Banco Santander robbed buying Extro Bank?

One of the items from John Christmas’ Parex Bank whistleblowing list from 2004 was that Parex secretly owned a bank in Russia.

Christmas claimed that Parex owned and operated Extro Bank.  For example, the Parex Credit Committee approved the loans that Extro Bank extended.  Latvian State Controller Inguna Sudraba was on that committee.

The fraud claim is backed up by an email written by Parex vice president james brown.  The claim is also backed up by a Skype conversation (below) with former Parex manager Christa Rubstein.  She also confirms in the conversation that Parex paid employee compensation illegally.

Even though three witnesses wrote that Parex owned Extro Bank, the auditors at Ernst & Young did not care at all and ignored the huge fraud.

Therefore, Parex was able to sell Extro Bank to Banco Santander.  Santander is one of the largest banks in Europe and has millions of shareholders in Spain and the United Kingdom.

According to emails (below) from a private investigator who contacted Christmas, Banco Santander got “robbed” in the purchase.  The loss could have been 40 or 50 million euros.

Law enforcement is not interested at all, as usual.  Also, the media is not interested.

Continue reading

Aivis Ronis slandered Parex Bank whistleblower?

This email seems to show that Aivis Ronis slandered Parex Bank whistleblower John Christmas to the Wall Street Journal in 2007.

Ronis used to be the Latvian Ambassador to the United States.  But, by 2007, he ran the Latvian-American Financial Forum.  LAFF was a lobbying group with a purpose of convincing the United States government not to blacklist Latvia’s Baltic International Bank.  Oligarch Valery Belokon of BIB is known for his close relationships with Boris Berezovsky, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, and Alexander Lukashenko.

Even though Ronis was supposed to be working for Valery Belokon of BIB, not Valery Kargin of Parex Bank, it appears that Ronis committed a slander crime against the Parex whistleblower for the purpose of stopping the WSJ from publishing a story about the frauds at Parex.  It is a shame that the story was stopped, because that story could have prevented the Latvian Financial Crisis by forcing Parex to close one year before the government bailout.

Did Ronis get prosecuted for his action?  No.  He got promoted!  First, he became Latvian Minister of Foreign Affairs.  Now in 2012, he is Latvian Transportation Minister.

Notice that the WSJ journalist, an expert on corruption in Russia and Ukraine, believes that Parex is a violent criminal organization.  In this email, he warned the whistleblower to “be careful.”

Latvian newspapers refuse to publish this email.  The email used to be on Kargins.com, however the Latvian government has censored that website.

Ronis email

Mizuho Corporate Bank and Parex Bank

This email indicates that Parex Bank whistleblower John Christmas provided fraud information to Mizuho Corporate Bank in 2005 and the relationship manager at MCB reacted by getting angry.

MCB decided to lend much more money to Parex after learning that the bank’s financial statements were false.  The total amount of syndicated lending increased to approximately 800 million euros and the London office of MCB organized most of it.

When the assets of Parex Bank disappeared in 2008, the Latvian government forced Latvian taxpayers to repay the syndicated loans instead of letting MCB suffer the loss.  This decision was the direct cause of the Latvian Financial Crisis.

The Latvian media is completely silent about this issue.

Mizuho Corporate Bank

UK FSA, Ernst & Young Global, Parex Bank

The UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) and Ernst & Young Global knew that Parex Bank was a fraud already in 2007.  They also knew that whistleblower John Christmas was being terrorized with murder threats.

However, the FSA and E&Y chose to ignore the information and sit and watch while Parex borrowed approximately one billion euros in London through syndicated loans and bond issuances.

The money disappeared and now ordinary Latvian taxpayers must pay back the creditors with bailout funds from the European Union.

Nobody is being prosecuted anywhere.

FSA and E&Y knew

Krisjanis Karins, Einars Repse, Ilmars Rimsevics, Janis Maizitis, Janis Kazocins

Krisjanis Karins was Latvian Minister of the Economy at the time John Christmas blew the whistle on Parex Bank.  Karins was one of the recipients of the original whistleblowing letter from 2005, together with Einars Repse (Minister of Defense), Ilmars Rimsevics (Governor of the Bank of Latvia), and Janis Maizitis (General Prosecutor).

All of these gentlemen ignored the whistleblowing and therefore hold reponsibility for causing the Latvian Financial Crisis.  However, Latvian newspapers refuse to inform the Latvian people and therefore the same men are still running Latvia in 2012.

When Christmas began receiving murder threats from Parex, Karins told Christmas to report the problem to Janis Kazocins at the Latvian Constitutional Protection Bureau.  Kazocins also ignored the problem and sat and watched while the national economy was destroyed.  He also remains in power today.

Karins email

SAB email

Jekaterina Ecina of Parex Bank warned whistleblower

The communication from Jekaterina Ecina of Parex Bank to whistleblower John Christmas in January 2006 was criminal in several ways.

Even though the communication was about a murder and a murder threat, the Latvian authorities refused to investigate.

Also, this communication has been censored from the Latvian media.

The Latvian government is comfortable spending billions of euros of taxpayer money on the unnecessary Parex bailout.  However, the Latvian government is not comfortable spending thousands of euros to investigate an alleged murder involving Parex.

The email below was addressed to Andris Straumanis of LatviansOnline.com.  This website has consistently refused to publish true information about Parex, presumably to paint a rosy picture of Latvia for Western Latvians who would be unhappy to know that thugs from the KGB still control Latvia now in 2012.

Ecina warning

Valters Kronbergs, Ernst & Young, Parex Bank

When John Christmas learned in August 2004 that the financial statements of his employer, Parex Bank, were false, he blew the whistle as required by law.  He gave a long list of frauds to Ernst & Young Baltics partner Valters Kronbergs.  If Ernst & Young had withdrawn its audit opinions, as required by law, then the Latvian Financial Crisis never would have happened.  Latvia would have a thriving economy today, like its neighbor Estonia.

Unfortunately, Kronbergs reacted to the whistleblowing by sometimes denying that the whistleblowing took place and sometimes getting angry at the whistleblower.  The auditors refused to investigate the frauds and continued to sign Parex annual reports until 2009, after the nationalization.

Many more Parex frauds have been revealed in recent years, but the Ernst & Young auditors don’t care.  They refuse to withdraw their opinions.

Below is an email in which Kronbergs denied the whistleblowing.  It is a simple matter to analyze the wording of this email and determine that he was lying.

And, this paragraph is from a businessman who wrote to Christmas after seeing Kronbergs.  While Kronbergs was denying that the whistleblowing occurred in emails, he was telling people that Christmas was a horrible person for being a whistleblower.

“Where are you? Still in Spain? What are you up to? I understand that you are not too popular in some quarters in Riga, especially dangerously – Parex – and some of the ex-pats [Valters Kronbergs] you apparently included in your assault on Parex? So I heard, but that does not mean any of it is true or otherwise.”

Kronbergs denial

FKTK refused to act

The Latvian Financial and Capital Markets Commission (FKTK) received details of material frauds at Parex Bank from whistleblower John Christmas in May 2005.  The FKTK refused to act.  As a result, the Republic of Latvia suffered a financial and demographic crisis when the corrupt government forced the taxpayers to bail out Parex in October 2008.  Now in March 2012, Christmas is still waiting for the FKTK to begin to investigate the Parex frauds.  He has been unable to enter Latvia since the whistleblowing even though he is a citizen of Latvia.  He has been repeatedly threatened with death for many years and Latvian authorities refuse to investigate.

FKTK email

FKTK letter

james brown, john doe, Liga Purina, Roberts Stugis, Ernst & Young, Parex Bank

This internal email from Parex Bank indicates that (1) the Parex financial statements were false and (2) all four vice presidents and the head of accounting knew.

The email reveals that Extro Bank, Nezavisimost, Allen Finance, and Northern Investment Bank were “de facto subsidiaries.”

This was illegal in many ways.  Parex was supposed to have permission from the Latvian regulator and Russian regulator to own Extro Bank in Russia.  Parex was supposed to have permission from the Latvian regulator and Belarusian regulator to own Northern Investment Bank in Belarus.

These companies (and a few more leasing companies that were also undisclosed subsidiaries but were not named in this email, such as Extro Leasing) were funded with loans from Parex that were on the books as loans to unrelated parties.  The total amount of these loans was larger than the bank’s equity.  Therefore, the bank effectively had negative equity.

This was one of the frauds in John Christmas’ whistleblowing to Ernst & Young in August 2004.  Parex reacted by changing the leasing companies from “loans to unrelated parties” into “subsidiaries” without admitting that this had been a fraud.  This cover-up, done with fake purchases, was another fraud.  The auditor Ernst & Young knew and did not care.  Perhaps this was because two of the four vice presidents, john doe and Liga Purina, were former employees of the auditor.

When Parex gave its liabiliities to the Latvian government at the end of 2008, the government retained Roberts Stugis as head of accounting and Ernst & Young as auditor.  Clearly, the government’s objective was to cover-up the truth about Parex while at the same time receiving bailout funds from foreign governments.

brown email

Kempmayer, Parex Bank, censorship

One of the largest corruption cases in Latvian history was the Kempmayer digital television scam.

Parex Bank was involved, however the Latvian media never mentions Parex in articles about Kempmayer.  Why not?

As usual, nobody has been punished – except the Latvian taxpayers and the international taxpayers who give money to the Latvian government.

This email from 2004 lists Parex crimes (including Kempmayer) that were uncovered by the United States government.  The Ambassador of the United States was repeatedly refusing invitations to meet Parex president Valery Kargin.  This list of crimes was provided as the reason.

Kempmayer email