A Swiss court has delivered seven-month suspended sentences for four bankers working in Gazprombank’s local branch for maintaining accounts of cellist Sergey Roldugin, “Putin’s childhood friend”, the BBC reports.
The bankers were found guilty of not conducting due diligence when carrying out financial transactions. Three of the convicted men are Russian citizens, while the other one is Swiss. All four intend to appeal the ruling.
According to the investigation team, Roldugin was the bank’s client despite the fact that his accounts should have raised suspicions. The indictment notes that the defendants should have clarified to what extent the cellist was the beneficiary of the account funds in reality.
In 2016, the publication of the Panama Papers uncovered that Roldugin owned offshore companies that had several billions of dollars in turnover. Moreover, these companies had bank accounts in Switzerland, particularly in Gazprombank’s Zurich branch. At the same time, the musician himself stressed that he was not a millionaire.
“We can sensibly suggest that all this money can be somehow linked to the fact that Roldugin has not just been a close friend of Putin’s for decades, but is also godfather to one of Putin’s daughters,” Der Spiegel wrote.
