Can. Im not sure when the house members will be returning. Some and our wicker and i perform but the senate schedule, which is different in the house schedule. So we will have conflicts throughout this period. This is our return date in the senate and there are a lot of complex that are taking place. I hope to see your indulgence as we this is an extremely important hearing. Im very pleased to chairman wilson called this hearing. On the monday hes wandering in sanctions and switzerland. With russias outlined assets. It is a good friend of the night. States democratic states. We have Strategic Partnerships with switzerland on so many different issues. But that have a dark street and enabling the laundering of blood assets. Saw that during world war ii when switzerland was the preferred location for gold taken by the not seized from the. We saw that on where the monies were hidden. With the apartheid leaders and businesses from south africa. Weve seen it in regards to the Olive Gardens and russia. So we consistently see a pattern here in which switzerland is banking arrangements that have facilitated the practices of people that have robbed their country of their wealth. There has been a repeated effort to deal with the russians money. That has adversely affected the sanctions. Part of our strategy and winning the war for ukraine is to isolate and put sanctions on russia. Those sanctions are only as effective as we are able to make sure that they reinforced. And we have seen the russian economy surviving better than we thought it would. Part of that is the laundering of dirty money and switzerland. That is an area of great concern to all of us. The accountants and the lawyers and the banks and the auditors on the Investment Advisers and the consultants and others who accepted the money and exchange for laundering and influence the services of facilitating their perpetrators of the human rights violations. And corruption. It wasnt too many years ago that senator wicker and i were joined by senator mccain. With the help of one of our and we established the sanctions, global sanctions. And we become the standard among the western world, and eventual strengthens are critically important. Were gonna be able to have rights violators and corrupt leaders. We have been pretty successful in using those sanctions and are pleased about that. But we need to look at the facilitator. Those that are facilitating the leaders. Thats one of the areas where you need to explain and apply the immigrant ski sanctions. Its first and foremost about our continued efforts this commission to do everything we can to assist ukraine, it has defense against russias war of aggression. Weve held hearing and resolve regards to war crimes, weve held hearings in regard to how we provide assistance. This hearing is how we can make sure that the sanctions are imposed or not being debated. By a country like switzerland, who is used to their banking system. But there was a secondary purpose. And that is to raise the awareness of the need to expand those that are sanctioned under our sanctions law, to include those that claim to have clean hands. Because they are lawyers and accountants and its extra. But they are facilitators on the need to be held accountable. With that, let me turn it over to my colleague and friend, they ranking republican on the allison commission. Thank you so much, senator cardin. Let me just say that you have stated very well. The title of this hearing is nda provocative. And deservedly so and in two added to the attention getting. The assets on the Money Laundering and the sanctions and the evasion in switzerland. And my distinguished friend from maryland is exactly right. Switzerland is a friend and way share so many common values. But this is an issue worth exploring and it is an issue worthy of the title of this hearing. And let me say this. It is one of the great honors of my career to have been involved with the senator mccain and senator cardin as one of the coauthors of the mcgahn ski act. And then to have assisted further along with the global act. As my friend senator carton prepares and a year and a half to move from the Public Sector into the private sector, there is no question that his efforts to rule out corruption and particularly on behalf of really threatening the very difficult males of getting the magnitsky act past, it will go down as one of his great legacy is during his time of public service. At the state and federal levels. So, let me just say to my friend how much i appreciate that. Briefly, as we move to the witnesses, let me just say, russia has made corruption an important part of its foreign policy. And everyone really knows that. It is a former top official in europe and contracted world class law firms do its dirty work. The kremlin he even found ways to corrupt the highest levels of swiss Law Enforcement. The former swiss federal prosecutor was forced to step down and a highlevel enforcement officer was convicted of bribery. These are facts. I am concerned that switzerland may soon return stolen russian money to those who and this would be wrong under any circumstances. But especially disasters to do so as russia wages a brutal and unprovoked war against its neighbor ukraine. I look forward to learning today how we can do our part to ensure that this is stolen russian money does not leave switzerland. And how we can guarantee that the investigation into russian Money Laundering in switzerland comes to a successful conclusion. So i thank our witnesses for being here. And i hope we go back to the distinguished Senate Chairman of helsinki. Thank you very much, senator booker. Thank you very much for this personal comments, appreciate them. Well now hear from our witnesses, your full statements will be made part of our record. We thank the three of you for being with us. We will start with phil brown or who is the head of the magnitsky global justice campaign. He was a largest foreign investor in russia until 2005 when he was denied entry to the country and declared a threat of national to national security. For exposing corruption in russias state owned company. 2008, mr. Browders lawyer i cover the massive fraud committed by russian government officials and involves the theft of 100 230 billion dollars in taxes. Sergei magnitsky testified against the state officials involved in the sun was arrested and in prison. He was systematically tortured and spent years under pressure detention conditions and was repeatedly denied medical treatment. He died in prison on november 6th 18th 2009. Leaving behind a wife and two children. Well then hear from mr. Drew sullivan, the founder and publisher of the organized crime and corruption reporting project. Before that in 2004, he bounded edited the center for investigative reporting leading Investigative Center that brought him and lastly we will hear from alina secretary general and defense committee. The committee has a joint initiative and transparency, international deference and security. And the ukrainian chapter of the transparency international. We will start with mr. Rather. Senator carton, its a great honor to we have had a long history together. Starting in 2010, with the following the death of Sergei Magnitsky which led to the two of you and some of them i canceled their liebermann passing with all of your colleagues, and let me just second what senator weaver said with senator carson had said. The magnitsky act is a piece of great leadership and great heroism. I will certainly be remembered for this work. Long after your political career ends. There are many many people, millions of people around the world, theyre grateful for what youve done. As you know, Sergei Magnitsky and his murder was something that changed my life. Completely. After he was killed, i gave up my life is a businessman to focus all of my time and energy and resources going after the people who killed him. To make sure that they face justice. And the magnitsky act was important part of that. But the other important part of our campaign for justice was to learn who got the 230 Million DollarSergei Magnitsky was killed over. And we began an investigation and started moments after he was killed. And it goes on until today. And as we began this investigation we started to get information. From whistleblowers, from journalists. From Law Enforcement investigations. And one of the places where we got information was a person who told us that the husband of the tax official who approved the 230 Million Dollar tax refund received roughly 10 million in credits from his era. We turn that information over to the swiss Law Enforcement authorities. They froze that money and opened a criminal investigation. They subsequently then froze roughly another 10 million belonging to various people. One of them was a man named dimitri who is the head of the organized crime group. That was organize the whole tax refund, and a lot of the other nastiness that Sergei Magnitsky was subjected to. And there was a man named dennis who was the order of a Company Called prepa zone, which is prosecuted here in new york for companies that prosecuted for Money Laundering connected to the magnitsky case. There was a tenyear investigation that was going on. And at some point at the beginning of the investigation the swiss put their most senior russianspeaking officer in charge of the investigation. His name was dennison chanel. And the moments that mr. Now began this investigation, or join to the team i should say, the investigation ground to a halt. And we were very confused about why it was not moving forward. And we kept on writing applications and requests with authorities. To have them just do something. And nothing happened. And then we discovered around 2018, why had ground to a halt. And what we learned was that mr. Chanel was apparently invited on a number of all expense paid hunting trips in russia. They are hunting trips to come bore hunting near moscow. Well the troops were paid for by Russian Oligarchs. And it was discovered that he did this, he was fired from his job in the swiss federal police. He was put on trial and found guilty. During the trial and during the Court Hearings it was he disclosed thats the reason why they were entertaining ham ways that they wanted to get him to drop the swiss to drop the investigation. After he was fired, in spite of this information, thats exactly what happened. The swiss Law Enforcement authorities drop the magnitsky investigation. They do not prosecute a single person. And they are now planning on giving back about 80 of the 20 million that was frozen. Now, it is not just giving money back to criminals which makes this so offensive. Three of those four individuals whose money has been frozen are on the u. S. Mcguinness gate list. They were part of your efforts to get justice for Sergei Magnitsky. Theyre not just sanctioned by the United States but by canada, by the uk, by australia. And so youve got a situation where switzerland is not only planning on returning money to criminals, but they are returning money to people who are sanctioned by the United States. And our allies. And it is not only outrageous and theyre doing that, but theyre doing that in time of war, where russia launched this unprovoked aggressive invasion, murderous invasion of ukraine. So we have psalm supplies to the swiss prosecutor, the new prosecutor, to stop this miscarriage of justice. And their response was to kick us off the case, and say that we were not the victims. It was just the russian government was the victims. When we went to court to share the information about the corruption with the court, the court said we cannot even consider it because the swiss prosecutor has said you are not a victim. You have no standing. And as a result, we fruitfully affirm the decision of senator wicker, as he has been in touch with the swiss and the swiss say we cannot get involved in any judicial decision. In my opinion, what is happening in switzerland is just the tip of a much bigger iceberg. I think our other witnesses will be talking about it in more general terms. But the swiss government wants to be seen to be doing something. But when it comes to reality, they swiss government doesnt want to do anything. Because there is such a lot of money to be made off of dirty russian money and switzerland. And so, we are in a situation which is perhaps not as brave as it was my first came to you. Back in 2010. But is still pretty brazen. Where you have a country where the legal system does not work, where criminal justice does not work. And the purpose of the magnitsky act when we first came up with it was to deal with a system that did not work. We have that going on right now. And so, i say this with a heavy heart, but i say this as something which i think is necessary because of the stubbornness of the swiss authorities. Which is that when a legal system does not work we have to intervene ourselves. And there is a very specific provisions in the magnitsky act which say that if a person is involved in concealing the legal liability for the detention and the death of including those who made false and misleading accounts about the fraudulent tax scheme uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky that they can be sanctioned under the magnitsky act. And so my request today is that we asked you, and Helsinki Commission, i asked the u. S. Secretary of state, state, the secretary tory, to sanction the individuals Prosecutors Office who has been involved in the conspiracy to impact the money. And those names include the former attorney general michael hour, the current attorney general Stephen Broad letter, the Deputy Attorney general, former Deputy Attorney general patrick mahomes, current Deputy Attorney general diane cooler, and vincent chanel, the famous bear hunter. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Sullivan . Senator wicker and senator here today. Turn your mic on. A, you are organized crime and corruption reporting project is a global nonprofit Investigative Journalism organization. On six continents, publishing over 140 investigative stories a year. From our earliest days we tracked organized crime and corrupt Public Officials on what we called the criminal services industry. That is the banks and law firms and registration agents that enabled organized crime to globalize their operations. So hispanics were always front and center, and many of the schemes we followed even in the earliest days. Stolen and illegal money, they are the Gold Standard for offshore secrets destinations. Our investigation into the what we call the russian laundromat is the allpurpose financial fraud vehicle used to launder more than 20 billion dollars in europe. From swiss banks which regularly were represented. Thats why we think the often mentioned figures of 200 billion dollars in russian money and swiss banks, the gross underestimation. So this banks operates worldwide and control trillions of dollars, both inside and outside of the swiss brand, and Wealth Management systems and interests. Many are funded for companies, proxies, and other under the rcep structures around the world. The estimate there is a total amount of russian money controlled by swiss banks that is more likely twice that size, up to 400 billion dollars. Russian money is hugely important with swiss banks, the historic outflow of frozen assets, stolen assets from russia, and other soviet republics, former soviet republics, over the past 30 years, dramatically alter the banking landscape. And at one point, 160 billion dollars per month was flowing out of russia alone. Thanks fought each other for this money, and when they got, it theyve benefited with historic growth rates. A majority of this profoundly undemocratic money was dirty, but switzerland had debunked the money or lose ground by london another banking sectors. They leaned into banking russians hard. Publicly, Swiss Banking secrecy laws allowed the thats was authorities are on top of the issues, but they are cleaned up to any money, or were in the process of doing so. That their Due Diligence processes were robust. These lives were repeatedly most regulars and government officials over the years. And 2021 they got a unique opportunity to look for ourselves, with our partner in germanys papers, we received the first ever significantly of c which that county records. And this case for the Credit Suisse. We scoured the record for more than 10,000 accounts. What we found shocked even ask, big corruption issues around the world. We found the organized crime figures and corrupt officials retained large swiss accounts, despite the fact that their crime literally showed up in the first result of the civil web search of their name. Through these records those traced the money from dozens of historic corruption scandals. And clearly saw that around the same time the money went missing, it was deposited into a Credit Suisse account. We found Russian Oligarchs, despotic leaders were criminals drug dealers and others. And we also found 11 separate instances where a scandal led Credit Suisse officials or swiss regulators to publicly state that they had initiated steps to fix the problems. A new rule, you refuse or count new crackdowns, but despite these alleged fixes and heartfelt pledges, the bank never fundamentally changed its operations. Its continue to strongly incentivize the signing of of criminals, often through subcontractors. And continue to directl