A ruling against four bankers who were found guilty last year of neglecting to exercise due diligence in financial transactions after assisting a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin in moving millions of francs through Swiss bank accounts was upheld by a Zurich court on Tuesday.
The four former workers of Russia’s Gazprombank’s Swiss branch had petitioned Zurich’s top court to reverse a lower court’s decision earlier in the year.
Between 2014 and 2016, the three Russians and one Swiss national assisted concert cellist Sergey Roldugin, who is godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter and has been branded “Putin’s wallet” by the Swiss authorities, in depositing millions of francs into Swiss accounts.
The bankers were found guilty by Zurich’s District Court in March 2023 and given suspended fines totaling more than 450,000 Swiss francs ($504,000). The bankers are unidentified due to Swiss publication prohibitions.
The prosecution claimed that Roldugin could not be the true owner of the funds and that the men did not take sufficient steps to find out who the genuine owner was.
According to Swiss legislation, the court heard on Tuesday that explanations were required regarding Roldugin’s acquisition of a 20 percent share in a media company valued at over 100 million Swiss francs, as well as how his accounts received profits of 5 to 7 million Swiss francs annually.
Senior Judge Beat Gut informed the court that “many research could have been conducted” and that Roldugin was being used as a “strawman,” or cover, to conceal the true owners of the money.
“The passive acceptance of the claim that Roldugin got his wages and loans is not plausible,” Gut stated. “In particular the statement that it was acquired by means of loans indicated a certain strawman financing.”
$1 is equal to 0.8927 Swiss francs.
