Top bankers in Andorra sentenced for laundering 70 million euros
Andorra’s top court on Tuesday sentenced 18 executives of Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA) to prison terms ranging from three and a half to seven years for laundering money in favor of a single client. The ruling also bars them from working in the banking sector and, in some cases, includes expulsion from the country.
The case was unusually complex. The court’s ruling runs 6,180 pages and took 20 months to complete. Legal proceedings began in 2018, spanned 195 days, with each session lasting six hours—and this is just the first of several cases tied to the bank’s collapse.
The investigation stems from a 2015 designation by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which labeled BPA a “foreign financial institution of primary money laundering concern.”
“For several years, high-level managers at BPA have knowingly facilitated transactions on behalf of third-party money launderers acting on behalf of transnational criminal organizations,” the FinCEN said in a statement. It added: “The activity involved the proceeds of organized criminals in Russia and China, foreign corruption, and other criminal activity.”
BPA was shut down following the FinCEN notice, and its assets were transferred to other financial institutions.
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While the court ruling did not identify the client at the center of the case, Spanish and Andorran media report that the executives were accused of laundering €70 million ($81.3 million) for Chinese businessman Gao Ping, based in Spain. Spanish prosecutors have accused Gao of leading a “macro-criminal organization” involved in systematic tax fraud and money laundering between 2010 and 2012.
Joan Pau Miquel, the bank’s former CEO, received the longest sentence: seven years in prison and a €30 million ($34.85 million) fine. BPA’s former deputy director, Santiago de Rosselló, was sentenced to six years and fined €12 million ($13.94 million).
Irina Balakireva