Luxembourg to Investigate Gazprombank Executives Over Profits from Sanctions — FT
The Luxembourg Ministry of Finance has asked the prosecutor’s office to investigate possible circumvention of sanctions against Russia and alleged insider trading by former top executives of the local branch of Gazprombank.
The request to the prosecutor’s office followed a recent investigation by the Financial Times. As the newspaper discovered, in 2022, four executives at Gazprombank’s Luxembourg office exploited sanctions against Russia to, according to the publication’s estimates, earn more than €9 million. After obtaining personal loans from the bank’s Moscow branch, they purchased Gazprom Eurobonds that had been frozen in Europe and had plummeted in value. They subsequently exchanged these securities for the monopoly’s ruble-denominated bonds at full value. This exchange became possible following Vladimir Putin’s decree of July 5, 2022.
Finance Minister Gilles Roth made this statement on Monday during a closed-door meeting of the parliamentary committee on financial affairs, according to four lawmakers who attended the meeting, as reported by the Financial Times.
As a reminder, Gazprombank bankers could have earned €9 million from the sanctions.
In Russia’s Leningrad Oblast, security forces conducted the “Commonwealth-2026” exercise, during which they practiced responses to a hypothetical sabotage and reconnaissance group crossing the border. Units of the Russian National Guard and the FSB’s Border Guard Service participated in the exercises.
