My BONY

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The Russian Federal Custom Service (FCS) brought a suit in the Moscow Arbitration Court against the Bank of New York (BONY) seeking for great compensation - $22.5 bln.

A lawyer Maxim Smal who presents interests of the FCS announced about that in Tuesday. “From 1996 till 1999 the bank established an illegal scheme of legalization of funds for goods exported in Russia, in the result Russia suffered losses of $22.5 bln.” - the lawyer said.

The suit was filed to the Moscow Arbitration Court as the BONY has a representative office in Moscow. Smal promised to tell everything in more details at his press-conference that will take place in Friday.

A vast scandal with the oldest American bank, Bank of New York broke out in 1999. USA Today and The New York Times newspapers wrote with a reference to an anonymous source in the FBI that the Bank provided schemes that help to launder money of the Russian Mafia are funds given to Russia by the International Monetary Fund. The case turned out to be noted and involved and cast a shadow on the reputation of Russia. The US authorities began to check the history of relations between the BONY and Russian Inkombank; and Mikhail Kasyanov who headed the government at that time had to refute any relations of the RF government and Centrobank to the case.

Politics in the USA began to call to suspend the collaboration between the IMF and Russia until the clarification of all facts. Russian politics for their turn explained everything with the election campaign in the USA.

The Prosecutor-General’s Office carried out searches in several Russian banks suspected of transferring money abroad but revealed no violations.

Soon the Department of Justice claimed that they had found out that money of the IMF was not involved in financial operations of the BONY. There was also no Russian mafia, but just incomes of exporters who tried to evade taxation. The main result of this case in Russia became that many politics and businessmen, e.g. Boris Yeltsin’s son-in-law Aleksey Dyachenko and Kremlin's chief administrator Pavel Borodin were accused in relations with a disgraced bank.

However nobody has suffered from the case of BONY in Russia and that is probably not surprising. But in the USA in the result of the investigation three criminal proceedings (all against emigrants) were opened - that is the former vice-president of the Bank of New York Lucy Edwards (maiden name Ludmila Pritsker), her husband Peter Berlin and former Mosow dentist surgeon Aleksey Volkov. Moreover three companies, Benex International, BECS International and Torfinex Corporation, were also accused on this case.

According to the investigation the accused were in collusion connected with illegal funds transfer and receiving of deposits.

Peter Berlin was pleaded guilty, he was accused of having opened accounts in the Wall Street office of the Bank of New York in names of Benex and BECS Companies. Since February 1996 till Jule 1999 about $7 bln were illegally channeled from Russia in offshore zones.

In 2000 Edwards and Berlin acknowledged themselves guilty of unlicensed bank activity, repented and cooperated with the investigation. In 2006 they were sentenced to six months home confinement and five years public surveillance. Moreover they were obliged to pay $ 685 000 to the Bureau of Internal Revenue and in $20 000 fine. Such end of such a noted case made observers say that the mountain has laboured and brought forth a mouse.

As for the BONY, in 2005 the bank agreed to pay to pay the state a settlement of $38 million as a punishment for overlooking suspicious money transfers. It seemed to be the end of the case. But the scandal received a sudden continuation and now it concerns a huge amount. Maybe now one should wait for a new wave of cases concerning persons suspected in illegal transactions in the Bank of New York.

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