Bankers lose appeal over Swiss bank accounts held by Putin’s cellist friend

ZURICH: Four bankers have lost an appeal against their convictions for failing to exercise due diligence in financial transactions when setting up accounts for a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Switzerland’s highest court said on Friday.

The Federal Supreme Court said it had upheld a judgement against the four former employees of Gazprombank (Switzerland), who cannot be identified under Swiss reporting restrictions.

The bankers, who denied any wrongdoing, were found guilty by Zurich’s District Court in March 2023 and handed suspended fines totalling more than 450,000 Swiss francs (USD574,000). The men, three Russians and one Swiss, had appealed to Switzerland’s highest court after losing an appeal at a lower court in 2024.

In its ruling on Friday, the Supreme Court said that the men had failed to verify whether the money in accounts opened by Sergey Roldugin actually belonged to him. Instead, he could have been a so-called straw-man, holding the funds for someone else.

Roldugin was among scores of members of Putin’s inner circle sanctioned by the West, including Switzerland, after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Careful enquiries were not made into who was the beneficial owner, and although documents identified Roldugin as the beneficial owner, there were “multiple reasons to doubt this”, the court added in a statement outlining its ruling.

Numerous irregularities were identified, while more in-depth inquiries were needed because of Roldugin’s close relationship with Putin, the court added in its statement.

“Because of the bank employees’ breach of their duty of care, the true beneficial owner ultimately remained unclear,” it said. “Accordingly, they committed a criminal offence.”

Kremlin dismissed any links to Putin

A spokesman for Gazprombank said the Swiss ruling was disappointing, adding that it increased uncertainty over how due diligence rules were applied and added further complexity to an already demanding regulatory framework.

In Switzerland, banks are obliged to reject or terminate business relationships if there are doubts about the identity of the contracting party.

The original indictment against the four bankers said Roldugin had told the New York Times that he was certainly not a businessman and did not himself own millions.

The Kremlin has previously dismissed any suggestion that Roldugin’s funds are linked to the president as “Putinophobia”.

Roldugin, godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter Maria, deposited millions of Swiss francs in an account at the Swiss branch of Gazprombank in Zurich between 2014 and 2016, the first court was told.

The accounts were closed in 2016, while the Swiss bank ceased operations in 2024.

Swiss law meant clarifications were required over how Roldugin’s accounts received dividends worth millions of Swiss francs a year and how he had acquired a 20 percent stake in a media company with a value of more than 100 million francs.

Lawyers for the bankers argued during the original trial it was plausible that Roldugin was rich because he was friends with Putin. Although such favouritism may be frowned upon in Switzerland, this was not relevant, the defence said.