Investigators seek 'full story'
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See the article in its original context from September 1999.
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"This has been and will continue to be a complex and painstaking investigation," James Robinson, assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, testified at the House Banking Committee's second day of hearings.
"Significant investigative resources will be expended to ensure we uncover the full story and bring any merited criminal charges," Robinson said. In addition to the investigation in the United States, authorities in Switzerland, Britain, Russia, France and Austria also have been examining the case.
In Geneva Wednesday, the prosecutor in charge of investigating alleged Russian money laundering in Switzerland said Boris Yeltsin will be immune from Swiss questioning as long as he remains president of Russia. "There's no question of interrogating President Yeltsin," Bernard Bertossa, Geneva canton prosecutor, told The Associated Press. "He is a head of state and has total immunity."
Russian gangsters allegedly channeled as much as $10 billion through the Bank of New York, the nation's 15th-largest bank. No one has been charged in the suspected scheme. Tuesday, Switzerland's government announced Swiss banks have frozen $16.8 million in accounts suspected linked to the case.
Spurred to action by the alleged money-laundering scheme, the Clinton administration and key lawmakers are proposing new measures to fight laundering of criminal profits - including requirements that storefront check cashiers, brokerage firms and casinos notify authorities of suspicious activities the way banks must. Key lawmakers also are planning to introduce legislation.
"Money laundering may seem like a relatively modest crime, but it is a window into greater crimes" that create the illegal funds," said Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa. He cited Russian government estimates that criminal groups control 40 percent of the country's economy and half its banking assets.
Investigators from the Justice Department and the FBI have been dissecting the complex case for months. Last week, FBI Director Louis Freeh promised his agency's full cooperation to Russian investigators.
Two high-level executives of the Bank of New York's Eastern European Division, Natasha Kagalovsky and Lucy Edwards, were suspended, and Ms. Edwards was subsequently fired for alleged falsification of bank records and failure to cooperate with internal investigators. The two have denied Thomas A. Renyi, Bank of New York chairman, listens to testimony by Russian Duma member Yuri Shchekochikhin before the House Banking Committee Wednesday in Washington, D.C. The committee is looking into
an alleged moneylaundering scheme involving the Russian mob and the Bank of New York. Photo: AP They've declined to testify voluntarily before the Banking Committee, as had Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of Russia's richest tycoons, whose name has surfaced in the moneylaundering investigation.
But Bank of New York's chairman, Thomas A. Renyi, was appearing before the panel, making his first public statements on the alleged moneylaundering scheme.
"No charges have been filed against the Bank of New York," he said in testimony prepared for the hearing. "Neither the bank nor any of its customers have lost any money as a result of the activities in question. We have cooperated fully with the ongoing investigations."
