TIGRAN SARGSIAN: WITH HELP OF RF CENTRAL BANK, CBA PREVENTED SEVERAL
LARGE-SCALE MONEY LAUNDERING OPERATIONS
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, NOYAN TAPAN. "Remittances from Russia to Armenia
are mainly those of natural persons, i.e remittances sent by numerous
Armenians working in Russia. As regards money laundering, the Central
Banks of Armenia and Russia closely cooperate in the fight against
it," Tigran Sargsian, Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA),
current Chairman of the Interstate Bank, said at the press conference
to summarize the results of the Interstate Bank Board’s meeting in
Yerevan on November 3. Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian
Federation Sergei Ignatyev and Chairman of Kazakhstan’s National Bank
Anvar Saydenov took part in the press conference. Responding to NT
correspondent’s question about whether "there exists a movement of
"dirty" or grey money from Russia to Armenia", T. Sargsian said that
experts of the RF CB came to Armenia and discussed the schemes used by
some commercial banks for money laundering. "We took these schemes as a
basis and follow the transfers made. If they are made by these schemes,
the CBA applies the respective measures to these banks to prevent
such banking operations from being carried out," CBA Chairman said,
adding that in such cases at the CBA’s request, the offshore accounts
of the banks attempting to use the indicated schemes are closed.
"I think, with the help of the RF Central Bank, we have succeeded
in prevention of several large-scale money laundering operations,"
T. Sargsian stated.
"I’d like to make some corrections, as the matter concerns tax and
customs payments evasion rather than a "dirty" money movement," Sergei
Ignatyev said, noting that Russian residents attempt to do this. "It
is an ordinary situation at a customs-house when a Russian importer is
reluctant to state the real value of goods, indicates a lower value
in the declaration to pay less customs duties and VAT. So he has the
problem of moving his money abroad in the so-to-speak "shadow" way,
that is, without declaring what money it is and for what purposes
it is envisaged," S. Ignatyev said, adding that "they try to solve
these problems by using various schemes." According to him, there
have been cases that some banks of the post-Soviet countries have
been involved, in an active or passive way, in these schemes. In
his words, the RF CB actively cooperates with the central banks of
other countries, "in some cases they are the first to apply to us,
in other cases we apply to them and take the appropriate measures to
reduce the number of such operations," S. Ignatyev noted. Asked "what
scale is the question about", T. Sargsian replied that a case when
"the transfers amounted to several billion dollars over two years"
was revealed with the help of the RF CB. "The scheme was approximately
the same as described by my colleague. It must be established what
part was an attempt to evade taxes and which part was legal."