The Financial Intelligence Unit boasts from time to time how many potentially criminal assets have been frozen but does not talk about cases where money is released. The law firm Loze & partneri managed to save its client's money from the aggressive nationalization of the Latvian state.
This is a great advertisement for the law firm because many foreigners naively trusted the invitation of the Latvian state and deposited funds in our state banks before the financial sector overhaul. And there are very few cases where the basically illegally nationalized money is recovered. It can even be said that they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And it must be emphasized here that we are not talking about any criminals and terrorist financiers who would launder money in Latvia to send it to the evil North Korean leader Jong-un. Money is taken away from ordinary companies, ordinary natural persons whose main common feature is belonging to a third country. A formal reason is found - a missing bill of lading ten years ago, some customs declaration - and the money is transferred to the State Treasury.
This could have also happened in the case of the client of lawyer Jānis Loze, if the case had reached the court, but this time the planned confiscation of money and securities was stopped at the prosecutor's office stage. This time it is not about ABLV bank in liquidation, but another credit institution. Maybe that's why it succeeded. The client is a well-known and respected company in Ukraine, one of the largest Ukrainian investors in Latvia. Not some offshore belonging to criminal structures, as it might seem from the actions of Latvian law enforcement agencies. The reason for freezing funds is the same as usual - lack of information on origin. For transactions ten or more years old. The Ukrainian businessman managed to obtain at least some of the requested documents and did no further legal proceedings. However, as lawyer Jānis Loze admits: “Such cases, when the origin of money can be justified, are unfortunately very rare. Several of our clients whose money has been confiscated are currently applying to the European Court of Human Rights. They have brought mountains of archives to law enforcement - they have submitted dozens of thick folders, but these documents are not even evaluated. Not in the police, not in the prosecutor's office, not in court."
If this were one exceptional situation, it could be said that it was an accident. One would think that there is truly something wrong with this money. But deprivation of money to foreigners has become a system in the last couple of years because the presumption of innocence has been abolished in Latvia in financial matters in accordance with the instructions given by the United States. Consequently, virtually all money deposited in banks is considered to be criminally obtained, unless proven otherwise. And the most absurd thing about this order is that no one cares who is a criminal and whether a crime has taken place. As if this money that has been determined criminal had been found on the street.
Lawyer Jānis Loze admits that the situation in Latvia is dramatically bad, there is no doubt that a whole bunch of cases will end up in the European Court of Human Rights. The process is slow, but at some point Latvia will have to re-evaluate its actions. "It is not normal for the Latvian state to confiscate money from honest, working companies!"
It is possible that in Latvia this unfair practice of taking foreign money will be limited before Europe forces it to do so. The deprivation of money will require at least a formal justification from the Latvian authorities. At present, in order for the Financial Intelligence Unit to deny the owner access to his bank account, absolutely no justification is required, "possibly", "might be", "seems weird" and other similar phrases are sufficient. The account is blocked by the FIU, and then the police, the prosecutor's office and the court, without any documentary justification, using the same FIU phrases, declare the funds in the account to be potentially criminally obtained and therefore confiscable. Moreover, in favor of the Latvian state, not the one represented by the foreigner. Neatkarīgā recently wrote about “How the Latvian state scams money from foreigners”.
108 thousand euros were confiscated from a Belarusian citizen, an entrepreneur in the IT sector. In order to recover his money, Belarusian brought one ancient paper, then another, then ten papers, but still - he did not bring everything that the Republic of Latvia demanded, and the court's decision to nationalize the money followed. The main reason for the confiscation of money was the finding of the police and the prosecutor's office that "the investigation cannot be completed within a reasonable time".
Last year, the Financial Intelligence Unit issued 440 orders freezing 429.412 million euros of possibly criminally obtained funds. The Latvian state should end this arbitrariness, and it is not only foreigners robbed by the Latvian authorities who think so. Many and various amendments to the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism and Proliferation Financing are being submitted to the Saeima for final reading. Most of them were made in the Ministry of Finance according to the instructions of the US Embassy, however, the proponents of the draft law could not completely avoid the self-initiative of the Latvian parliament, and now before taking away money, the Financial Intelligence Unit will have to find at least some formal reason for the freezing of the funds under review and the subsequent nationalization of the money on that basis. Of course, if the Saeima in the final reading will accept the solution approved by the Defense, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention Committee:
"FIU order on freezing funds must contain information on the reason for the order issued, insofar as the information does not jeopardize the attainment of the objectives of the criminal proceedings or the rights of others or the public interest. It is also envisaged that the subject of law or the administrator of the state information system, when informing the client in writing about the FIU order, must indicate in a copy the grounds for freezing, as well as the right to explain the legality of the frozen funds within 20 days of notification."
Perhaps this norm will help some foreigner save their honestly earned money from nationalization.
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