Dec 21, 2023 at 12:28 AM Update: 33 minutes ago
The Latvian court has sentenced Ilmars Rimsevics, the former governor of the Bank of Latvia, to six years in prison for bribery. He was convicted of taking bribes.
According to prosecutors, two shareholders of the bank Trasta Komercbanka stated that Rimsevics had asked for bribes. In return, he would help the bank survive. There was also evidence in the form of secret recordings made in a sauna of conversations about the bribes. Trasta Komercbanka had to close in 2016 because the company allegedly participated in money laundering and fraud.
Rimsevics has continuously denied the allegations during the trial. He was governor of the Bank of Latvia until 2019. He was arrested in 2018, at a time when Latvia and neighboring Estonia were dealing with a wave of money laundering scandals at banks. This often involved processing criminal money from Russia.
Rimsevics also had a place on the board of the European Central Bank (ECB) since the introduction of the euro in Latvia in 2014. The criminal case against the governor took extra long because the European Court of Justice had to investigate whether he was an ECB director was inviolable.
Previously, the ECB successfully challenged Rimsevics’ suspension as head of the Latvian central bank. In 2019, he resigned as director when his term expired.
Image: EPA
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Latvia Abroad
2023-12-20 23:28:44
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