On 21st August 2014, the Organized Crime and Corrupting Reporting Project (OCCRP) published a reportage highlighting a sophisticated system for laundering money occurred through different jurisdictions including the UK, Russia, Moldova and Latvia. It has been estimated that more than $20 billion in Russian money stolen from the government by corrupt politicians or earned through organized crime activity was laundered.

The Laundromat, a so called system,  was designed to not only move money from Russian shell companies into EU banks through Latvia, it had the added feature of getting corrupt or uncaring judges in Moldova to legitimize the funds.

The state-of-the-art system provided exceptionally clean money backed by a court ruling at a fraction of the cost of regular laundering schemes. It made up for the low costs by laundering huge volumes. The system used just one bank in Latvia and one bank in Moldova but 19 banks in Russia, some of them controlled by rich and powerful figures including the cousin of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

For further information, please visit: OCCRP