Lithuania’s Vladimir Romanov absconded to Russia more than four years ago, leaving investigators grasping to recoup millions they believe he stole from Ukio Bankas. They’re still chasing the money today.
Vladimir Romanov, on the lam from Lithuania, is suspected of robbing his own bank. Investigators say evidence contained in the Paradise Papers leak of offshore financial data points to how it was done.
The story starts with a small patch of ground on the outskirts of Lithuania’s capital city of Vilnius. It was supposed to be developed into a modern residential neighborhood, funded by a €10.3 million (US$ 15.62 million) loan from Romanov’s bank. The money was used instead to buy a £14.9 million ($29.6 million) property in London at 43 Grosvenor St., Mayfair. The ultimate beneficiary of the deal was Romanov’s niece, Julija Goncaruk.
Romanov has been hiding in Russia since 2014, and a legal battle is still raging over the cash sunk into that London property, according to Lithuanian investigators. Among the claimants jostling for a piece of the spoils is a company that appears to be tied to Romanov’s inner circle.
A Bank With a History
Romanov was long one of the most flamboyant personalities in the Lithuanian financial universe. He owned a football club in Scotland and a basketball team in Lithuania. In both cases, he was famous for sacking coaches and other impulsive actions.
He also established a political party which came in last in the 2012 parliamentary elections with a meager 0.25 percent of the vote. It was the third-worst performance in Lithuanian parliamentary elections in the 21st century.
But Romanov didn’t make his money in sports or politics; he made it in banking.
His Lithuanian bank, Ukio Bankas, surfaced in several money laundering investigations, including allegations that it handled some of the Russian money stolen in a scandal uncovered by the late Sergei Magnitsky. Ukio became infamous in 2013, when Lithuania’s Central Bank revoked its license and took it over. A criminal case was launched into alleged embezzlement, and Romanov departed Lithuania for Russia, where he has been granted asylum.
Lithuania cited “harmful actions” by Ukio Bankas’ shareholders as the principal reasons for intervening. Authorities feared that the financial institution, already on the brink of collapse, was being systematically stripped of assets by the people running it.
Moving Lithuania to London
Daniliskes is the small patch of land outside Vilnius that was supposed to be transformed into a modern residential area in 2008. According to leaked documents prepared by Lithuanian law enforcement, Ukio Bank lent €10.3 million (15.62 million $) for the plan to a Lithuanian company called Tristanas, owned by Ilja Jaroslavskis, a long-time associate of various Romanov-related companies.
But within days, Tristanas wired the money to England. The company never laid a single brick in Daniliskes. Instead, it went into liquidation a few years later.
This is where the Paradise Papers come in. That’s the name for a leak of 13.4 million documents from two offshore services firms based in Bermuda and Singapore, as well as from 19 corporate registries maintained by governments in secret offshore jurisdictions.
The documents, which surfaced more than a year after the similar Panama Papers scandal, were obtained by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which in turn organized a collaborative investigation with dozens of outlets across the world. The group included the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and its Lithuanian partner, 15min.lt....MUCH MORE
