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The former owner of a bank in Latvia has been sentenced to prison for organizing the brutal daylight murder of a whistleblower.
Mihails Ulmans, the former owner of LPB Bank, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday for ordering the 2018 murder of Mārtiņš Bunkus, a lawyer who raised money laundering concerns to Latvian regulators.
The case has shed new light on the Baltic state’s banking system – a historic weakness for the country. ABLV, another local lender, made international headlines when it was liquidated in 2018 after being accused by the US Treasury Department of crimes ranging from sanctions busting to bribery – and led to an intensive reform of Latvia’s financial system.
On May 30, 2018, Bunkus was shot while driving through Riga during morning rush hour. The attackers had mounted a tent on a trailer towed by a van, and used it as a shelter from which they fired seven rounds from a Kalashnikov assault rifle at the lawyer’s car.
In March 2016, Bunkus, an insolvency practitioner, raised concerns with financial regulators about money laundering involving LPB Bank, then owned by Ulmans, after discovering financial conduct within a company that he had been instructed to liquidate.
Subsequently, in September 2016, a first attempt was made on Bunkus’ life by firing a submachine gun from a motorcycle. However, Bunkus survived because, according to a police report, the attacker “pointed the firearm . . . against the driver’s side window of the vehicle and pulled the trigger of the weapon, but for reasons beyond his control. . . a ‘malfunction’ occurred and the firearm did not fire.”
In May 2017, Bunkus raised further concerns with authorities about LPB Bank, this time in relation to another company he managed. He discovered chains of transactions related to the company he was liquidating, leading him to believe that the bank, and Ulmans himself, were involved in money laundering.
In a statement before the trial, both Ulmans and LPB Bank denied the allegations. LPB Bank noted that although regulators had been fined for process errors in 2018, “they had not identified a single case of money laundering.”
On Tuesday, Aleksandrs Babenko, one of Ulmans’ employees, was also sentenced to fifteen years. Ulmans and Babenko are said to have promised €300,000 for the murder, including payment of intermediaries.
The gunman, Viktor Krivoshey, a Russian citizen who was sentenced to life imprisonment on Tuesday, is said to have received 70,000 euros.
The verdicts can be appealed.
Kristaps Bunkus, Mārtiņš’s brother, said: “The big news today is that Mihails Ulmans and Aleksandrs Babenko have been found guilty of ordering the murder of my brother, and each has been given a 15-year prison sentence.
“The court ruled that they hired a killer to silence him – all because Mārtiņš performed his professional duties with dedication. Given the circumstances, fifteen years hardly feels like enough.”
Allies of Ulmans tried to portray the trial as part of an effort to raid Ulmans’ assets.
His lawyer told the Financial Times before the trial that “there are voices within the Latvian banking sector who are boldly claiming that there is collusion between corrupt Latvian authorities and corporate raiders, who are targeting specific banks.”
After the ruling, Ulmans’ lawyer was contacted for comment.
In the wake of ABLV’s closure in 2018, Latvia introduced a series of new transparency requirements and effectively incorporated US sanctions decisions into domestic law. In 2023, Latvia unsuccessfully attempted to establish the EU’s anti-money laundering headquarters in Riga.
LPB Bank was bought by Signet Bank, another Latvian lender, in December 2023 and was renamed Magnetiq Bank.
The bank was also approached for comment after the ruling.