[Music]
February
2022 Horror in Ukraine war has returned
to European soil the reaction is
immediate less than 24 hours after the
invasion sanctions are imposed on
Russia the oligarchs announcing new
sanctions today against some of Russia's
wealthiest business
Elites now the world is targeting the
Billionaire's extravagant
Yachts an unprecedented level of
sanctions are leveled at economic
heavyweight
Russia Putin is the
aggressor Putin chose this war and now
he and his country will bear the
consequences
[Music]
one by one billionaires close to Putin
are being tracked down their yachts and
jets confiscated and their money
Frozen but for the plan to work the
money must be completely Frozen
the slightest crack and it could all
collapse do you want to be the country
that is is that that can be used to
circumvent those those sanctions is
Switzerland this crack this loophole is
the Alpine Nation doing enough to freeze
Russian assets criticism has been
growing louder since the start of the
war when they adopted the sanctions they
took it easy and did the minimum just
enough to avoid criticism
there have always been Black Sheep and
dishonest people who have forged papers
or issued false certificates but these
are isolated
cases are the sanctions really being
ignored in Switzerland or are the
accusations false we investigated and
thanks to an unprecedented data leak we
able to find out more about the billions
managed on behalf of Russians in
Switzerland
[Applause]
[Music]
in the beginning the sanctions meant
seizures Yachts worth millions were
stranded in Harbors but could this end a
war lawyer and asset manager DJ bodka
says the measures are purely symbolic
a yacht is something very
ostentatious such a huge environmentally
destructive machine captures people's
imaginations everyone thinks great we've
confiscated a boat but it's the start of
a
nightmare the ship is in Port with a
crew of 30 that must be maintained by
the state that seized
it to make a difference you have to
Target the assets the finance behind the
war but freezing Russian billions is
much more complicated than confiscating
a few Yachts the oligarchs love affair
with Switzerland is well known and it
didn't start yesterday two examples
Victor vexel with estimated assets of 7
billion
US he's one of the main shareholders of
the early con group and has avoided
sanctions in United States second is
Gennady timchenko who was co-founder of
the gunvor oil company his Villa on Lake
Geneva was confiscated by the
Swiss before the sanctions Switzerland
had been very attractive to
[Music]
Russians the image of
Switzerland everything is fabulous
exceptional on every level a very
beautiful country hospitable especially
to those who have money stability and
neutrality what more could we wish for
when the SSR collapse Switzerland was an
excellent place to open accounts and the
oligarchs understood this very quickly
and began to use Switzerland as a hub
for their business especially Financial
business in the beginning they were
happily welcomed the laws were different
the banks were less squeamish they
trusted the
Swiss and they wanted to copy the rich
westerners that's why they wanted to buy
beautiful Villas airplanes yachts and
collections to emulate Western
billionaires the timchenko family has
been in Geneva since the early 2000s a
stroke of luck for the
[Music]
Swiss gened timchenko is a son of a
member of the army he has a villa in col
a very exclusive community in the Canton
of
Geneva and he is also generous to the
Nava Foundation at a classical music
festival in
the and bodmer
Foundation they also support the hockey
club
svet these are the timchenko family's
main activities in
Geneva but that all ended with the start
of the
war Gennady timchenko has left
Switzerland and his accounts have been
frozen as have those of about a hundred
other oligarchs not all of them are
close close to Putin but on February
24th the day of the Russian invasion
their fate
changed about three dozen people had
gathered in the
Kremlin Vladimir Putin basically told
them what he had said on television a
few hours earlier they were speechless
very surprised certainly not
pleasantly they were completely
dumbfounded some were shocked when
Vladimir Putin called the meeting on the
24th knew full well that they would all
be affected by Western
sanctions looking back we can now say
that Putin gave them a poison
gift over the months the list of
sanctions has grown longer and longer
who ends up on it and why that's not
decided in Switzerland but in
[Music]
Brussels we meet Belgian Didier reers
once the EU commissioner for justice and
the rule of law
he had been pursuing Russian assets
since the beginning of the
war with one
goal if we want to stop the financing of
the war we must not only act very
quickly but also hit very
hard you have to hit those who are
directly involved in financing the war
the oligarchs and a whole range of
entities but above all the Russian
economy and the Russian
military these sanctions are not the
only ones I'm concerned with the
freezing of oligarchs and organizations
assets but also sanctions targeting
specific sectors with export and import
bands on Russian
products they aim to hit the economy and
the activities of the Russian military
industry at its heart the goal is to
exert pressure to end the war
for neutral Switzerland it wasn't easy
to accept the sanctions imposed by
Brussels according to D reinder 4 days
of uncertainty and secret negotiations
were needed to prevent Switzerland from
becoming the weak Link in
Europe it is completely normal for an
independent state not to Simply copy
European
sanctions the biggest risk was that the
implementation would be severely delayed
but fortunately that didn't happen
despite everything Switzerland imposed
the sanctions
quickly the Second Challenge was to
prevent many players such as lawyers
notaries and Banks from helping
circumvent the
sanctions having a legal text a nice
piece of paper is not enough you have to
make sure the paper is effective
[Applause]
the criticism is diplomatic but
reasonable sanctions have been
circumvented since the outbreak of the
[Music]
war February
2022 a Swiss asset manager was stopped
before he could fly off in a private jet
with €500,000 in cash for a Russian
client in April 2023 a Swiss company
imported $44 million of Russian gold via
Dubai a loophole in the
sanctions are these isolated cases we
took a closer look with the help of two
colleagues more familiar with the
financial
[Applause]
world we started with the data leak
spotted on the darket in February 2023
Russian hackers briefly put thousands of
highly sensitive emails and Bank
documents
online this data didn't originate in a
bank but rather a company that manages
billions and is based in the heart of
Zurich it's name PHA
Port official sponsor of the T Open
tennis tournament
[Applause]
[Music]
to see all these chances Without Limits
fport is a mix of old traditional Swiss
banking and uh very modern and
transparent technology I see it as an
instrument to open a door to many banks
to many solutions for the customer we
have access to markets both private and
public that very few companies in this
world
would have it also offers its services
directly in
Russia very common by
[Music]
pH we were rated as heavyweight Russian
clients and a company that works with
all the major banks in Switzerland this
data is very interesting but the flood
of information is too much for
us we traveled to Germany to meet two
expert s on data
[Music]
leaks journalists Frederick ubaya and
basan obaya work in Munich and wrote a
Pulitzer prizewinning book on the Panama
[Music]
papers a dozen employees will help them
analyze the mountain aort data over the
coming
months they will be assisted by
journalists from France Germany and
Switzerland we haven't heard of f p
before and that's actually what makes it
so interesting for us because it seems
like finina Port is a much smaller
company than the many well-known
companies and for fport it seems like
they are a little bit like flying under
the radar and not under as much watch as
the big players in Switzerland so it
seems like they might be dealing with
customers that the big guys the big
players do not want to touch anymore
because they are under too much um
surveillance the leak is 1.2 terab of
data we see a lot of Mals and and
documents and banking data so even if
the hacker group is um really bad and
aggressive and it looks like that right
um still if there's information that the
public needs to know we're going to
publish
it the First Step matching the names of
sanctioned individuals with phop port's
Client List but no matches are found the
rules are being followed no assets from
oligarchs subject to sanctions are
managed by the Zurich based
company but we did discover Russian
money directly linked to the financing
of the war the data includes family
members of One one man Alexander pomaro
head of a state-owned company called mvu
Canal which specializes in wastewater
treatment this senior official is a
close friend of the deputy mayor of
Moscow people close to him have been
awarded numerous lucrative public
contracts worth more than €50 million
the uh value of the contracts are way
too high and this could explain why the
family is so wealthy the daughter and
the girlfriend
and um both have the largest Accounts at
fport the research team in Munich
Unearthed just how the Pam Moreno Family
was able to sneak their money now
managed by phop Port back to
Europe it's complicated but more than 46
million was in the family's Swiss
Accounts at the end of
2022 no sanctions were imposed on Pon
Moreno's daughter and
[Music]
mistress but the origin of the money
raises
[Music]
questions that should be a red sign
right you have millions of US Dollars
and you have someone working at a state
company um you have money leaving Russia
and that guy directing a St on company
and his relatives um with full pockets
they
didn't see the problem or they decided
to just look the other
way the problem is that Alexander peno's
company is not only active in the
Wastewater sector maso Canal is also
active in occupied Ukrainian
territories we found the company
offering its employees Financial
incentives to fight in Ukraine on VC
contacted a social media
Network hundreds of men and Equipment
have been sent to the front according to
this video published by the
[Music]
company phop Port declined our requests
for interviews we were told in writing
that new discoveries often lead to
investigations against its customers but
there are more surprises back in
Switzerland our team of journalists
discovered an email sent just a week
after the attack on Ukraine
two Russian customers wanted to store 40
gold bars worth a total of 5.6 million
in a safe deposit box at saffra sarene
Bank in Zurich phop port's managers
considered this transaction to be clumsy
and alerted the
[Music]
authorities the customer could be
accused of attempting to circumvent
sanctions they wrote nevertheless phop
Port approved the transaction and the
Bars were transferred when asked the
bank said the customers have European
Union residence permits and are not
subject to
sanctions we cannot refuse this type of
transaction as the gold belongs to third
parties we are bound by confidentiality
and a breach would have criminal
consequences no current or former
customers are affected by the
sanctions is Switzerland helping track
down Russian billions for Scott Miller
the American ambassador in ban the
answer is clearly no he's a former
banker and was the first to denounce
Switzerland's LAX attitude in some cases
10 15 years ago I imagine that we
probably have a lot of work to do
together to continue to identify uh uh
trusts and companies and and other
entities that have been established to
hide the beneficial uh ownership
interest of some of these assets
[Music]
words are followed by Deeds April
2023 a sharp letter signed by all G7
ambassadors and the European Union was
sent to the federal
Council a diplomatic slap in the
face we also have concern that law
enforcement officials are blocked from
investigating illicit Financial
structures produced by attorneys serving
as Financial intermediaries
we call on the Swiss government to take
further steps we share a concern that
these loopholes could harm Switzerland's
reputation and uh you're brave people in
Ukraine the state Secretariat for
economic Affairs then announced the
opening of 30 criminal proceedings for
possible circumvention of sanctions in
Switzerland for its director Helen buer
artia a former former Ambassador the
accusations were
unjustified the form wasn't the best we
had to read in the newspapers that we
would receive a diplomatic letter we
found it difficult to
understand we are given certain
explanations and told that Switzerland
must do
better but people forget that we are
dealing with individuals who have
enormous resources at their disposal
just as we check a private jet that
could possibly be linked to a person on
a sanctions list we are immediately
contacted by a law firm who goes on and
on about why this is not the
case that the jet belongs to company
XY and not to Mr X or Mrs
y it really is almost detective work
Witnesses here the pressure increased in
July 2023 when a US Senate committee
took up the
issue the focus of the hearing
Switzerland's alleged
failings we have seen uh the Russian
economy surviving better than we thought
it would and part of that has been the
laundering of dirty money in Switzerland
a global conflict between dictator the
testimony of Bill Browder got the ball
rolling Browder a British national used
to invest in Russia but is now an
activist the Swiss are allowing the
Russians to have access to that money to
kill ukrainians and we should do
something to shut that down and if the
Swiss aren't willing to do it
voluntarily then we should put pressure
on them they weren't willing to give the
Nazi gold back to the Jewish people
until Congress got involved and Congress
has power here and the Swiss respect
that and sometimes when people don't
behave themselves um we need to give
them an incentive to behave themselves
and that's why I think we're all here
and that's where you can play a role
thank
you but are these accusations Justified
let's look at the figures Switzerland
has frozen about 7.5 billion Franks and
17 Villas not bad compared to the 9
billion Frozen by the USA and the 24
billion Frozen by the EU however given
the total amount of Russian assets
deposited in Switzerland which is
estimated at 150 billion the seizures
are
laughable this figure is what has
sparked controversy and attracted the
eye of the Americans where did the
estimate come from and why wasn't more
Russian money Frozen to understand you
have to go to
[Music]
Zurich we met with the Swiss Bankers
Association an umbrella organization
representing more than 260 member
banks the association was the first to
calculate the value of Russian
[Music]
deposits in March 2022 the state
Secretariat for economic Affairs SEO had
not yet collected any
data we made an estimate our estimate of
150 billion was based on all crossb
assets of Russian clients that are
booked with Swiss banks
these are all Russian clients with a
Russian passport or other nationalities
like another passport or several
passports regardless of whether they
live in Switzerland or
Russia on the otherand used different
data it only includes Russian citizens
with a corresponding Russian passport
and does not include corresponding
Assets in the custody account we
included this and estim 150
billion that's the big
difference a simple difference in
calculation but when it comes to
freezing assets the organization said
it's hard to do
more the banks are strictly complying
with the sanctions and will continue to
do so the sanctions aren't over yet and
are largely being continued
and the corresponding sanctions at banks
have been implemented
accordingly the bankers who quoted this
figure calculated all the Russian
assets but you have to bear in mind that
not all Russians are
criminals and not all Russians are on
the
list honest people also have money in
Switzerland and that might be where the
misunderstanding comes from
people have talked about sums of 100
billion 150
billion even if we do excellent work we
will never reach those
numbers and sure some are disappointed
and think that we haven't done our
job but I also find that a little
frustrating
frustrating but for some just the tip of
the
iceberg Swiss politician Baptist horney
knows the situation well he's a lawyer
and member of the legal Affairs
committee and is angered by the lack of
controls I am not at all saying that the
people who work for the state
Secretariat for economic Affairs are
incompetent they do their job very well
but the Secretariat lacks a whole range
of skills that are not part of their
jobs the neighboring countries in the
USA have now set up task
to bring together staff from similar
authorities from private Banks or people
who specialize in Commodities trading
and so on with all that concentrated
expertise you can uncover the complex
structures that make it possible to
circumvent
sanctions it's about stopping the flow
of money to Russia to finance the
war I think we could show a bit more
[Music]
Goodwill lack of will or lack of control
one thing is certain to end the war and
rebuild Ukraine the United States and
Europe are searching for every last
billion from Russia the list of
sanctions could become even
longer Switzerland is under pressure
because for years it has had a
reputation for hoarding illegal money
from
Russia in 2000 Banks said they were
putting the past behind them no more
scandals but as our research continued
an entirely different picture emerged
[Music]
two PHA Port customers caught our
attention the first a heavyweight in
Russian politics Leon Ryman former
minister of telecommunications and
adviser to the president from 2008 to
2010 in this photo you can see him from
behind standing opposite the former
German Chancellor he was just then
becoming a client of phena port and over
30 million Eur ended up in his Zurich
accounts but in 2006 a Zurich Court
found Ryon guilty of money laundering
and personal
[Music]
enrichment we are talking about someone
who has been part of the Russian
kleptocracy for years who was very close
to Vladimir Putin and was involved in a
number of scandals reported in the
media you can't ask a financial
authority to know something that nobody
knows in this case you didn't have to
look far to understand that this is a
highly problematic
person you actually treat this client
like a normal
client even though all the information
points to the
opposite the former Russian Minister was
a client OFA Port until at least the end
of
2021 the company denies any wrongdoing
and said it is investigates its clients
backgrounds and the origin of the assets
it
manages the second problematic client is
a multi-millionaire who was convicted of
fraud in Russia in 2019 for essling
assets from an insurance company he is
on the international list of wanted
persons but this Russian still managed
to open several accounts in Switzerland
under two different names and
identities the case of
is particularly interesting because he's
wanted by the Judiciary in Russia and
several lawsuits have already been
brought against him for
fraud particularly in the insurance
sector the amounts involved are also
striking a total of almost 45 million
flowed into accounts bya phop Port which
raises the question of whether phop Port
should have warned Swiss
we showed these cases to a former
employee of track the French financial
intelligence
unit for security reasons he asked to be
made
unrecognizable but his reaction is very
clear it's not illegal to have two
passports but two passports with two
names is that raises questions a
normally diligent expert should not have
let that
pass you can't treat this as a situation
for standard procedure especially since
we're not talking about amounts of a few
thousand EUR here you have to be
extremely
careful based on these documents I think
that in each of these cases the
authorities should have been
alerted clients should have been asked
much more detailed questions about the
origin of the funds and they should not
have been satisfied with verbal
explanations from the clients but
demanded reporting documents yes even an
asset manager should have become
suspicious based on the documents you've
provided none of the Russian customers
we came across during our research
wanted to comment in an email fport told
us it is the customer's decision under
which legal name they wish to open their
bank accounts and claimed to have no
knowledge of cases in which customers
have declared different nationalities to
Banks or authorities
the company added that the person in
question is no longer a client and that
phop Port cannot open a bank account and
only provides Financial
advice but the company's role went far
beyond that March 2022 shortly after the
start of the sanctions fport sent this
email to a Russian customer with options
for obtaining a residence permit or
passport at short notice the estimated
cost from 7,000 Swiss Franks for Hungary
to 150,000 for the Caribbean island of
Granada in plain language the cost to
circumvent
sanctions the sanctions do not apply if
a Russian citizen is resident in
Switzerland or has another European
citizenship this is one way of
circumventing sanctions we managed to
ensure that no more passports have been
issued since the outbreak of the War
this applies to Cyprus but Malta also
decided to stop all procedures for
Russian and belarussian citizens but
that's not enough we have to ask
ourselves whether what was done in the
past is a problem whether it is
appropriate to question the passports
that were issued in the past and then we
can also look at other groups there are
many people with dual citizenship and
measures may also need to be taken
there on this point phop Port explained
it is not uncommon for client to be
interested in relocating to other
countries phop Port then refers them to
specialized companies or provides them
with appropriate
advice but is this common behavior for
asset managers we looked for answers
here
too the profession has its major annual
meeting just outside of ban at the
intell and Congress Center 300 asset and
Trust managers met the the event
included discussions about new
regulations yachts and big money with
experts from all over
Switzerland we were not allowed inside
with our camera but one of the
organizers a trust administrator from
Geneva was willing to answer our
[Music]
questions how did it work with the
Russian families
you had to clarify simple things like
residence permits and
citizenships coordinate with other
professionals such as banking experts
lawyers and asset managers to understand
what leeway there was especially at the
beginning the difficulty of course is
keeping up to date and complying with
constantly changing rules
it's not easy to find out more but one
woman agreed to talk openly with us
about another side of her profession
cive weier doesn't manage bank accounts
she manages Villas Yachts private jets
art Collections and she knows all the
ins and
outs When The War Began there were many
questions what do we do
now what happens
there was actually a bit of
panic the task was to interpret newly
imposed
regulations you know about the lists you
know you have to be
careful but our job is always to find
Solutions because today it's War
yesterday it was Co the day before
yesterday it was the Americans and we
don't know what tomorrow will
bring but we always have to try to find
Solutions
and stick to the
rules above all we look for people who
can confirm that the solution is a good
one but that's not always
easy ce's clients had residences in
Monaco and often had several
[Music]
passports some financial advisers will
always have good ideas for adapting and
slipping through the cracks of sanctions
the US Treasury Department has begun
sanctioning Swiss Financial experts who
find solutions to hide
money Russells is also thinking about
cracking
[Music]
down someone who circumvents or attempts
to circumvent sanctions is committing a
crime their assets can no longer just be
frozen they can be confiscated that is
very important the property can become
state property and the money can be
directed to Ukraine we try to take this
approach not only in relation to Russian
oligarchs or Russian organizations but
also try to involve legal and tax
advisors lawyers notaries and Banks if
they are involved in strategies to
circumvent sanctions if this can be
proven it can lead to criminal
convictions and
confiscations and we call on the Swiss
Confederation to move in the same
direction and ensure that it not only
looks at whether there are people who
are subject to sanctions and whose can
be blocked but also whether there are
attempts to circumvent
sanctions in plain language Switzerland
should roll up its sleeves and better
control the activities of all those who
may be working to keep Russian money Out
Of
Reach still sanctions against oligarchs
and their Entourage have not been met
with unanimous approval one man is
fighting against what he calls the
absurdity of
sanctions Alam bonda is a lawyer in
Geneva
he rarely speaks to the
media sanctions stand for four things in
particular inefficiency Injustice
illegality and
idiocy firstly they are ineffective I
remind you that there have been
sanctions against Cuba for 60 years
sanctions against Iran for 30 years
sanctions against North Korea for 20
years there's Venezuela Belarus there
are sanctions everywhere this is
obviously not leading to the desired
regime change secondly these sanctions
are unjust who is affected it is the
population people 95% of whom have
nothing to do with the outbreak of war
in Ukraine or in other countries
ultimately these sanctions come back to
us in the form of inflation and in the
form of electricity prices that affect
low-income households they are idiotic
because they come back to
affect he defends the richest people in
Russia those referred to as oligarchs a
term he finds
problematic problem I have a problem
with the term oligarch because it is not
legally defined that is my problem it's
not that I don't like the term it's that
I don't understand what it means legally
and if you don't have a definition you
can't effectively defend yourself you
can't make an argument because you don't
know what you're being accused of what
are they actually accusing you of having
a fortune closeness to power what are
being accused of and how is that
defined the only way to break the
sanctions is to go to court in the US
this is Mission Impossible but in
Switzerland and Europe he went to battle
for one of his clients based in the
Canon of
[Music]
Geneva his Villa wasn't extremely
luxurious but his client had to leave in
a hurry after being
sanctioned hold up
this is a sanction a Swiss sanction here
you have a citizen who is defined as a
Russian citizen the problem is that he
has Swiss citizenship but that was not
stated he has dual citizenship of
Switzerland and Russia he was brought up
in Switzerland he went to school in
Switzerland he pays his taxes in
Switzerland he is Swiss that is the
first point is there second class
citizenship in
Switzerland the second point will he be
officially
notified is he informed of the
imposition of sanctions in an official
letter well no not at all you simply put
his name on the Internet and how does he
find out he finds out from his bank
which has blocked his account he finds
out from the press and his reputation is
severely damaged from one day to the
next you can no longer pay your bills
you can no longer pay your children's
tuition you can no longer use your
credit card we don't even have a
swisscom subscription anymore it's death
and there's nothing you can do the third
point is that it is written in English
is English an official language the
national languages are German French
Italian and Roman but not
English but what is your client actually
accused of oh I'll tell you that he's
the son of and yes it's in
English wa I'm my Father's son too
that's ridiculous
the client's father has been personally
honored by Vladimir
[Music]
Putin they say that the father must be a
criminal he must be a war criminal but
no what is the father accused of making
pipelines and selling them to gazprom
and
rosn that's like accusing a locomotive
manufacturer of selling his locomotives
to SBB that's absurd he's not the one
who decided to invade Ukraine really
therefore the sanction against this
Swiss citizen is null and void the
sanction is invalid and you have to have
the courage to admit
that the Swiss Judiciary will have the
final decision but the chances of
success are
slim we have international bodies that
discuss each name and explain why we put
that name on the list in fact you don't
only have people who are directly linked
to the Putin regime but it's always
people whose's companies parents or
investment funds are financing the
regime in one way or
another and then you will probably find
one or two unjustly listed people on the
whole list it's a crisis an emergency
situation but in 99.9% of the cases it's
not people who know Putin personally and
go for a glass vodka with him
obviously it's the owners of Russian
assets that are invested in the war in
Ukraine Alam biond is not in favor of
War but he is convinced that sanctions
destroy our rule of law until the
question of whether his clients can be
removed from the sanctions list has been
clarified he has to ask permission from
the state Secretariat for economic
Affairs for every payment from the
Frozen accounts which ties up the
administration's resources and prevents
it from carrying out
investigations my team had to answer
20,000 inquiries in the form of emails
and phone calls often on
Deadline companies asking whether this
or that deal was
possible it was an exceptional
situation but now unfortunately we are
already in the second year of this
terrible
war and now we will certainly have the
strength and more resources in time to
carry out the
investigation the state Secretariat is
stepping up checks with additional staff
the number of evasions uncovered in
Switzerland could increase in the future
a reminder for now we have yet to be
informed of any proceedings against phop
port
[Music]