Money laundered in Russia amount to astronomic figure

[FaGal]

Money laundered in Russia amount to astronomic figure
itar-tass.com - April 12, 2005


SHANGHAI - The amount of money laundered in Russia ranges from dozens of millions to several billion roubles, going to as much as 50-60 billion roubles, Chief of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service Viktor Zubkov told Tass on Tuesday.

Zubkov chairs the EuroAsian Group for prevention of legalization of criminal profits and financing terrorism that includes Russia, China, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Zubkov has been attending a session of this organization that opened in Shanghai.

Until recently, the record of judicial activities aimed against money laundering has not been considerable, Zubkov admitted. In 2004, several cases opened into facts of money laundering were turned over to court, but that was merely a beginning, he warned. "Our contacts with law enforcement bodies have been intensively developing. Law enforcement bodies made several thousand inquiries on clues given. We solve such crimes in a financial aspect and then turn over the case to law enforcement bodies for a criminal investigation, " Zubkov said.

He mentioned a number of illegal bank transactions and incidents of large- scale theft of budgetary funds by construction companies that were solved by the Federal Financial Monitoring Service. "Russia is one of a few countries authorized by law to blockade illegal financial transactions,” Zubkov stressed. “If a suspicion arises that some person or organization might be involved in terrorist or extremist activities we may blockade the dubious financial transactions for seven days. While a transaction is under arrest law enforcement bodies find out whether the transaction in question might be linked to terrorism,” Zubkov said.