The Georgian Prosecutor’s Office, in collaboration with international law enforcers, solved a transnational crime, having identified money laundering on a particularly large scale. Criminal proceedings have been filed against 3 individuals and 13 legal entities.

“The investigation revealed a Georgian citizen and his accomplices formed an organized criminal group on the territory of a foreign state, intending to illegally gain material benefits in an especially large amount.

Members of the group have perpetrated a variety of particularly serious crimes in different countries, including multi-episode fraud worth hundreds of millions of USD, money laundering, cybercrime, official document forgery.

The defendants used their-controlled legal entities to open accounts in Georgian banks, making multiple fictitious bank transactions, and invested illicitly obtained funds in expensive real estate to launder hundreds of millions of dollars and conceal their illegal origin.

Besides, they transferred a large amount of money from their overseas bank accounts to their Georgian bank accounts and conducted numerous vague and fraudulent transactions between company bank accounts.

Using the profits of crime, one of the defendants acquired a 21,000 sq. m. property in Kobuleti, a plot of land and the buildings on it, for roughly GEL 11,000,000 during the same period. The defendants’ conduct helped to launder USD 111,000,000 and EUR 2,500,000 of unlawful earnings.

The investigation seized roughly USD 70 million and EUR 1,760,000 in the defendants’ and their businesses’ bank accounts, 21,000 sq. m. of investment plots of land and facilities acquired with criminal earnings”, - reads the statement.