Bloomberg found "Putin's friends" in money laundering at Deutsche Bank

Several people from the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin could benefit from transactions in the Russian branch of Deutsche Bank, which are investigated by US regulators.

It is reported by Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the investigation. The names of these people from Putin’s inner circle did not name Bloomberg’s sources.

In turn, other interlocutors of the agency, familiar with the case of Deutsche Bank, said that we are talking about a relative of the President of the Russian Federation, whose name is not called, as well as the brothers Arcadia and Boris Rotenberg.

US law enforcement started an investigation transactions at the Deutsche Bank Moscow office in July 2015. It is assumed that in the course of these transactions, the volume of which amounted to about six billion dollars, funds of dubious origin were withdrawn from Russia. In this scheme, as law enforcement agencies suspect, traders from Deutsche Bank in London also participated.

Forum previously reported that Deutsche Bank since May 2015 conducts internal investigation in connection with suspicious transactions in the Moscow office. It was reported that within the framework of the investigation, several high-ranking employees of the Moscow office were suspended from work.

It is assumed that the so-called “mirror transactions” were used to launder money and withdraw them from Russia. Customers from Russia bought shares through Deutsche Bank on the Russian stock exchange for rubles, while at the same time on the London stock exchange the bank bought the same securities, but for dollars. As a result, Russian customers could get paper in London, which could later be sold for currency. With this scheme, the funds were taken abroad without control, and their origin was difficult to track.

Arkady and Boris Rotenberg have been under American sanctions since the spring of 2014. Sources Bloomberg emphasized that there is no evidence that Deutsche Bank has worked with the Rothenberg, after they got into the sanction lists.