Posted on 03/14/2005 10:14:56 AM PST by jb6
MOSCOW, March 14. (RIA Novosti)-At the end of last week, Spanish police identified the biggest financial fraud in the country's history: 41 people suspected of laundering €250 million were arrested. They included Russians and Ukrainians. The main company involved in this case is Yukos, Finansoviye Izvestia writes.
The money earmarked for laundering was first sent to a Dutch firm, then to an account held by Del Valle Abogados, a law firm based in Marbella.
"The Yukos money was evidently laundered in Spain and put into real estate on the Costa del Sol. This Yukos money was illegally changed into investment in real estate through a number of companies," said Valentin Baut, the head of the department for combating drug trafficking and organized crime with the Costa del Sol police. He is heading the money laundering investigation.
Yukos is known as one of the biggest clients of the Dutch company and the Spanish law firm. The oil company has denied the Spanish media reports.
Alexander Shadrin, the company's press secretary, dismissed the report as nonsense. "They could just as well say that we had laundered money on Mars," he said.
Investigators say that the first round of questioning revealed that some of the laundered money had been used for supporting international crime groups involved in drug trafficking and arms dealing.
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