NEW YORK, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Justice announced a civil forfeiture complaint against nine New York City real estate companies accused of laundering money.
The complaint, filed Tuesday in New York federal court, alleges the companies laundered a portion of the proceeds of a $230 million Russian tax refund fraud scheme involving corrupt Russian officials. The scheme was uncovered by Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in pretrial detention in Moscow under suspicious circumstances, a Department of Justice statement says.
Magnitsky was hired by the Hermitage Fund, a Russian foreign investment fund, to investigate alleged stolen corporate identities of companies in the fund's portfolios. The criminal organization indicted by the Department of Justice allegedly re-registered the companies in the names of organization members, then orchestrated sham lawsuits ending in money judgments.
