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Swiss private bank Lombard Odier and one of its former employees have been charged with money laundering by the Swiss Federal Prosecutor.
In an indictment filed Friday, the prosecutor said that Lombard Odier — one of the country’s most illustrious financial institutions — played a “decisive role” for years in helping to conceal the alleged criminal activities of Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the now deceased president. of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov.
Karimova, who was herself indicted in Switzerland in September 2023, embezzled and extorted billions through her control of lucrative Uzbek state contracts and laundered the proceeds through an organization called “The Office,” based in Switzerland, prosecutors allege.
Once dubbed “the princess of Uzbekistan” thanks to her flashy international lifestyle, Karimova has been imprisoned in Tashkent since 2014.
An Uzbek court found her guilty of corruption and tax evasion in 2015 and imposed a 10-year prison sentence. In a second court ruling in 2020, she was found guilty of embezzlement and extortion, sentencing her to an additional 13 years.
Through her lawyer, Grégoire Mangeat, she has denied all charges against her. Mangeat claimed that the sentences in Tashkent were political in nature and resulted from the death of her father in 2015 and the ascendancy of political opponents.
Before her demise in 2014, Karimova was a flashy figure on the international stage in Geneva.
She had a brief career as a pop singer, adopted the stage name Googoosha, after her father’s pet name, and recorded a sultry duet with French film star Gérard Depardieu. She also launched a jewelry line in collaboration with Chopard and turned to perfumery with her fragrance Mysteriuese, launched in Paris in 2012.
According to charges filed by Swiss prosecutors last year, Karimova’s vanity projects ran parallel to a vast international criminal enterprise that made her billions largely by systematically taking bribes from international companies desperate for lucrative contracts in Uzbekistan.
In the plaintiff’s case against Lombard Odier, the bank is accused of failing to comply with anti-money laundering standards and its internal compliance procedures.
In a statement, Lombard Odier emphasized that the investigation started because the bank itself raised concerns about its former client with the Swiss anti-money laundering authorities more than ten years ago.
“We have taken note of the decision of [the federal prosecutor] to file suit against the bank for insufficient controls. For the bank, the allegations are baseless and unfounded. The bank intends to defend itself vigorously,” it said.
“The procedure has been ongoing since then [2012] and the bank has always fully cooperated with the relevant authorities.”
Despite its early cooperation, the bank, which traces its history back to the 18th century and prides itself on once hosting Napoleon, was named a criminal suspect in the case in 2016.
A police investigation that year into safe deposit boxes in Karimova’s name in the bank’s vaults – a highly unusual occurrence in Switzerland, where bank privacy is usually sacrosanct – turned up a trove of luxury jewelry worth millions, much of it allegedly paid in Uzbek. state funds, as well as numerous documents used by prosecutors to build their case.
A former employee of Lombard Odier has also been charged by the public prosecutor. Under Swiss law, the individual’s identity is kept anonymous until a trial has taken place.
The person worked for Karimova before joining Lombard Odier in 2008.
The plaintiff alleges that he was responsible for circumventing the bank’s internal compliance requirements, a process they say was not difficult for him to accomplish. The person left the bank in 2012, the same year the bank’s leadership reported their concerns about Karimova to authorities.
In a statement, the prosecutor said: “Lombard Odier failed to comply with anti-money laundering standards and his own internal guidelines in opening and managing the nine bank accounts in question.”
The prosecutor’s multi-year investigation “revealed deficiencies in the identification and re-identification of the beneficial owners of the bank accounts in question, the obligation to conduct additional due diligence on higher-risk business relationships, the acceptance and annual assessment of business relationships with politically exposed persons.” persons, the obligation to identify and clarify higher risk transactions and the internal organization of the bank,” she added.
Karimova is also linked to Switzerland’s second largest bankruptcy. In 2010, Zeromax, a Zug-based conglomerate that invested exclusively in Uzbekistan, collapsed, leaving behind debts of $4.6 billion.
The company, which creditors allege was used as a front by Karimova, is at the center of a dispute over her fortune, much of which is still frozen in Swiss bank accounts.