Riga City Court will resume witness questioning on 2 November at 12:00 in a criminal case against former officials of ABLV Bank, now in liquidation, over alleged tax evasion. TVNET and LETA reported the hearing on 18 October 2026.
The accused are former co-owner and board chairman Ernests Bernis, former board member Vadims Reinfelds, and Zane Kurzemniece, Marks Špungins and Arvis Šteinbergs, who were previously linked to the bank. According to a public statement from the prosecution, four people are charged with tax evasion committed in an organised group that caused large losses to the state. A fifth person is charged with tax evasion that caused large losses to the state.
Prosecutors say board members of the credit institution formed an organised group and involved other people, including a person who traded companies registered in offshore zones. The indictment says the group hid the bank’s involvement while arranging the purchase and sale of foreign companies for the bank’s clients.
From 2012 to 2018, the group is alleged to have earned €53.028 million from trading foreign companies and from maintenance services for bank clients, income that was not declared to the State Revenue Service (VID). The indictment estimates the loss to the state at more than €5.532 million.
The person who traded offshore companies and provided maintenance services is also accused of hiding income from 2011 to 2018, failing to declare it to VID and directing it into the bank accounts of three companies under that person’s control. The prosecution says this amounted to tax evasion of €5.041 million in total.
In the criminal proceedings, real estate worth more than €5 million has been seized, along with financial funds of more than €5 million. Most of those funds were seized at a credit institution in Luxembourg.
The prosecution states that no person is considered guilty until guilt is established in the manner set out in the Criminal Procedure Law. For the offences described, the Criminal Law provides for imprisonment of up to ten years, with or without confiscation of property, and a ban of two to five years on specified or all types of commercial activity, a specified occupation, or holding a specified office.
A separate criminal case concerning the possible laundering of €2.1 billion at ABLV Bank is before the Economic Affairs Court. Eight people are charged with laundering criminally obtained funds on a large scale as part of an organised group. The prosecution is also asking the court to apply a coercive measure to the credit institution being liquidated.
Prosecutors say that, through infrastructure created by the organised group for laundering, funds criminally obtained abroad by other people were laundered between 1 May 2010 and 15 February 2018 in amounts of at least €263.5 million and $1.95 billion.
Five of the defendants held responsible posts at the bank: former co-owner Bernis, former board members Reinfelds and Aleksandrs Pāže, and bank employees Igors Rogovs and Kaspars Dreimanis. The other three defendants are Kurzemniece, Špungins and Šteinbergs, who were linked to the bank. The defendants do not admit guilt.
The prosecution previously told the LETA news agency that it had not obtained a body of evidence sufficient to charge Oļegs Fiļs, the bank’s second-largest co-owner. It gave no further comment on him.