FIMACO

Financial Management Company Ltd (FIMACO) was a Jersey company founded in 1990.

Company

In a 1991 report, former KGB colonel Leonid Veselovsky, whose responsibility was to manage Communist Party commercial affairs overseas, told that he had found ways to funnel party money abroad. The stated goal was to ensure the financial well-being of party leaders after they lost power. Large amounts of state assets were transferred through this company. One estimate is about US$50 billion. The people with access to FIMACO included senior officers of the Communist Party, Komsomol, state banks, KGB, and the military. A 1993 document signed by a senior deputy to Viktor Gerashchenko, the head of the Central Bank of Russia, forbid disclosure of transfers to FIMACO: "The balance of the investment account of the [Central Bank] in FIMACO shouldn't be disclosed on the balance sheet of the bank."

FIMACO's existence was disclosed by Russia's chief prosecutor Yuri Skuratov in February 1999. Soon afterwards, FSB chief Vladimir Putin attacked Skuratov with a campaign which included a video where Skuratov allegedly has sex with two prostitutes.

Russian officials claimed that it was 100% owned by the state-owned Banque Commerciale pour l’Europe du Nord, but never provided any proof according to a Newsweek article in March 1999.

According to Sergei Tretyakov, KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov sent US$50 billion worth of funds of the Communist Party to an unknown location in the lead up to the collapse of the USSR.

See also

• Corruption in Russia

External links

• Secrecy by Kremlin Financial Czars Raises Eyebrows New York Times July 30, 1999
• Putin's Russia: A confusing notion of corruption Virginie Coulloudon July 2003