How America's oldest bank became a money laundering hub for post-Soviet Russia via YahooFinance
Generally speaking, there was no love lost between the aristocratically minded, deeply Russian Orthodox descendants of the first wave of Russian emigration and the third, mostly Jewish wave of Soviet emigrants that began pouring into the United States in the 1970s. History, family background, and prejudices played a part in the divide.
Before the merger, Irving Trust had been running an extensive business with Soviet banks. This business was supervised by a Russian émigré named Natasha Gurfinkel. A Soviet Jew who had moved to the United States, Natasha was one of those lucky enough to have had their applications approved by Brezhnev’s government in 1979. In 1986, Natasha got a job with Irving Trust, where she dealt with the lucrative trade with Soviet banks.
The thin-mustachioed prince Vladimir Galitzine, nicknamed Mickey, on the other hand, had the “countenance of a silent- screen actor.” Natasha was always teasing him for his archaic Russian vocabulary. The Galitzines were, in fact, nobler than the Romanovs—indeed, if it hadn’t been for that fact that the head of the family was stuck in Polish captivity in the sixteenth century, it could well have been the Galitzines rather than the Romanovs on the throne in 1917.
In the late 1980s Mickey Galitzine worked his way up from an accounting position to the International Department. His timing couldn’t have been better. This was the very moment when, driven by the pressing need for hard currency in the face of an impending economic catastrophe, the Soviet Union was opening up its financial market.
As part of their work, Natasha brought Galitzine to Moscow to meet some people who were big shots, both then and now. “I was on friendly terms with Natasha, and she brought [Galitzine] to us. It was like going to a museum,” remembered Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest and most powerful tycoon of the first generation of Russian oligarchs, whose businesses had accounts with the Bank of New York in 1990s.
Lucy and red flagsIn New York, Gurfinkel and Galitzine’s Eastern Europe division was expanding. In need of more personnel to handle traffic, they hired another recent Russian émigré, Lucy Edwards, in 1992. Four years later, she joined Natasha and Galitzine in the bank’s new Eastern Europe division. Soon Lucy became a loan officer, moving into the executive ranks for the first time. In 1994 she was promoted to vice president of BoNY’s Eastern Europe division.
‘Believed to be a major money laundering operation’And no wonder they were getting rich: money was flowing out of Russia to the tune of billions of dollars a year, and BoNY provided a secure and respectable channel for that flow. “To have an account at BoNY back then was like having a badge of honor; it meant you were important,” a Russian banker who worked with BoNY in the mid-1990s told us.
On August 18, 1999, Natasha’s phone rang in her office on the ninth floor of One Wall Street. It was a correspondent from the New York Times asking her about a particular company account. Natasha explained that her department didn’t have access to companies’ accounts, as they only dealt with other banks. A minute later, a handyman came to Natasha’s office to install a lock. She was surprised; they had never locked their offices before.
The scandal gathered momentum, and more accusations followed. U.S. media outlets published more stories; $7.5 billion was said to have been moved out of Russia through the accounts controlled by Lucy’s husband in just three years via BoNY. American newspapers began naming various Russian oligarchs as well as, among others, Boris Yeltsin’s son-in-law. Moscow decided to run its own investigation.
A daring scheme with three main goalsBefore long, many financiers in Russia and the United States came to see the BoNY case as an anti-Russian witch hunt. As the Russian presidential election of 2000 approached, fighting among different power groups intensified. The country was recovering slowly from the devastating economic crisis of 1998 when Russia defaulted on its national debt.
The couple said the scheme had three main goals: to avoid Russian customs duties on imports, to evade Russian taxes, and to wash the profits of criminal groups through legitimate banks—including the ransom for the young Russian lawyer kidnapped in Moscow. Lucy and her husband admitted that they earned nearly $2 million in due course.
Indonesia Berita Terbaru, Indonesia Berita utama
Similar News:Anda juga dapat membaca berita serupa dengan ini yang kami kumpulkan dari sumber berita lain.
Sandy Hook lawsuit could force Remington to open booksA recent ruling by the Supreme Court has upended a longstanding legal roadblock that has given the gun industry far-reaching immunity from lawsuits in the aftermath of mass killings.
Baca lebih lajut »
Bank teller accused of robbing and assaulting elderly customer at his homeA bank teller has been arrested after allegedly going to an elderly customer’s home and attempting to rob him of a large amount of money he had withdrawn from the bank.
Baca lebih lajut »
Russian Plans To Replace Wikipedia: Echoes Of Russia And America’s Troubled HistoryVladimir Putin’s suggestion that Wikipedia be replaced with a Russian version seems like a patriotic attempt to promote Russian scholarship. It also offers a reminder of the way that limited access to information has historically contributed to tension between Russia and the U.S.
Baca lebih lajut »
China aims to reduce its dependence on America by 'decoupling' from the dollar, ANZ bank saysAnalysts at ANZ said that 'the pace of diversification into other currencies will likely quicken going forward,” as the trade war rages on.
Baca lebih lajut »
Russia begins moving captured Ukrainian ships before possible handoverRussia began moving three captured Ukrainian navy ships on Sunday after a Russia...
Baca lebih lajut »
Prince Charles At 71: Breaking Records As ‘King In Waiting,’ In PhotosPrince Charles at 71—breaking records as 'king in waiting'
Baca lebih lajut »