Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lawmakers 20240704

Can. Im not sure when the house members will be returning. Some and our wicker and i perform but the senate schedule, which is different in the house schedule. So we will have conflicts throughout this period. This is our return date in the senate and there are a lot of complex that are taking place. I hope to see your indulgence as we this is an extremely important hearing. Im very pleased to chairman wilson called this hearing. On the monday hes wandering in sanctions and switzerland. With russias outlined assets. It is a good friend of the night. States democratic states. We have Strategic Partnerships with switzerland on so many different issues. But that have a dark street and enabling the laundering of blood assets. Saw that during world war ii when switzerland was the preferred location for gold taken by the not seized from the. We saw that on where the monies were hidden. With the apartheid leaders and businesses from south africa. Weve seen it in regards to the Olive Gardens and russia. So we consistently see a pattern here in which switzerland is banking arrangements that have facilitated the practices of people that have robbed their country of their wealth. There has been a repeated effort to deal with the russians money. That has adversely affected the sanctions. Part of our strategy and winning the war for ukraine is to isolate and put sanctions on russia. Those sanctions are only as effective as we are able to make sure that they reinforced. And we have seen the russian economy surviving better than we thought it would. Part of that is the laundering of dirty money and switzerland. That is an area of great concern to all of us. The accountants and the lawyers and the banks and the auditors on the Investment Advisers and the consultants and others who accepted the money and exchange for laundering and influence the services of facilitating their perpetrators of the human rights violations. And corruption. It wasnt too many years ago that senator wicker and i were joined by senator mccain. With the help of one of our and we established the sanctions, global sanctions. And we become the standard among the western world, and eventual strengthens are critically important. Were gonna be able to have rights violators and corrupt leaders. We have been pretty successful in using those sanctions and are pleased about that. But we need to look at the facilitator. Those that are facilitating the leaders. Thats one of the areas where you need to explain and apply the immigrant ski sanctions. Its first and foremost about our continued efforts this commission to do everything we can to assist ukraine, it has defense against russias war of aggression. Weve held hearing and resolve regards to war crimes, weve held hearings in regard to how we provide assistance. This hearing is how we can make sure that the sanctions are imposed or not being debated. By a country like switzerland, who is used to their banking system. But there was a secondary purpose. And that is to raise the awareness of the need to expand those that are sanctioned under our sanctions law, to include those that claim to have clean hands. Because they are lawyers and accountants and its extra. But they are facilitators on the need to be held accountable. With that, let me turn it over to my colleague and friend, they ranking republican on the allison commission. Thank you so much, senator cardin. Let me just say that you have stated very well. The title of this hearing is nda provocative. And deservedly so and in two added to the attention getting. The assets on the Money Laundering and the sanctions and the evasion in switzerland. And my distinguished friend from maryland is exactly right. Switzerland is a friend and way share so many common values. But this is an issue worth exploring and it is an issue worthy of the title of this hearing. And let me say this. It is one of the great honors of my career to have been involved with the senator mccain and senator cardin as one of the coauthors of the mcgahn ski act. And then to have assisted further along with the global act. As my friend senator carton prepares and a year and a half to move from the Public Sector into the private sector, there is no question that his efforts to rule out corruption and particularly on behalf of really threatening the very difficult males of getting the magnitsky act past, it will go down as one of his great legacy is during his time of public service. At the state and federal levels. So, let me just say to my friend how much i appreciate that. Briefly, as we move to the witnesses, let me just say, russia has made corruption an important part of its foreign policy. And everyone really knows that. It is a former top official in europe and contracted world class law firms do its dirty work. The kremlin he even found ways to corrupt the highest levels of swiss Law Enforcement. The former swiss federal prosecutor was forced to step down and a highlevel enforcement officer was convicted of bribery. These are facts. I am concerned that switzerland may soon return stolen russian money to those who and this would be wrong under any circumstances. But especially disasters to do so as russia wages a brutal and unprovoked war against its neighbor ukraine. I look forward to learning today how we can do our part to ensure that this is stolen russian money does not leave switzerland. And how we can guarantee that the investigation into russian Money Laundering in switzerland comes to a successful conclusion. So i thank our witnesses for being here. And i hope we go back to the distinguished Senate Chairman of helsinki. Thank you very much, senator booker. Thank you very much for this personal comments, appreciate them. Well now hear from our witnesses, your full statements will be made part of our record. We thank the three of you for being with us. We will start with phil brown or who is the head of the magnitsky global justice campaign. He was a largest foreign investor in russia until 2005 when he was denied entry to the country and declared a threat of national to national security. For exposing corruption in russias state owned company. 2008, mr. Browders lawyer i cover the massive fraud committed by russian government officials and involves the theft of 100 230 billion dollars in taxes. Sergei magnitsky testified against the state officials involved in the sun was arrested and in prison. He was systematically tortured and spent years under pressure detention conditions and was repeatedly denied medical treatment. He died in prison on november 6th 18th 2009. Leaving behind a wife and two children. Well then hear from mr. Drew sullivan, the founder and publisher of the organized crime and corruption reporting project. Before that in 2004, he bounded edited the center for investigative reporting leading Investigative Center that brought him and lastly we will hear from alina secretary general and defense committee. The committee has a joint initiative and transparency, international deference and security. And the ukrainian chapter of the transparency international. We will start with mr. Rather. Senator carton, its a great honor to we have had a long history together. Starting in 2010, with the following the death of Sergei Magnitsky which led to the two of you and some of them i canceled their liebermann passing with all of your colleagues, and let me just second what senator weaver said with senator carson had said. The magnitsky act is a piece of great leadership and great heroism. I will certainly be remembered for this work. Long after your political career ends. There are many many people, millions of people around the world, theyre grateful for what youve done. As you know, Sergei Magnitsky and his murder was something that changed my life. Completely. After he was killed, i gave up my life is a businessman to focus all of my time and energy and resources going after the people who killed him. To make sure that they face justice. And the magnitsky act was important part of that. But the other important part of our campaign for justice was to learn who got the 230 Million Dollar Sergei Magnitsky was killed over. And we began an investigation and started moments after he was killed. And it goes on until today. And as we began this investigation we started to get information. From whistleblowers, from journalists. From Law Enforcement investigations. And one of the places where we got information was a person who told us that the husband of the tax official who approved the 230 Million Dollar tax refund received roughly 10 million in credits from his era. We turn that information over to the swiss Law Enforcement authorities. They froze that money and opened a criminal investigation. They subsequently then froze roughly another 10 million belonging to various people. One of them was a man named dimitri who is the head of the organized crime group. That was organize the whole tax refund, and a lot of the other nastiness that Sergei Magnitsky was subjected to. And there was a man named dennis who was the order of a Company Called prepa zone, which is prosecuted here in new york for companies that prosecuted for Money Laundering connected to the magnitsky case. There was a tenyear investigation that was going on. And at some point at the beginning of the investigation the swiss put their most senior russianspeaking officer in charge of the investigation. His name was dennison chanel. And the moments that mr. Now began this investigation, or join to the team i should say, the investigation ground to a halt. And we were very confused about why it was not moving forward. And we kept on writing applications and requests with authorities. To have them just do something. And nothing happened. And then we discovered around 2018, why had ground to a halt. And what we learned was that mr. Chanel was apparently invited on a number of all expense paid hunting trips in russia. They are hunting trips to come bore hunting near moscow. Well the troops were paid for by Russian Oligarchs. And it was discovered that he did this, he was fired from his job in the swiss federal police. He was put on trial and found guilty. During the trial and during the Court Hearings it was he disclosed thats the reason why they were entertaining ham ways that they wanted to get him to drop the swiss to drop the investigation. After he was fired, in spite of this information, thats exactly what happened. The swiss Law Enforcement authorities drop the magnitsky investigation. They do not prosecute a single person. And they are now planning on giving back about 80 of the 20 million that was frozen. Now, it is not just giving money back to criminals which makes this so offensive. Three of those four individuals whose money has been frozen are on the u. S. Mcguinness gate list. They were part of your efforts to get justice for Sergei Magnitsky. Theyre not just sanctioned by the United States but by canada, by the uk, by australia. And so youve got a situation where switzerland is not only planning on returning money to criminals, but they are returning money to people who are sanctioned by the United States. And our allies. And it is not only outrageous and theyre doing that, but theyre doing that in time of war, where russia launched this unprovoked aggressive invasion, murderous invasion of ukraine. So we have psalm supplies to the swiss prosecutor, the new prosecutor, to stop this miscarriage of justice. And their response was to kick us off the case, and say that we were not the victims. It was just the russian government was the victims. When we went to court to share the information about the corruption with the court, the court said we cannot even consider it because the swiss prosecutor has said you are not a victim. You have no standing. And as a result, we fruitfully affirm the decision of senator wicker, as he has been in touch with the swiss and the swiss say we cannot get involved in any judicial decision. In my opinion, what is happening in switzerland is just the tip of a much bigger iceberg. I think our other witnesses will be talking about it in more general terms. But the swiss government wants to be seen to be doing something. But when it comes to reality, they swiss government doesnt want to do anything. Because there is such a lot of money to be made off of dirty russian money and switzerland. And so, we are in a situation which is perhaps not as brave as it was my first came to you. Back in 2010. But is still pretty brazen. Where you have a country where the legal system does not work, where criminal justice does not work. And the purpose of the magnitsky act when we first came up with it was to deal with a system that did not work. We have that going on right now. And so, i say this with a heavy heart, but i say this as something which i think is necessary because of the stubbornness of the swiss authorities. Which is that when a legal system does not work we have to intervene ourselves. And there is a very specific provisions in the magnitsky act which say that if a person is involved in concealing the legal liability for the detention and the death of including those who made false and misleading accounts about the fraudulent tax scheme uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky that they can be sanctioned under the magnitsky act. And so my request today is that we asked you, and Helsinki Commission, i asked the u. S. Secretary of state, state, the secretary tory, to sanction the individuals Prosecutors Office who has been involved in the conspiracy to impact the money. And those names include the former attorney general michael hour, the current attorney general Stephen Broad letter, the Deputy Attorney general, former Deputy Attorney general patrick mahomes, current Deputy Attorney general diane cooler, and vincent chanel, the famous bear hunter. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Sullivan . Senator wicker and senator here today. Turn your mic on. A, you are organized crime and corruption reporting project is a global nonprofit Investigative Journalism organization. On six continents, publishing over 140 investigative stories a year. From our earliest days we tracked organized crime and corrupt Public Officials on what we called the criminal services industry. That is the banks and law firms and registration agents that enabled organized crime to globalize their operations. So hispanics were always front and center, and many of the schemes we followed even in the earliest days. Stolen and illegal money, they are the Gold Standard for offshore secrets destinations. Our investigation into the what we call the russian laundromat is the allpurpose financial fraud vehicle used to launder more than 20 billion dollars in europe. From swiss banks which regularly were represented. Thats why we think the often mentioned figures of 200 billion dollars in russian money and swiss banks, the gross underestimation. So this banks operates worldwide and control trillions of dollars, both inside and outside of the swiss brand, and Wealth Management systems and interests. Many are funded for companies, proxies, and other under the rcep structures around the world. The estimate there is a total amount of russian money controlled by swiss banks that is more likely twice that size, up to 400 billion dollars. Russian money is hugely important with swiss banks, the historic outflow of frozen assets, stolen assets from russia, and other soviet republics, former soviet republics, over the past 30 years, dramatically alter the banking landscape. And at one point, 160 billion dollars per month was flowing out of russia alone. Thanks fought each other for this money, and when they got, it theyve benefited with historic growth rates. A majority of this profoundly undemocratic money was dirty, but switzerland had debunked the money or lose ground by london another banking sectors. They leaned into banking russians hard. Publicly, Swiss Banking secrecy laws allowed the thats was authorities are on top of the issues, but they are cleaned up to any money, or were in the process of doing so. That their Due Diligence processes were robust. These lives were repeatedly most regulars and government officials over the years. And 2021 they got a unique opportunity to look for ourselves, with our partner in germanys papers, we received the first ever significantly of c which that county records. And this case for the Credit Suisse. We scoured the record for more than 10,000 accounts. What we found shocked even ask, big corruption issues around the world. We found the organized crime figures and corrupt officials retained large swiss accounts, despite the fact that their crime literally showed up in the first result of the civil web search of their name. Through these records those traced the money from dozens of historic corruption scandals. And clearly saw that around the same time the money went missing, it was deposited into a Credit Suisse account. We found Russian Oligarchs, despotic leaders were criminals drug dealers and others. And we also found 11 separate instances where a scandal led Credit Suisse officials or swiss regulators to publicly state that they had initiated steps to fix the problems. A new rule, you refuse or count new crackdowns, but despite these alleged fixes and heartfelt pledges, the bank never fundamentally changed its operations. Its continue to strongly incentivize the signing of of criminals, often through subcontractors. And continue to directly appeal to dirty money globally. We found swiss regulators to be no more honest, they seemed to serve the purpose of protecting the Swiss Banking sector first and foremost, and then providing an illusion of regulation. At one point they even ask Credit Suisse how they should respond to us. They tolerated banking secrecy laws that tampered with enforcement, and they are serious criminal cases and minor fines. I have to admit that they did respond to our stories by the starving investigation but that investigation was into us. They wanted to know who the leakers was, and whether they could prosecute them. There was no evidence that the ever look at this information that we uncovered. Meanwhile, reporters working on the swiss secrets project had to avoid switzerland because they could be arrested for violating Swiss Banking laws. While switzerland betrays an image as itself of a clean, modern country, officiant finally crafted, as the luxury watches. The best metaphor for swiss banks like and come up with is as junkie, government of enablers. The election is driven by the importance of banking to the country, it comes to more than 10 of the countrys employment, and tax revenue. Thanks sold assets worth more than 14 50 of the annual Gross Domestic Product its an endless surprise of new development funds, and wealth creation. But this tolerance of Money Laundering has driven its cost to historic lows. East across 20 to 30 longer money. Now banks these are actually higher than the fees for Money Laundering. Built into the bank fees charges of the cost to pay off their fines, penalties and lawyers, when they do get caught wandering. Bank fees have essentially become the profits of global Money Laundering. One russian banks, when russian money starts to get problematic in thousand 14 with the seizure of crimea, so as banks helped proxies an offshore companies. That continues today. Holds two Credit Suisse bank during the reporting of our story monday, they were quite healthy and suggesting corporate structures that would protect the identity of the alternate unofficial honors. It is this system that is still in place, and was allowing russia to easily bypassed sanctions. Nothing is really changed, except the Credit Suisse was taken over ubs after a scurry ended. If this was banks can not for sanction that their government has pledged in, forced the eu and u. S. Government should look at billions of using their jurisdictional control over the u. S. And euro denominated accounts to bring them in line. Swiss banks could also be designated for item to and Due Diligence, when dealing with american banks. The banks and regulators have openly lied for decades, only severe pressure will make them change their ways. Thank you for your testimony, shocking as it is, but thank you very much for this. Thank you, on herbal senator cardin, senator, we carry distinguished members, its an honor for me to testify today. In front of you. I represent the independent Anticorruption Commission is a Civil Society organization from ukraine, and before the full scale invasion, in defense reform, and making Ukrainian Defense industry more transparent, more competitive in forming defense procurement. But after february 24, and many other Civil Society groups, we started to look into some areas of work which could help the war and save our country in the area of our expertise. And that is how we started looking into sanctions and export control regime to obstruct this flow of western technology to produce russian weapons. This western Technology Comes from democratic western countries, and switzerland is the one of which countries. Switzerland has long standing tradition of neutrality, and yet when it comes to actual occasions, this neutrality is rather questionable and sometimes it is hypocritical. As mr. Sullivan already mentioned, there amount of russian assets and switzerland may be over 400 billion. I want to emphasize that despite, that social and refused to be part of the European Task force devoted to searching it in russian assets. Why do they do it . Is it because russians and their money are hiding in switzerland . We know that authoritative in the media. But still, people media, suspected, but government seems to look away from this and doesnt this russian question of course concerns after ukrainian citizens a lot. The russia when we look particularly at weapons, its a very similar paradox there, even i would say a shopper paradox. Because, you know that the debate about the supply of weapons to any country at war is off the table in switzerland, a long time before the invasion of ukraine. They are neutral country, they dont want to be part of any in the world. And the nature of russian invasion made many people question their belief, and according to recent polls, already 55 of swiss citizens support lifting the ban on weapons to ukraine. But, yet this ban remains. At the same time, our organization analyzed 22 pieces of Russian Military equipment and weapons, and it includes, and we found that semiconductor than other critical components produced by switzerland, by swiss companies, they make switzerland number one country in europe in terms of number of those components. And i am talking about a very serious deadly, weapons which have russia in the final war and commits war crime. Those weapons which found swiss components are special helicopter alligator to this. Its the iranian made drones at 1 36. Swiss Companies Micro electronics block connectivity and electronics directly produce microchips and other critical components from these weapons. They terminate any trade with russia. 2010 sanctions, other european countries. Investigations through otherwise. We are still able to trade components through countries such as china and turkey and we for example will give you an example to show how easy it is, governments are not investigating. So his company is blocked and what you know around ten shipments are a different equipment if you have navigation models to chinese companies. So those two russian companies. This company is linked to personal technological center, a manufacturer of orlando and russia. Interesting part of the story that switzerland to sanctions s p biologically in january 2023. When you are to the full scale invasion began. Even more striking story was another company which directly has supplies and are sanctioned by United States, garlic in april 2023 theyre still not sanctioned by switzerland. Still operating according to investigations with journalists. I want to emphasize this that in switzerland its so principled about being part of any Armed Conflict in the world its not enforcing measures to stop supplies of critical couldnt poseurs. This is a question that we are asking, we ask to you as members of the congress to make sure that the sanction regime and Global Export Control Coalition and the essential become a functional mechanism. The challenge of stopping their Critical Technology is not only a swiss challenge for the majority of those components come from the United States. The United States should lead by example switzerland and multilateral efforts. Swiss governments they should change their policies and provide very strict regulations to their companies. Basically making sure that there is no reexport of military equipment to invest in russia. The russian war my and denying weapons to ukraine. Does not look like neutrality to me. Thank you for attention, glory to ukraine and god bless america. Let me thank all three of the witnesses. This is just unacceptable. We cannot allow secrecy of switzerlands banking how to prevent the western global win to isolate corrupt leaders, and has been pointed out we have certain tools here in the United States and certain treaties responsibilities and our countries, certain banking rules. But we have to recognize that we are in a fight right now to preserve democratic states, and ukraine is in the frontline. One of the best strategies is to isolate russia through effective sanctions. If we allow the laundry of assets then the sanctions are just not going to be as protected as they need to be. For many reasons, this is just not acceptable. We have now been joined by our house colleague. I will turn the gavel over to chairman wilson. Once again, let me thank all three of the witnesses for your testimony. Thank you very much,. Chairman what honor to be here with you. Thats something we are going to see is a bipartisan, how bipartisan this is and the concern that we have indeed on the global conflict between dictatorships and democracy. And republicans and democrats are united, as never before, on the issue. In, fact copyright away because im going to recognize roger wicker from the great state of mississippi. And i appreciate the senator and his leadership here. And then we will proceed with the further statements and questions. Well, thank you, and i do appreciate that have made openings date once. I am happy to hear from our house members, where i can proceed to a question or two about witnesses. In that case, mr. Browder, your suggestion at the close of your testimony is quite astounding. And i am sure its sounds rather foreboding to government officials in switzerland, that you are recommending that our government actually sanction specific swish officials, just as we sanctioned corrupt russian officials. So you realize that this is would be a Pivotal Moment in u. S. Foreign policy. Would you like to talk about that, and what do you think that the realistic chance is far of persuading our government to take this . Thank you senator wicker, it is a suggestion that i dont meet likely. I have spent the last 13 years watching this situation deteriorated in, i should say this tip of the iceberg if you will in switzerland deteriorate. And i was just interviewed by several swiss journalists, and they said to me, they didnt really care what we are saying here in america about this kind of abuse. They have their ways of doing things. And who are we to criticize them . And that was exactly the same attitude that the russians had when they killed and covered up the murder of serving magnification, and sort of in defiance of the law. And is that realistic . I dont think and i am with you and senator carr getting the others started the legacy act campaign, nobody thought it was realistic that we ever sanctioned russian officials. Everybody said, thats impossible. We cant do that. And the argument always was what we are not sanctioning russia, i mean, now we are sanctioning russia, but back in the argument was that we are going after the people who are breaking the rules. And if they break the rules, and the legal system doesnt allow any recourse, and that is what we are gonna do we could still have diplomatic relations with russia but you can sanction those individuals. I am not suggesting that our government break relations with switzerland that would be crazy. But i am suggesting is that there is clearly an abuse of law that is taking place within the swiss system, that they dont have any kind of recourse to fix it. That we have tried from the outside and they have ignored us. And this does get peoples attention. So that is why. Will our government do it . I dont know. But that is what we are here for i am here as a witness and you are here for as a person overseeing the work of the government. To try to get the right thing done. And its actually the russian people whose money is being stolen by these corrupt leaders. Indeed, and our mutual friend vladimir has been here many times as a russian opposition politician, to say that the regular people of russia, and the regular people of switzerland, and the regular people of the United States dont want leaders stealing i dont want people promoting that. And so we are doing everybody a favor by holding those who are responsible and those who enable those who are responsible holding their feet to the fire. Have you, have you gained some allies within the swiss government . Or within the swiss populist for your position in this regard. Some swiss people helping us in this regard. Well one person who i was hoping would be here today but couldnt travel, to washington for personal reasons, is the most Senior Special specialist on corruption and Money Laundering in switzerland. He is a professor of chronology for a former lastly university. His name is mark kyis. And mark is probably the leading voice of switzerland. He is usually on our side in this endeavor. And you want switzerland to be an honest country, and there are many people that he knows who are supporting him and supporting me in the school whole endeavor. What, interesting someone doesnt but too much emphasis on social media, because it can be manipulated, but when i was starting to put out statements on social media about this hearing people are coming out of the woodwork both internationally and in switzerland, saying we are ashamed of what our country is doing. And, you know, good on you, you know . Trying to make something happen here. Mr. Sullivan, tell us first of all about your organization. And then sort a give us a little more information about the type of activities that the government is engaging in to investigate your organization and put you what you are doing to unearth and expose this corruption . So the organized crime and corruption reporting project is very quietly one of the largest investigative reporting organizations on earth. We have about a 65 investigative working with some 600 journalists around the world, doing large numbers, to three investigative projects a week. Are you still supporting, or are you . We are funding by government including the u. S. Government we are funded by large institutional donors, and and so our mission is largely to create investigative reporting around the world. To bring together investigative reporters in countries, to collaborate across borders. Looking at large important stories that are out there, including Money Laundering, drug trafficking, things of that nature. So tell us, if you will, about the extent of what you are being investigated. Was it just flash in the pan . What does that continue . It was pretty much a flash in the pan, we are pretty better protecting sources, so there was no way they could ever get to that source. But they did set up an investigation, and they did look into it, we were not privy to what actually they looked at. But they failed. And then, miss trade group, tell us about your organization, and also are there other countries that intentionally or inadvertently are manufacturing or participating in the development of web and in the hands of russians certainly, our Organization Since we specialize in defense industry, we were able to, hefter the full scale invasion, again, to study different weapons that we used against ukraine, and thats where we captured by ukraine. And we found, we analyzed around 300 different components. Coming from u. S. Actually. From 60 Different Companies from the United States. This is unfortunately out of western countries supplying their dual use critical components. When it comes to other countries, like i said in europe, switzerland is number one. And then we have germany, we have a balance, we have united kingdom, austria, france, this european country. And also we found some japanese equipment, what is interesting so its not just the swiss . Its not just the swiss. But like i empathize, the paradox here that swiss are much more sensitive about not participating in any of the conflict. And being neutral. And how come they become number one european country and critical components in russian weapons . This is the question here . But yes it is a global problem. Which should be tackled by those countries. And we will now investigate more weapons. Because we want to see how now maybe the number of these weapon components is reducing. Because this information is now in the public. We published our Organization Published several reports, we talked to the wall street journal other media. And after this, we were reached out by many governments, by japanese governments. By american governments. They were asking what, comedian can you give us more materials . Switch governments never reached out to us. Even though they are number one country, so we will continue this work and definitely we think that like i mentioned, a lot of work still needs to be done by you here in the United States. And just one other thing, just so he thousands and thousands of people listening right now understand, who you represent you are a Non Governmental Organization where do you get your financing. Thats right we are Civil Society organization in ukraine. We get our funding from different governments. European, british, swedish. France,. , private donations. Just like. Think you and, i yield back at this point, mister chairman. Thank you very much, senator wicker we appreciate you so much for your leadership. And ladies and gentlemen, and colleagues, i am joe wilson, a member of congress from South Carolina. I am very grateful to be serving as the new chairman of the Helsinki Commission to secure cooperation in europe. And im really grateful, sadly, but we were delayed by votes in the house. But i have been joined by congressman victoria sparks of indiana. And so we are gonna be here, and im gonna make an opening statement, and then we prefer to kind of to ask in a following five minute rule, and we will stick to five minutes of questions and then ill ask five minutes of questions. But with my opening statement, its, this is a critical hearing on Money Laundering and sanctions in switzerland. I am especially appreciating switzerland and that the communities that i represent of seven troll South Carolina who are initially settled, five german swiss people in the early 1800s. And we treasure our swiss heritage. Sadly we see ourselves in an existential battle. Between democracy with rule of law, opposing dictatorships with rule of gun. We did not choose this battle. But now that it is here, democracy must prevail and all democracy should be working together. Or criminal putins not only attempting to wipe ukraine off the map. He is threatening all of europe and all of democracy. Here in his own words does not intend to stop at ukraine. Rather he seeks to conquer ukraine and use their resources of ukraine to take over was, over georgia, poland, romania, the baltic states. We it has been stated that estonia latvia and lithuania are actually revealed as provinces to be resurrected. And in a new soviet union. Threats to americans israel. Its the Chinese Communist party, thats also weighing to invade taiwan. And the regime in tehrans developing Nuclear Weapons to be oppress the people of israel as they chant death to israel, death to america. To resolve the ukrainians have deterred other adversaries from engaging in mass murder and destabilization. Now we have to do everything in our power to help ukrainians win. Ukrainian victory is the most important goal in the world today, i believe. To further deter victors who hate western democracy and all it stands for. Territorial integrity must be achieved for peace and strength and ukraine. This is why it is so important for democracies to Work Together to prevent daters from evading sanctions and actively undermining western civilization. We have a historic Cooperation Among democracies. Europe has woken up and is now taking putins murderous invasion seriously. The United States and now our european allies are closer than ever before. It is inspiring to see. The unity of the European Union, nato, adding finland and sweden. And the organization of security and cooperation in europe. Along with something also extraordinary, and that is in the United States, unity of republicans and democrats to support the people of ukraine. Sadly switzerland remains a weak link in the chain. Switzerland has a fellow democracy, a sister republic. United states should be very close with switzerland. The heritage of my home district is so clearly swiss. Sadly, switzerland has yet to address its enabling of dictators by remaining a Money Laundering and sanction of asian hub. Although it is adopting European Union sanctions. It remains inundated with Russian Oligarch money, and even now remarkably incredibly sadly plans to return stolen russian money to those who stole it. It is switzerland own interest to embrace this democratic heritage and values and join the democratic world in resisting war criminal putin and his dogs. Thats why we are holding the hearing today. And i just want to thank all three witnesses who have been here today. Mr. Broad and, he is a hero of mine. He was not deterred when Sergei Magnitsky was murdered by war criminal putin. And he led the effort for sanctions against the war criminals in moscow. And he was said it could not be done. But we have the magnificent act. And so i appreciate to, you know, your courage for and this needs to be addressed. The total depravity of the regime, in moscow. And then truly mr. Sullivan, what you are doing, a corruption reporting project, it has never been more important. And it is to not only report on corruption, but to deter it, and then to report where corruption has been addressed. Weijia believe has occurred and ukraine. Where theyre actively resisting corruption. And then it is really inspiring to me, secretary general daegu, the people of ukraine have become an inspiration to the world. And its just so refreshing, as i mentioned, to see republicans and democrats, to see the European Union come together and be supportive, almost 100 billion dollars or more in aid to the people of ukraine. Additionally, nato, adding sweden and finland, who would ever imagine in our lifetime that something that significant could occur . But it is due to the respecting the inspiration of the people of ukraine. What has been done. And over and over again we need to be working together. And with this we truly are fighting an accidental fight. Just disagreements situation that is before us today, a competition, a conflict between democracy and dictators. And we must be on the side of democracy and rule of law to oppose dictators rule of gun. And i hope, gosh, of all countries that sweden will reaffirm its democratic heritage and reject dictator blood money. With that i referred to congresswoman victoria sparks, and she is a extraordinary insight. She is the only woman of congress whos ever been born in the soviet union. Now of course she claims proudly her heritage of ukraine. Which areas parks, all the way from indiana. Thank you, mister chairman. I apologize to my but it is a pleasure to be here today. I apologize, i will try to be brief. We actually have the department of justice, so i need to go i actually agree with a lot of things that are brought up here. Because it doesnt matter from which country you are from, you are from uk, switzerland, the uae, or cyprus or russia, you do something wrong, you are doing something wrong. And we have to really looked carefully, you know, what is happening in some of these countries. Because we dont have proper enforcement, or becoming useless. And this is very big problem in a lot of areas, its not like if you are born in some country or others somehow you made a special we have great people, better people in each country. We have to deal with that. So my question is, each of you can maybe manage briefly, what is the biggest loophole that you see agree just violations, schemes using that and how quickly we do have a problem it is important for us that we establish you know . And that is always a concern. How do we make sure when we put some of the policies in place, we also have a proper due process, because we do have the real. Of law we need to make sure that you can each represented briefly, you know . Just share something with us and some other solutions. Thank you congresswoman sparks. I just want to touch on some numbers for you. The Swiss Bankers Association early in the conflict said that there was 200 million of russian money in switzerland. The two witnesses, mr. Sullivan and mr. Goop have both in and they are experts probably more and dont have a conflict of interest, have said the number of, the amount of russian money is probably much greater than that. A stray group they said, 40 billion i think mr. Sullivan said orders of magnitude greater than that. So far the swiss have only frozen 7. 8 billion dollars of russian money. And what that tells you is that the system there in terms of going after the blood money that putin has, that he can use to spend on killing ukrainians, its pretty much unlimited in switzerland. And, you know, we are spending lots of money supporting ukraine. And at the same time the swiss are allowing the russians to have access to that money to kill ukrainians. And we should do something to shut that down. And if the swiss arent willing to do it voluntarily, then we should put pressure on them. They werent willing to give you not see gold back to the jewish people and Tell Congress got involved. And congress has power here and this was respect that. And sometimes when people dont behave themselves, we need to give them an incentive to behave themselves. And that is why i think we are all here, and that is where you can play a role, thank you. Mr. You know, the real problem is that the Global Economy now is really extremely difficult to understand, because companies are no longer companies. Big counts are no longer being accounts. They are controlled by offshore companies. They are controlled by properties. They are controlled by things that they use regulators cant oversee. The money goes, it moves around the world. Law enforcement only works in the nation states. It doesnt go beyond the borders. Mutual Legal Assistance treaties are ineffective often at tracking these things down. Organized crime and criminals know that if they move money after six months there is no way anyone is gonna be able to trace that money. So what we have seen over the years is a different Global Economy its really built on off shores. And that is enabling switzerland switzerland is a significant player in that industry. Their bankers, they are trusted, they are well management system, they are all designed to basically hide not only russian assets, but assets of african dictators, and even americans, and other europeans who want to hide from taxes. And so consequently countries i think you need to look at what they are requiring one offshore operates in their jurisdiction. One account is set up by somebody offshore. And to look at who that ultimate beneficial owners. Require the type of information from foreign companies. You know, if you look at both in new york and in london, and in paris, you will find whole luxury buildings owned by the g. I. Companies or offshore. And this is all really a serious part of the problem. And so switzerland has been a major player, because they are such a credible banking system. And their money has its been accepted everywhere. But really, theres right at the very core. As long as offshores are allowed to really operate in these countries. My time is expired, but if you just briefly can answer quickly, because i am out of time and this will just take two seconds. Sure, i would not repeat on Money Laundering and banks, i just want to reiterate about the expert controls which. I think its important to help the war expert control measures should be expanded to target a bigger number of dwellings and goods. The u. S. Should be leading this process as the leader of export control coalition, these should include switzerland into this collision. And generally, there should be some policies and procedures developed by the coalition. And companies and individuals, and intermediaries who were involved in exporting those technologies to russia, they should be held accountable. There should be mechanisms for that. Thank you, thank you. Thank you very, much congresswoman, victoria spartz, thank you for being a champion for your birthplace, ukraine. And we appreciate your service. Mr. , brown or what can be done, and they may be repetitious, but what can be done to ensure that stolen russian money is not returned to those who stole it . Thank you, chairman wilson, i will repeat for you what i testified for, the cause i think it is so important, that you hear it firsthand. It be in the magnitsky case, 20 million was frozen in switzerland by Law Enforcement there, they got a criminal complaint that leaked filing we identify the money, the money belonged to the tax officials, the husband of the tax official who approved the illegal tax refund that led to the murder of Sergei Magnitsky. The money belonged to the head of the organized crime group. It organized the whole crime, and various others. The person investigating the crime was corrupted. He was the person inside with swiss police that was corrupted by the russians. He was bribed with hunting trips all over russia. He was found to have been corrupted, he was fired, he was prosecuted, he was found guilty. And the corruption by the swiss court and the corruption was due, sorry, the corruption was meant specifically to close down the and in spite of him being found out to be corrupt and doing all this terrible stuff, the swiss Law Enforcement authorities are now stubbornly returning the money to the criminals who are on the u. S. Sanctions list, on the canadian, on the uk, and on the australian sanctions list. This is a slap in our face. It is intolerable. We have made numerous representations to them from congress, and from myself. And the one thing we can do, and this is my proposal to the Helsinki Commission. And i say this with a heavy heart. Its to sanction the individuals in this was Prosecutors Office who are involved in this corruption. The names of them are in the written testimony that i have submitted, and so we should, i believe, read a letter to the secretary of state, naming these individuals, im asking the secretary of state to sanction them. Under the magnificent act. Thank you for that suggestion, that specific, and i look forward to working with my colleagues to accomplish just what you requested. And then, miss trick, secretary general jay group how detrimental would it be to putins ability to wage war, its a loophole surrounding weapons components were closed. What can be done to save lives of Young Russians being sacrificed in ukraine and the people of ukraine . Well we definitely see that russian intent is to continue the war as long as they can. Yet they have these very highly technological weapons, very Deadly Weapons that are used against us, against ukraine, against our peaceful civilians, our Organization Published reports about how these particular weapons like caliber missiles, like drones, how they were used to destroy children at summer camp, hospitals and so on. And if russia is not able easily to replenish this weapons, then it will become much more difficult for them to wage this war against ukraine. And to keep erasing ukraine from the map. This is why we focused on them. But at the political decision of russia to wage this war, i do believe now that it used to be putins war and now it is more russias war. And they are criminals to this war. But for me it is surprising that more than one year, more than 500 days into a full scale invasion, they still keep receiving Critical Technology, not from china, no, from democratic countries. Including switzerland and the u. S. Thank you for your, effort that i have actually visited bucha, and i visited the grave site of the families that were just brutally murdered and then left to be buried in shallow graves. And this is just got to be addressed. And the people of switzerland of all people, it would be my decision to be actively involved with democracy. And mr. Sullivan, what has been effective in encouraging the swiss to comply with International Law and norms . Nothing, thats the quick answer. But i mean, there has been, we can get information when Law Enforcement goes to switzerland and requests, but that is an efficient system, unfortunately. So the swiss will respond to Law Enforcement requests for information. But they will not be proactive whatsoever. And so it really does take pressure, you know . The United States has jurisdiction over swiss swiss banks. Theyve a lot of ability to demand these kind of extra diligence when he swiss been conciliate with threats to american banks. So that is a way to put pressure on them. You know, the whole International System really depends on banks effectively working with banks. Anything you put in the way of it will immediately put those banks in a significant disadvantage. And so consequently any restrictions or regulations would be awfully terrible force was franks. As we are now, concluding i want to thank the witnesses for being here. Each of you have been really special to raise these issues. And particularly, again, so sad and heartbreaking to me. A countrys greatest switzerland, and when you mention about banks, the integrity of the banks, that is the reason for their success. Part of that is certainly to uncover and stop corruption around the world. But that we are adjourned. [silence] [silence] two irs whistleblowers gary shapely and another witness whose identity remains confidential just testify wednesday on the Ongoing Investigation into the biden family. Live coverage from the House Oversight Committee Beginning at one pm eastern on cspan three, you can also watch on our free mobile video app, cspan now, or online at cspan. Org kyiv. What are your coffee at the 118th congressional directory now available at cspanshop. Org. It is your access to the federal government, with bio and Contact Information for every house and senate member. And Important Information on congressional committees. The president s, cabinet federal agencies, and state governors. 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