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Presidential contender Grudinin kept $1 million in 11 Swiss bank accounts — CEC

Grudinin notified the Central Election Committee all of his accounts in foreign banks had been closed
Russia’s presidential candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Pavel Grudinin Alexander Scherbak/TASS
Russia’s presidential candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Pavel Grudinin
© Alexander Scherbak/TASS

MOSCOW, March 5. /TASS/. Russia’s presidential candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Pavel Grudinin, kept an equivalent of 55 million rubles in foreign currencies on eleven accounts in Swiss banks, a member of the Central Election Commission, Nikolai Levichev, told TASS on Monday.

"If the evidence we’ve received is to be believed, the overall market value of his assets is more than 55 million rubles (nearly one million dollars)," he said.

Foreign accounts

Grudinin was registered as a presidential candidate on January 12. Each candidate is required to notify the Central Election Committee he or she has no accounts or financial instruments abroad.

Grudinin declared five accounts in foreign banks and information about securities he owned. Alongside this he filed a written statement he no longer kept money in foreign banks and did not use foreign securities. A short while later it turned out that Grudinin at the beginning of February still had two bank accounts in Switzerland and two in Austria. The CEC ruled it was not an "insoluble problem."

The CEC’s deputy chief, Nikolai Bulayev, said Grudinin had twice notified the CEC all of his accounts in foreign banks had been closed. At the same time Bulayev pointed to a contradiction between Grudinin’s declarations and the information presented by the tax service.

On March 5, CEC member Aleksandr Kinev said the Swiss tax authorities had said Grudinin had another eleven accounts in a Swiss bank, one of them, in gold.

In February, the Internet portal Life.ru said that Grudinin’s son Artyom owned real estate in Latvia and received Latvia’s residence permit several years ago.