US Government Sues Kolomoisky, Accusing Him of Laundering Money Stolen from PrivatBank
This is linked to the recent FBI searches.
The United States Department of Justice has accused Igor Kolomoisky of stealing PrivatBank's money and then laundering it in the United States and other countries around the world. This is reported by Washington Post.
A civil lawsuit has been filed against Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov, another former co-owner of PrivatBank. It states that they used the bank's personal accounts to build a business empire in the US. Using a network of companies with which they had some kind of connection, Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov acquired a lot of real estate in the United States.
With the laundered money in the US, they acquired more than 5 million hectares of real estate in Ohio, as well as steel mills in Kentucky, West Virginia and Michigan, a mobile phone manufacturing plant in Illinois and commercial real estate in Texas. The civil lawsuit includes a Department of Justice demand for the forfeiture of Kolomoisky's assets.
Kolomoisky previously denied the accusations of stealing money from PrivatBank. Today, after the charges were brought, his lawyer declined to comment on anything related to this case.
In addition, Kolomoisky faces criminal liability in a possible money laundering case. It was precisely because of this that on Tuesday the FBI conducted searches at the offices of Optima, a company owned by Kolomoisky.
Recently, an investigation in the US confirmed the connection between the Surkis brothers and Kolomoisky regarding the sources of funds in deposits of English companies. It states that from 2008 to 2010 the former owners of PrivatBank received loans from the bank totaling $361 million.
In late July, PrivatBank stated that Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov laundered more than $800 million through a group of American companies called Optima.
In December 2016 the state nationalized PrivatBank. The official reason given was concern that the largest commercial bank could go bankrupt due to a capital shortfall of 5.5 billion dollars. Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov deny all the accusations, call the nationalization of the bank politically motivated and are challenging it in court.
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