Text version
0:00
Hi, my name is Kira Yarmysh, and now
0:03
I’m going to tell you an amazing story.
0:05
Imagine this situation: your home
0:07
has been robbed, but you absolutely
0:09
couldn’t care less. Meanwhile, your neighbors are terribly
0:11
upset: they run outside and try
0:13
to catch the thieves. And you, meanwhile, thoughtfully
0:16
look out the window and do absolutely nothing.
0:18
take no action.
0:22
Sounds strange, right? But that is exactly what
0:26
recently happened in our country. Arkady
0:28
and Boris Rotenberg, Putin’s cronies and
0:30
closest friends, are graduates of
0:33
a physical education institute. They have created nothing
0:35
and have no particular talents, yet
0:37
they still receive, without any competitive bidding,
0:39
multibillion-dollar state contracts.
0:41
That includes the bridge to Crimea and the Power of
0:44
Siberia gas pipeline, as well as numerous Olympic
0:45
facilities. We at FBK (the Anti-Corruption Foundation) have repeatedly
0:48
talked about them, including showing their
0:49
homes outside Moscow. Here, take another look
0:51
at what they look like. Now let me move
0:54
directly to the story. In 2015,
0:56
a major scandal broke out involving
0:58
Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank.
1:01
It was accused of lacking effective
1:03
anti-money-laundering procedures and of shortcomings
1:05
in its reporting. It turned out that Deutsche
1:08
Bank had been used for several years
1:10
to secretly move money out of Russia.
1:12
How did it work? Simultaneously,
1:14
two identical trades were executed. They
1:16
are also called mirror trades. In Moscow,
1:18
securities were bought for rubles, and in
1:20
London they were immediately sold for
1:22
dollars. Money in the morning, chairs in the afternoon; afternoon
1:27
money, chairs in the evening; evening money, night
1:31
chairs; night money, morning chairs; morning—well,
1:34
everything’s clear. Clear. But can it be chairs in the morning and
1:37
money in the afternoon?
1:38
[music]
1:39
Over several years, Deutsche Bank
1:43
carried out several thousand such transactions
1:44
worth $10 billion.
1:47
There was no economic sense whatsoever in these
1:49
trades. Often they even turned out
1:51
to be loss-making for the client, and their only
1:53
purpose was to secretly take rubles out of
1:55
Russia, convert them into dollars, and then
1:58
place those dollars into offshore accounts where
1:59
they would be impossible to trace.
2:03
So where was the money? Who do you think those
2:07
very Deutsche Bank clients laundering
2:09
money this way were? That’s right—the
2:11
Rotenbergs. After being placed under sanctions, they
2:14
ran into difficulties moving
2:15
money abroad, so they used
2:17
this very scheme: mirror trades.
2:19
The trades were made in small amounts, and the bank
2:21
didn’t notice them for a long time. But there were so many
2:23
of these trades that eventually
2:25
the U.S. Department of Justice finally became
2:26
interested, because one of Deutsche Bank’s branches
2:28
is located there as well. And that’s when
2:30
the scandal erupted. And now comes
2:32
the best part of the story.
2:34
The investigation went on for many months and
2:37
ended in January of this year. In the end,
2:39
the bank had to pay fines as follows:
2:41
to the United States, $425 million;
2:44
to the United Kingdom, $204 million.
2:47
But Russia’s Central Bank also
2:49
fined Deutsche Bank—and you will never
2:51
guess the amount: 300,000 rubles (about $5,000 at the time).
2:54
Just think about it:
2:57
$10 billion was secretly taken out of Russia,
2:59
no taxes were paid on it,
3:02
and in effect our country was robbed
3:04
of an enormous sum. But
3:06
the Central Bank assessed the damage at 300,000
3:08
rubles. The United States and the United Kingdom, which
3:11
were not the ones being robbed in this case,
3:12
demanded $630 million in penalties
3:15
because the bank failed to scrutinize
3:18
its transactions carefully enough and allowed capital
3:20
to be moved out of Russia. And we, the injured
3:22
party, have no complaints either against the bank
3:25
or against the Rotenbergs. Please, dear friends,
3:27
go on robbing us—we don’t object at all.
3:29
I’d like to finish with this
3:32
wonderful quote from Putin: “We will also need
3:34
to prepare, as has been done in other countries,
3:36
our own national plan
3:39
for combating money laundering,
3:42
tax evasion, and de-offshorization.”
3:46
So this is what our national anti-money-laundering plan looks like in the end:
3:48
a bank involved in laundering money
3:50
gets fined by us
3:52
a laughable amount, and the Rotenbergs are handed
3:54
yet another government contract without
3:56
any competition. Why does this happen?
3:57
The explanation is very simple. Here it is
4:00
right on your screens: Putin is patting
4:02
his best friend Boris Rotenberg on the head.
4:04
For 17 years, power in this country has been
4:07
held by a gang of people bound together.
4:09
They are not going to stop one another
4:11
from stealing, and they are not going to punish themselves.
4:13
They will do nothing for the good of the country,
4:15
because their only goal is
4:17
their own well-being. If you are not
4:19
okay with that, if it outrages you, then you have the power
4:21
to change it. Alexei Navalny will be
4:23
running in the 2018 presidential election.
4:25
He needs your signatures to support
4:28
the campaign. You can add your
4:30
signature here and thereby make your contribution to
4:32
the fight against corruption. Subscribe to
4:34
our channel—this is where the truth is told.