The head of the feared Russian mercenary group Wagner was able to obtain money laundering checks from the UK by presenting his elderly mother’s gas bill.
Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, came under US, EU and US sanctions in 2021 when the UK law firm Discreet Law asked him for identification documents as part of anti-money laundering checks. money before accepting you as a client.
Prigozhin’s Russian lawyers responded by sending the London-based law firm a photo of his passport along with a gas bill in the name of the mercenary boss’s mother, Violetta Prigozhina, then 81, leaked emails seen by the financial times show. The bill involved an address in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The Russian lawyers wrote in an email: “The bill is issued in the name of the claimant’s mother who actually lives at the client’s residential address and pays the bill.”
A lawyer from Discreet Law responded: “We are satisfied with the (anti-money laundering) documents.”
Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin (pictured), was under US, EU and US sanctions in 2021 when British law firm Discreet Law asked him for identification documents as part of anti-money laundering controls before accepting you as a client.
Prigozhina, now 83, was sanctioned by the EU last year in response to her support for her son’s activities in the Wagner group.
Prigozhin, a millionaire with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has about 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, of whom 40,000 are convicts and 10,000 contractors, according to UK and US intelligence.
Dubbed ‘Putin’s chef’ who once provided catering services to the Kremlin, Prigozhin hired Discreet Law in 2021 to bring a libel case in London against Eliot Higgins, the founder of investigative news service Bellingcat, over the tweets. what he had done about the Wagner group.
The legal proceedings were annulled in May last year by the High Court in London; two months earlier, Discreet Law had withdrawn its services for Prigozhin.
Margaret Hodge, a Labor MP, said the British law firm’s acceptance of a gas bill in the name of Prigozhin’s mother showed the need for urgent reform in the UK.
“It is ridiculous that a Russian warlord avoided any suspicion of money laundering simply by using his elderly mother’s gas bills,” he told the FT.
“Our bankers, accountants and lawyers have a duty to perform robust checks on their clients,” Hodge said.
Dubbed ‘Putin’s chef’ who once provided catering services to the Kremlin, Prigozhin hired Discreet Law in 2021 to bring a libel case in London against Eliot Higgins, the founder of investigative news service Bellingcat, over the tweets. what he had done about the Wagner group.
Nicknamed ‘Putin’s Chef’ (pictured together) who once provided catering services to the Kremlin, Prigozhin hired Discreet Law in 2021 to bring a libel case in London against Eliot Higgins.
The legal proceedings were annulled in May last year by the High Court in London; two months earlier, Discreet Law had withdrawn its services for Prigozhin.
Roger Gherson, the founder of Discreet Law, said his law firm “cannot comment on confidential communications with his former clients.”
“Discreet Law’s position is that by receiving instructions and conducting due diligence, they have at all times fully complied with their legal and professional obligations,” Gherson said.
It came after Prigozhin on Tuesday accused Russia’s defense minister and chief of staff of depriving their fighters in Ukraine of ammunition, which he said amounts to an attempt to “destroy” the force.
Prigozhin said out loud that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov are issuing orders “left and right” not to supply Wagner with ammunition or airlift. The company has been involved in heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine.
This “can be compared to high treason at the very moment when Wagner is fighting for Bakhmut, losing hundreds of his fighters every day,” Prigozhin said.
Millionaire Prigozhin and his fighters have been told for weeks that the military does not provide them with enough ammunition. Wagner’s drive to seize Bakhmut, a town in Ukraine’s partially occupied eastern Donetsk region, has stalled and turned into a grueling battle.
Prigozhin has also repeatedly accused Russia’s top military commanders of incompetence in recent months. He has raised his public profile, issuing daily statements boasting of Wagner’s alleged victories and mocking his opponents.
However, his criticisms appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Putin last month reaffirmed his trust in Gerasimov by putting him in direct charge of Russian forces in Ukraine, a move some observers also interpreted as an attempt to reduce Prigozhin.
In his long-awaited state of the nation address on Tuesday, Putin effusively thanked his army but made no mention of Wagner.