“As you can imagine, the arrangement is highly lucrative. Not only does the bank collect fees for the initial cleaning service, it then collects massive fees from the borrowers as well.”
“What kind of cleaning fees are we talking about?”
“That depends on how much soap is required. If the laundry is only lightly soiled, RhineBank pockets about ten percent. If the laundry is bloodstained, RhineBank might demand as much as half of it. Not surprisingly, the gnomes of the Laundromat like dirty customers. The dirtier the better.”
“Dealing with Russian mobsters can be a dangerous business.”
“Herr Zimmer is well protected. So is Lothar Brandt.”
“The chief of the wealth management department.”
She nodded. “Head washer boy.”
“You were aware of the Russian Laundromat before you arrived in Zurich?”
“Why do you think I asked to come here?”
“You penetrated your own bank? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I suppose I did.”
“What motivated you to take such a drastic step?”
“Mirror trades.”
“In English, please.”
“Let’s say a dirty Russian has a mountain of dirty rubles heneeds to convert into dollars. The dirty Russian can’t take the dirty rubles to the local Thomas Cook, so he gives them to a brokerage firm that uses them to purchase a large quantity of blue-chip stocks at RhineBank-Moscow. A few minutes later, the brokerage firm’s representative in, say, Cyprussellsthe exact same number of blue-chip stocks to RhineBank-London, which pays the Cypriot in dollars. The tradesmirroreach other, thus the name.”
Isabel learned of the mirror trades while she was in London, and from her new position in Zurich she was able to observe what happened when the money reached the Laundromat. Her view, however, was highly obstructed; the Laundromat was quarantined from the rest of the office. Even so, their activities required a veneer of internal compliance, especially transfers involving large sums of money—in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars. Each day, Lothar Brandt brought stacks of documents to Isabel’s office and loomed over her while she blindly signed where indicated. But occasionally, if he was busy with another client, the documents arrived by inner-office pouch, presenting Isabel an opportunity to review them at her leisure. One corporate entity appeared frequently, almost always in connection with massive wire transfers, stock and real estate purchases, and other investments.
“Omega Holdings,” said Gabriel.
Isabel nodded.
“Why did Omega stand out?”
“Its sheer size. Most clients of the Laundromat utilize dozens of corporate shells, but Omega had hundreds. Whenever possible, I photographed the documents on my personal phone. I also ran Omega through our databases.”
“How much money did you find?”
“Twelve billion. But I was certain I’d only scratched the surface. It was obvious the man behind Omega Holdings was very high on the Russian food chain.” She paused. “An apex predator.”
“What did you do?”
She briefly considered filing an anonymous complaint with FINMA, the Swiss regulatory agency, but decided instead to give the material to a woman she had seen on Swiss television. She was an investigative reporter from a crusading Russian newsmagazine who had a knack for ferreting out financial wrongdoing by the men of the Kremlin. On the seventeenth of February, during her lunch hour, Isabel left a parcel of documents in an athletic field in Zurich’s District 3. That evening, using the personal computer in her apartment, she sent an anonymous message to the Russian journalist’s ProtonMail address. Afterward, she played Bach’s Cello Suite in E-flat Major. All six movements. No sheet music. Not a single mistake.
In March, Isabel left a package at a marina on the western shore of the Zürichsee, and in April she made drops in Winterthur and Zug. Several times each day she checked Nina Antonova’s Twitter feed and the website of theMoskovskaya Gazeta, but there were no stories about an important oligarch or senior Kremlin official utilizing the services of RhineBank’s Russian Laundromat. She made three more drops in June—Basel, Thun, Lucerne. Nevertheless, theGazetaremained editorially silent, leaving her no choice but to pursue the investigation herself.
She had met Mark Preston when they were students at the London School of Economics. After completing his degree, heembarked on a career as a business journalist, only to discover he detested London’s financial elite. An avid gamer and amateur hacker, he pioneered a new form of investigative journalism, one that relied on keystrokes and clicks rather than phone calls and shoe leather. His sources were never human, for humans often lied and nearly always had a vested interest. Instead, Preston searched for information captured by the cameras of smartphones—on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Google Street View. He also discovered that in Russia there was a thriving black market for CDs crammed with telephone directories, police reports, and even the national passport database. Yearbooks from elite military units and academies were also available.
His first major story came during the Syrian civil war, when he documented that the regime was dropping chemical barrel bombs on innocent civilians. A year later he identified the Russian officers responsible for shooting down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine. The story cemented Preston’s reputation and earned him the enmity of the Kremlin. Fearful of Russian retaliation, he left London and went into hiding. He also joined the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a nonprofit global network of reporters and news organizations headquartered in Washington.
“As you might recall, the ICIJ broke the Panama Papers story. Much of their work focuses on corruption. Mark helps the financial investigators by identifying and tracking the movements of individuals, especially individuals who are connected to Russia’s intelligence services.”
“How did you communicate with him?”
“The same way I communicated with Nina. ProtonMail.”