The operatives of the main Interior Ministry’s department in the Central Federal District jointly with the Federal Security Service carried out an operation, during which seven masterminds of illegal banking transactions for the transfer of big sums of money from the food marketplaces in Moscow and Perm, Ural region, to foreign countries were detained, Kommersant daily reported.
According to preliminary reports, three Moscow commercial banks, among which only Idealbank is named, were involved in illegal banking activity. Some monetary funds from these banks were transferred for the funding of the banned terrorist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami.
The Russian Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service have traced down the organized criminal community consisting of the citizens of Russia, Uzbekistan and Georgia more than a year ago. The detectives found that the channel of money transfer was provided through six Moscow food marketplaces and four marketplaces in Perm Territory “in the interests of migrants from Central Asia illegally staying in Russia.”
The detectives found during the search that the organized criminal group consisted of more than 40 people, meanwhile, each of them performed some concrete functions. The detectives found that the monthly turnover of the organized criminal group reached 1.5 billion roubles (about $45.7 million). The FSB search operation in the activity of the ethnic criminal community was caused by the fact that some part of money was transferred in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and the United States for financial support to members of the banned terrorist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami.
Last Thursday, November 21, the operatives decided to make simultaneously detentions and searches in Moscow and Perm Territory. The special operation was carried out at 19 addresses, particularly in the flats and the offices and three commercial banks involved in illegal money transfer abroad. Suspected 7 ringleaders of the criminal community were detained. They were charged with forming a criminal community and illegal banking activity, Kommersant daily reported.
In the flats and the offices, where the searches and detentions were being made, the detectives have confiscated the blank papers of more than 120 fly-by-night companies, their bank accounts in Russia and offshore zones, bookkeeping documents in the shadow economic sector, stamps, distance access electronic keys to manage the accounts of false organizations and more than 178 million roubles (about $5.4 million). Underreported sale revenues were mainly transferred from the nationals of Central Asia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Abkhazia.
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