MOSCOW: Russia yesterday suspended the operations of a popular Moscow bank whose board includes a cousin of President Vladimir Putin on suspicion of laundering more than half a billion dollars.
Investigators accused managers at Master Bank — Russia’s 75th-biggest by total assets — of stealing more than $600m in clients’ money and other illegal transactions.
The unexpected announcements prompted an unscheduled parliament hearing and left long lines of anxious customers waiting outside the shuttered doors of one of Moscow’s most prominent banks. Central bank chief Elvira Nabiullina told a parliament hearing that Master Bank had a long history of suspicious financial behaviour and currently had a negative cash flow of $60m.
Master Bank “hid its true state of affairs and substantially misstated its accounting,” she told Russian lawmakers. Nabiullina’s deputy Mikhail Sukhov later told Russia’s state-run rolling news channel that “the reason (for the bank’s suspension) is banal.”
“At least 20 million rubles ($610m) have been transferred to companies or individuals linked to the bank’s owners,” Sukhov said.
The ubiquitous lender has one of the most widespread networks of automated teller machines in Moscow. News reports said that Master Bank’s ATMs throughout the vast country had stopped dispensing cash by last afternoon.
“This is a major player in cash collection services, particularly in Moscow and Saint Petersburg,” the VTB Capital investment house said in a note to clients.
“In addition, the bank is self-ranked as having the third-largest network of ATMs in Russia and providing fee-based cash and ATM-related services to other Russian banks,” VTB Capital observed. AFP
