A SCOTTISH firm is at the centre of yet another major corruption investigation in Russia, sparking new concerns over the country’s growing reputation as the “Panama of the North”.
The unnamed business was allegedly used to spirit £18 million out of Russia in 2014 as part of what prosecutors believe was a multi-billion-rouble conspiracy to defraud the main power company in the country’s second city, St Petersburg. The case, which is going through the courts, is just the latest to feature a Scottish “shell” company in the former Soviet Union.
Scottish firms, especially controversial limited partnerships or SLPs, are routinely advertised in eastern Europe as off-the-shelf secrecy vehicles.
Russian prosecutors are seeking a six-year jail term for the former director of Lenenergo, Andrei Sorochinsky. They claim he and a co-accused transferred some 13 billion roubles – £172 million at today’s exchange rates – to a bank knowing the financial institution was about to go bust.
Some 1.3bn roubles of this was transferred via proxies to a “Scottish offshore firm”, according to law enforcement sources cited by the St Petersburg newspaper Fontanka.
Mr Sorochinsky, who denies the charges, was arrested by the FSB, one of the successor organisations of the KGB, in 2015 and accused of abuse of office. His trial continues.
Sources did not tell Fontanka the name of the “Scottish offshore firm” or whether it was an SLP.
Earlier this year, The Herald revealed that both SLPs and Scottish limited companies had been used as part of the “Russian Laundromat”, the biggest money-laundering system ever exposed in the world.
The St Petersburg case comes after Italy’s prestigious financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore called Scotland a “paradise for offshore firms for the whole world”.
Journalists specialising in Mafia investigations highlighted a single SLP shell firm for sale with an Italian name. They said: “Scotland has ended up in the sights of British anti-money-laundering authorities and anti-corruption non- government organisations precisely because of SLPs, which in recent years have become a vehicle to clean up dirty money and lose any trace of it.”
The SNP’s Roger Mullin led the campaign in Westminster for reform of SLPs, which are under UK Government review.
Asked about the St Petersburg case, the Kirkcaldy candidate said: “This is a deeply worrying revelation that has the potential to do significant reputation damage to Scotland.
“The campaign to clean up the financial system must go on and I am determined to force government action on this.”
Green MSP Andy Wightman said: “Scotland’s reputation as a place to do honest business is once again being compromised by the failure to tackle the misuse of SLPs.
“The Scottish and UK governments need to reform the criminal and civil law governing their operations.”
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