http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?id=54705&mador=1
Sunday, August 29, 1999
Jews and Israelis in global money-laundering probe
By Isabella Ginor, Ha'aretz Correspondent and agencies
Several Jews, including some with Israeli
citizenship, have been questioned in connection
with a worldwide probe into an alleged
money-laundering operation. In what may be the
biggest such case in history, investigators are
trying to find out whether Russian mobsters
funneled billions of dollars through accounts at
the Bank of New York.
One central figure in the story, the man apparently
responsible for disclosing the names of 23 senior
Kremlim officials with 32 accounts in Swiss banks,
is Felipe Turover, a Jew "of Spanish origin," born
in the Soviet Union, who went to the West in 1983
and currently holds Israeli and Spanish
citizenship.
When the Soviet Union disintegrated, Turover
returned there and was employed by Western lenders
to collect Soviet debts. One of his employers was
Banca del Gottardo of Lugano, Switzerland. After a
disagreement with the bank's local representative
and, he says, threats on his life, Turover went to
the Swiss state prosecution to report on the
accounts. He also revealed that bribes had been
paid, using the accounts, by the construction firm
Mabetex, to senior Kremlin officials in connection
with contracts for the renovation of Kremlin
buildings.
The Swiss are also investigating the financial
dealings of two companies associated with the
Russian national carrier, Aeroflot - Andava and
Forus Services. The Swiss suspect the companies
used the airline to transfer money to private bank
accounts abroad. This month, the accounts in
Switzerland of Boris Berezovsky, a Russian
businessman who in the early 1990s obtained Israeli
citizenship but apparently gave it up about two
years ago in order to take a government position in
Russia. Among those said to have profited from the
bank accounts and the bribes from Mabetex are
President Boris Yeltsin, his wife Naina, their
daughters Tatyana and Yelena, and Yelena's husband,
Valery Okulov, the managing director of Aeroflot.
The Bank of New York on Friday dismissed Lucy
Edwards, one of two employees it had put on leave
until the probe ends. She was fired for violations
of the bank's internal policies, falsification of
bank records and failure to cooperate, said a
source familiar with the situation. Edwards worked
in the bank's London office in its Eastern European
division for Natasha Gurfinkel Kagalovsky, who also
was placed on leave until the close of the
investigation.
Edwards is married to Peter Berlin, who is linked
to a company called Benex, which set up funds
transfer accounts at the Bank of New York.
Gurfinkel Kagalovsky, a senior vice president and
head of the bank's Eastern European division,
maintained her innocence on Thursday. A statement
from her lawyer said that neither she nor her
husband, Konstantin Kagalovsky, formerly Russia's
representative to the International Monetary Fund,
were ever involved in money laundering.
Gurfinkel and Kagalovsky married only a few years
ago, after she was already working for The Bank of
New York.
The name of Israeli-born businessman Bruce
Rappaport, the founder of Geneva's Inter Maritime
Bank, has been mentioned in connection with the
transfer of funds via offshore accounts in banks in
Antigua. Rappaport is Antigua's ambassador to
Russia.
Also named in the scandal are Alexander Krasnenker,
Roman Abramovich and the Runikon company, which is
jointly owned by Abramovich and three companies
owned by the Lev brothers and Michael Chernoi -
Israeli citizens with dealings with the Bank of New
York.
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