United States Department of Justice, Daimler, Russia, Latvia

The following document contains some details from the United States Department of Justice case against Daimler AG, dated 22 March 2010.

Bribes to Russian officials went to Latvian bank accounts.

Shortly after the announcement of the Daimler settlement came an announcement that HP also paid bribes to Russian officials through a Latvian bank.  Those bribes were paid to the Russian Prosecutors Office.

Nobody has been prosecuted anywhere for any of these crimes.

pdf snapshop:

Daimler Russia

link:

http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/cases/daimler/03-22-10daimlerrussia-info.pdf

United States Department of Justice, Solaris Bus, Gundars Bojars, Viktor Vekselberg

This document from the United States Department of Justice indicates that a company paid bribes to Riga City politicians to sell buses in 2000.

The accusation must refer to the sale of buses from Solaris of Poland to Riga Transportation (formerly Imanta and Talava).  The sale was financed by Parex Bank.

Nobody has been prosecuted.  The names “Solaris” and “Parex” have been censored from all Latvian media articles on the subject.  And, Solaris continues to sell buses to Riga now in 2012.

Interestingly, the Latvian media did determine that former Riga mayor Gundars Bojars must have been involved.  Bojars’ involvement is not surprising since he was also involved in the notorious ”Baltic Kristina” deal with Parex.  Nobody was prosecuted in that case, either.

Bojars is currently free and rich.  He is cooperating with Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg to construct a new building for the Latvian State Revenue Service.

pdf snapshot:

USDoJ Solaris

link:

http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/cases/daimler/03-22-10daimlerag-info.pdf

Declaration by John Christmas, Parex Bank whistleblower

John Christmas was the whistleblower from Parex Bank.  He gave fraud information to Ernst & Young in 2004.  He gave fraud information to the Latvian government in 2005.  He was terrorized with threats and fled from Latvia.  Ernst & Young and the Latvian government ignored the information.

The Parex fraud grew much larger and caused the Latvian Financial Crisis in 2008.

Now in 2012, there still has never been any investigation of the whistleblowing by Latvian (or European) authorities even though the fraud occurred in Latvia (and Europe).

This is a declaration written by John Christmas in January 2010.  The declaration was written at the request of Varu Tautai.  A translation (with a few errors) used to be online at VaruTautai.lv.  Most of the information in the declaration has been censored in the Latvian media.

One note:  In January 2010 when the declaration was written, it appeared that the FBI and United States Department of Justice were not going to use the information that they received from Christmas in October 2007.  However, in April 2010 it was revealed that the information was used in the USA versus Daimler settlement.  The FBI was back in communication with Christmas immediately after the announcement of the settlement.

Declaration

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

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

ReportingProject.net

ReportingProject.net has well-researched articles about the fraud and money laundering industry in Latvia.  The articles include information that does not appear in Latvian newspapers.  Here is a quote from an article about Parex Bank:

“According to representatives of post-nationalized Parex Bank, Burwell was director of companies that received loans from Parex before nationalisation that the bank now suspects were hidden loans to the former shareholders Kargins and Krasovickis.”

http://www.reportingproject.net/proxy/behind-the-proxies

Rebaltica.lv

Rebaltica.lv contains information about the Latvian money-laundering industry.  The website is a welcome source of true information coming from a country where most of the media is controlled by oligarchs and used to disseminate propaganda.

The money-laundering industry got started in Latvia immediately after “independence” when KGB agent Grigory Loutchansky and Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin used Latvian banks to skim billions of dollars from Gazprom.

Over the years, Latvian banks have faced limited sanctions from the United States and Russia.  However, these sanctions were not enough and the money-laundering industry continues to thrive in Latvia.

The biggest losers?  The Latvian people themselves since the Latvian government has been thoroughly corrupted and looted by the money-laundering banks.

http://www.rebaltica.lv/en/