Official website of the President of Russia

Transcripts   /

President Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

This meeting today has been called in response to a tragic event – the murder of the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank. I think you will agree that this, as I see it, bears witness to a flare-up in the situation with fighting economic crime.

Andrei Andreyevich [Kozlov] worked in one of the most difficult areas. He worked with the so-called problem banks. Unfortunately, we continue to see banks being used for criminal purposes and for procuring billions of roubles of cash every month. We are still seeing enormous financial resources leaving the country. These funds, these huge amounts of money that go through the country’s banking system every day, are used not only to pay for the services of various people in certain spheres, but, tucked in envelopes, these funds are also used to pay for the services of civil servants providing services to business in violation of the law and public interest. In other words, this money is going on huge bribes. These funds are being used for criminal purposes in the broadest sense, on terrorist activity, and they are also being used by the drugs mafia.

In order to not only continue our work to combat economic crime but also to make it more effective, I think that we must clarify the legislation regarding banking institutions’ work with clients who, according to a number of objective criteria, arouse suspicion as to their honesty. This will be done in accordance with existing banking legislation and in full respect of the interests of economic actors in Russia.

In order to make the fight against economic crime more effective, I think we need to act as quickly as possible – we will discuss this and will make the relevant decisions right now – to create a functioning inter-ministerial group that would include representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Tax Service, the Financial Intelligence Service, the Federal Security Service, the Interior Ministry, and that would also involve Central Bank participation. The representatives should be not lower than the deputy head of each agency and the Prosecutor General’s Office will coordinate the work.