The announcement by the State Police of significant development in the murder case of insolvency administrator Mārtiņš Bunkus, an unofficial leak of information and an official invitation to all those who still haven't reported something in the case to apply – all this shows that the police do not yet have enough quality evidence to send the case to the prosecutor's office for prosecution.
This is not how the police usually act - it doesn't boast about great successes in cases that are still months, if not light-years, away from trial. About half-completed cases, it only utters the default phrase that no further information can be provided in the interests of the investigation. But this time the police have done something different and said a lot in the interests of the investigation: "Major breakthrough in Bunkus murder investigation - the chain of almost everyone involved in crime discovered; arrests made today". The most important quote in this statement is from the Chief of the State Police, Armands Ruks: "The investigation has provided a clear picture of the circumstances of the crime and the persons involved, and at the same time we are still calling on those persons who have not provided all the information known to them in connection with the investigation of this case, or persons who may still have something to testify, to come forward voluntarily and cooperate with the police. Do not wait for the criminal police to knock on your door. The State Police guarantees anonymity."
Neatkarīgā consulted a competent source to find out what this paragraph really means - whether it really is just boasting about a job well done. But it is not, and the translation of Ruks' statement is: "We know everyone involved, and if you do not come forward voluntarily, you will become an accomplice in the case and you will have to go to jail. If you come and testify, you will be a witness and will not have to go to jail." Apparently, the police still need evidence to strengthen the case. On the day the official police statement was released, the unofficial part of the case was also leaked to the media: the names of some of the detainees - businessmen Mihails Uļmans and Aleksandrs Babenko - and the name of the company whose insolvency proceedings are allegedly linked to the murder of the administrator. It is Rego Trade, a wholesaler of sugar, chocolate and confectionery, with a formally unknown beneficial owner.
However, the revenge of an enraged sugar trader on the company's insolvency administrator seems too simple an explanation for such a high-profile murder.
The source suggests that there are other layers to the story which prompted the conspirators to take the final step - the murder of Mārtiņš Bunkus, a public official, insolvency administrator, and lawyer.
Analyzing the police investigation, the source of Neatkarīgā points out that the progress of the Bunkus case could have been influenced by other criminal proceedings - the investigation against the former head of the Riga Region Criminal Police Andrejs Sozinovs. Several criminal proceedings have been initiated on suspicion of money laundering, abuse of official position, lying in a declaration of a public official, illegal activities with state secrets. In addition to his work as a police officer, Sozinovs once worked for LPB Bank as head of security, which is co-owned by Mihails Uļmans, who is now detained in connection with the investigation into Bunkus' murder. It is therefore possible that the once-powerful policeman may have provided his former colleagues with information that enabled them to make significant progress in the investigation into Bunkus' murder, in exchange for some mitigation in his own case. This is, of course, only a version, because officially the police say: "Now that the investigation has entered the next stage and persons have been detained, criminal procedural activities are continuing, therefore the State Police cannot yet provide any more detailed information on the progress of the investigation, the arrests made and other details of the investigation. It is now important to bring this work to a conclusion before we can provide more information about the criminal proceedings to the public."
Mārtiņš Bunkus is a very famous departed - as a public official he made millions from insolvency proceedings. So famous that he managed to arrange a burial place for himself next to the first President of Latvia, Janis Čakste, in the closed Forest Cemetery. Bunkus was also shot next to the cemetery on Aizsaules Street - with an AK-47 assault rifle from a speeding van. This murder was all the more symbolic and brazen because the main administrative building of the Ministry of the Interior and the State Police is located nearby. During the four years of the investigation, several theories have circulated unofficially. Both about Bunkus' desperate attempts to become the insolvency administrator of ABLV Bank, which was being liquidated, and about the Caucasian mafia money that had been administered away in Trasta komercbanka. Now, according to unofficial police leaks, the key to the crime is the insolvency of the sugar firm Rego Trade, which was declared bankrupt in 2008 and has not been closed to this day. Significantly, this was also the only insolvency proceeding in which Bunkus was the administrator at the time of his death. In the other insolvency proceedings, he was a lawyer, a consultant, an interested outsider, but no less influential and no less profitable. Until the morning of May 30, 2018.