosecutor’s office accuses employees of Gazprombank subsidiary of negligence for opening accounts for Putin’s friend

Swiss prosecutors have accused four bankers of helping conceal the origin of tens of millions of Swiss francs believed to be linked to cellist and friend of Vladimir Putin, Sergei Roldugin. This is reported by the Financial Times, citing a copy of the indictment.
The defendants are the executive director of the Swiss subsidiary of Gazprombank, Roman Abdulin, and three other bank employees.
According to the indictment, the bankers were criminally negligent in allowing accounts to be opened in Switzerland in Roldugin’s name without questioning the origin of the funds. Staff signed a document saying Roldugin was not a “politically exposed person” despite “widespread public statements about his ties to the Kremlin and Putin.” Accounts opened indicated that the musician’s assets amounted to at least $50 million. According to investigators, he planned to transfer $10 million a year to Swiss bank accounts “through a network of companies and shell accounts”.
The indictment mentions Vladimir Putin. He says that with an official annual income of 100,000 francs (about 8 million rubles), the Russian president would have “significant assets managed by people close to him”. The prosecutor’s office calls Roldugin a “figurehead”.
“The declared assets did not in any way correspond to Roldugin’s own assets,” said the Swiss prosecutor’s office. The agency says the defendants were aware of Roldugin’s connections and his role.
A representative of the Swiss subsidiary of Gazprombank, which is in the process of reducing its activities due to sanctions, denies the allegations against the bank’s employees. He declined to comment further, citing ongoing legal proceedings.
Sergei Roldugin was featured in the so-called Panama Papers, where he was referred to as the “custodian” of Putin’s money and the owner of offshore companies through which billions of dollars flowed. Putin in an interview with NBC in March 2018 said that Roldugin is his friend, but has denied information about his financial ties to him. “He (Roldugin) legally made money. He didn’t make hundreds of billions. He spent all the money he personally earned on the purchase of musical instruments abroad and imported them into the territory of the Russian Federation, ”emphasized the President.