Two money launderers tied to the Recylix Ponzi scheme have been sentenced to prison.
Details of their involvement in Recyclix are a bit sketchy. What we know is the son of Sergejs Vasiljevs made four transfers totaling €1.14 million to his father.
Vasiljevs is a resident of Finaland. His son was at the time living in the UK, and the transfers were made into a company account under Vasiljev’s control.
A criminal trial determined the funds were proceeds of Recylix.
Recyclix was a Polish Ponzi scheme launched in 2015. The company exit-scammed in early 2017, claiming fires had burnt down their fictional recycling facility.
As reported by Taloussanomat, Recyclix investor losses are pegged at “about 39 million euros”.
Upon taking receipt of the money, Vasiljev’s accountant, Marina Putskova, transferred the money to ‘Vasiljev’s son’s accounts in Latvia and other foreign bank accounts.’
In finding Vasiljev guilty, the court upheld
there was no business justification or other acceptable reason for the transfers.
Marina Putskova was found guilty because, based on a lack of activity in the company account prior to the initial transfer, she should have suspected something was up.
In addition to being sentenced to three years in prison each, both Vasiljev and Putskova are banned from doing business in Finland for five years.
Putskova’s accounting firm was also fined €9000 EUR.
In mid 2016 CONSOB, Italy’s financial regulator, officially banned Recyclix nationwide.
To the best of my knowledge Polish authorities never took any action against Recyclix. Whoever was running Recyclix remains at large.