The lawyer Fernando del Valle "provided help not only to nine different criminal organizations but also to one person by the name of Nevzlin”. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on November 26, 2009.
On this day 14 years ago, on November 26, the business press reported about the process of the big court proceedings in Spain, which was the result of the large-scale police operation under the name “Ballena Blanca” (White Whale). One of the episodes of the trial was to follow a clue about the involvement of firms and persons connected with the company Yukos in a large-scale money laundering affair. So, the examining Court in Malaga, having evaluated the submissions, came to the following conclusion: the connection between the money, received by the companies “Alleerton Holdings” and “Venture Alliance”, and the criminal actions supposedly committed in Russia by Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, has not been established. That is why the Court of Malaga, the judge Julian Caberro, “has decided to temporarily postpone the hearings of the Yukos case”.
THE SPANISH TRACE OF THE FIRM “KILDA B.V.”
The Spanish authority relied on the information received from the Russian prosecution in 2005. Investigators in Russian suspected that the leaders of the oil company laundered money through the Dutch firms “Ventura Alliance” and “Southern Alliance”, as well as through their affiliates in Gibraltar (“Gaya Building”) and in Spain (“Alleerton Holdings” and “Chilmark Holding”) which had been brought into operation by the lawyer Fernando del Valle. One of these firms that had come in sight of the law enforcement agencies of Russian and Spain was the firm "Kilda B.V.", which the management of Yukos used for its dubious machinations, including those directed to hide the real owner of the company Yukos. According to the Spanish police, there was another suspicious firm by the name “SI Proserve”.
Thus, the Spanish police authorities, having received from Russia a request for legal support, worked out a solid mass of operative information, but the Court in Spain considered these materials not convincing enough. This episode was "temporally stopped", withdrawn from the general case, and, as reported, and was classified.
THE INVESTIGATION INTO “INTRIGUES” OF LAUNDERING
Khodorkovsky’s lawyers, like the business press, were, one can say, happy. The press said that “the Spanish Court acquitted Khodorkovsky", having not found in the laundry "Yukos money".
And the defense of the tax swindler, on one side, said that “it knows nothing of the proceedings in Spain”, but, on other side, exposed the collusion against its clients. “The Office of the Prosecutor General, having sent the requests in 2005, specifically wanted to create a negative situation and generate a negative assessment of the Yukos activity", said at that time Yuri Schmidt, a lawyer of Khodorkovsky.
THE LOST NEVZLIN
“The case of the “White Whale” continued without Yukos – Khodorkovsky at that time had in his credit already 8 years of imprisonment for machinations and tax evasion. However, within all that noise a bit lost was the mastermind of contract murders and attempted murders Leonid Nevzlin who had escaped to Israel. It’s Nevzlin, and not Khodorkovsky or Lebedev, who became the central figure in the publication of the German magazine "Focus" in the spring of 2005. The article told about the essence of the operation “White Whale” as well as of its defendant, the lawyer by the name Fernando del Valle.
The Magazine told how “the father of five children had been caught in the net of the Spanish justice in the course of the realization of the operation “White Whale”. He is regarded as a big fish in the major case of money laundering in Europe”. According to the media outlet, del Valle "provided help not only to nine different criminal organizations but also to one man, which name is well known, particularly in Russia – to Leonid Nevzlin”. “At present, pointed out the magazine, Interpol is trying to establish whether there are ties between the money laundering affairs in Tel-Aviv and Marbella.
"In both cases, we have been finding the same heroes”, said a high-ranking officer of Israel's Ministry of Justice in the interview with the magazine "Focus". "And the main hero is Nevzlin”.
(By the two cases “with the similar defendants”, the employee of the Ministry of Justice understood the case of money laundering in the Israeli bank “Hapoalim”. In this case was mentioned, apart from Nevzlin, the “hereditary Spaniard” Vladimir Gusinsky, to whom Khodorkovsky “transferred” 2.5 billion rubles, having mistaken a cash register of a stock company with his pocket. And also the partner of “Menatep” in arms scandals Monsieur Gaidamak. As to the second case, it was clear from the context, the interlocutor of the publication meant the Spanish operation “White Whale”).
“The Spain minister of internal affairs also points at considerable sums of money of the Dutch affiliate of Yukos that had been laundered in Marbella: “The question is of particular persons that, probably, siphoned money from the Russian concern and then reinvested them through a Spanish subsidiary”, says the Minister Hose Antonio Alonso. “All this was done by-passing the tax agencies”, points up the German magazine, rather clearly indicating who is this “particular person”.
INTRIGUE FROM “A FRIEND OF THE COURT”
“And years later, much more interesting looks the Spanish initiative, announced in August 2021. As reported, Spain decided “to support Russia” with regard to the case of the former shareholders of Yukos in the Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia (United States) and appeared in the court in the capacity of a "friend of the court" (amicus curiae), intending to present to the court information without being a side of the case. Perhaps, we will hear a more detailed story about these “particular persons”, who had siphoned pecuniary assets “from a Russian concern and then reinvested them through a Spanish subsidiary”, notes the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article “On this day, 200 volumes of the criminal case were presented to Khodorkovsky. 200 volumes of machinations. Money to the tune of 500 billion rubles remained on the account of “Apatit” less than one day and then was recalled at once. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on November 25, 2003.
