Fijn volk die Antonov
The many documents in LB’s Snoras file included two appraisals from two Swiss banks. They were presented to LB by Snoras in a routine asset declaration procedure. These appraisals, from Swiss bank ‘A’ and Swiss bank ‘B’ (the banks’ identities are classified), were Snoras’ balance sheets giving a snapshot of the value of all Snoras assets in the two banks as of an earlier date. The appraisals showed that the assets totaled around 1 billion litas (290 million euros). The new leadership at LB wanted to know if these securities still had the same value, so they asked their Swiss colleagues to check into it.
The answer they received was not what they had expected. The Swiss banking supervision institution determined that Snoras had no securities at the stated value in these banks. Bank ‘A’ had no account of Snoras at all, and in bank ‘B’ the Snoras account was empty.
During the summer, on July 19, a concerned Vasiliauskas met with the main shareholders of Snoras, Vladimir Antonov and Raimondas Baranauskas, who was also the director of the bank, and asked, so as to get the accounts in order, that the securities of interest be moved to the Lithuanian Depository of Securities. Though he already had the bad news from Switzerland, he didn’t betray this knowledge to the Snoras owners. The two agreed with the proposal. In actuality, this was a last chance given to the bank owners to correct the discrepancy.
After the meeting LB sent a document, a ‘pro memoria,’ to Snoras advising it to deposit the securities by September 15 (the annual inspection had to start on September 14). Snoras deposited only 56.7 million euros of the amount requested. The owners apparently were not eager, or able, to return the missing amount, and even the 56.7 million euros was withdrawn after a week.
The next step was to ask the Swiss colleagues to investigate where the missing securities were. A formal request was sent on September 15. If the Swiss answered the request officially, then - according to law - they would have to inform Snoras about the inquiry, and the full procedure would last about four months. It was agreed that at this first stage of the investigation would be done without formal procedures, keeping it unofficial, and quiet.
LB soon heard from the Swiss, who said they found the securities in the private Swiss accounts of “persons connected to the bank.” These individuals would be identified as Vladimir Antonov and Baranauskas.
This led to the conclusion that the bank not only falsified the documents, but also transferred the assets in a way that was in contravention to the law. As bank assets consist of customer deposits, the two owners were effectively playing with customer money as if it was their personal funds.
Bank supervision officials, if they do their job, make sure this doesn’t happen.
By the end of September the leadership at LB found itself dealing with two criminal cases against Snoras: the two Swiss appraisals, which turned out to be false, and the substantial amount of bank property that was secretly transferred for the personal use of the owners. In everyday vocabulary, this is called theft.