Four Swiss bankers on trial for easing money transfers linked to Russian president

Four bankers went on trial in Zurich on March 8 charged with helping to cover up the movement of tens of millions of Swiss francs through accounts opened in the name of a Russian musician with close links to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

The case focuses on two bank accounts in the name of Sergei P. Roldugin, a concert cellist and director of a Moscow musical academy who is known as an old friend of Putin’s and as a godfather to the president’s eldest daughter, per The New York Times.

The accounts were opened in the Swiss unit of Gazprombank, a prominent lender in Russia.

The trial raises wider questions about the role of Swiss banks as the destination of choice for billions of dollars of deposits linked to Russian officials, oligarchs and ultimately to Putin, especially in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

Swiss prosecutors say the defendants — Gazprombank’s chief executive and three other employees at the bank — were criminally negligent in failing to perform robust due diligence to determine the real beneficiary of the assets flowing through the accounts. The bankers, three Russians and a Swiss deny the charge.

The prosecutors contend the bankers should have suspected Roldugin was not the beneficial owner of these assets but only, as the indictment suggests, a “straw man” or “wallet” for Putin.

“It is well known,” the indictment said, “that Russian President Putin officially only has an income of 100,000 Swiss francs, and is not wealthy, but in fact has enormous assets which are managed by persons close to him.”
Prosecutors also drew attention to companies set up in Roldugin’s name by Bank Rossiya, an institution whose chairman, the billionaire financier Yuri Kovalchuk, they said, “is considered Putin’s treasurer.”

Roldugin has acknowledged that he is not a businessman. He said in a 2014 interview that “I don’t have millions,” yet the accounts opened with Gazprombank credited him withholding assets of over $50 million and receiving over $8 million a year, the indictment said.