SFO and OSP: further searches in Luxembourg
According to a press release from the SFO there have been house searches in Luxembourg today, on request from both the Serious Fraud Office and the Office of the Special Prosecutor in Iceland. The operation has involved 70 investigator, from the Luxembourg Police, SFO and the OSP.
The searches per se are interesting – and also the fact that this is a joint operation, involving the three countries. It remains to be seen if the Luxembourg authorities will now be opening up an investigation of its own. However, this doesn’t mean that the investigations in Iceland and the UK are being merged. It’s still separate investigations but forces are combined when practical.
It seems that the SFO is conducting house searches at Consolium, where some ex-Kaupthing managers run a consultancy. On the Consolium team there are the following: Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, Ingolfur Helgason, Steingrimur Karason, Gudmundur Thor Gunnarsson (arrested in Iceland in connection to the SFO searches recently) and Kristinn Eiriksson. The OSP is focusing further on Skuli Thorvaldsson and searched Banque Havilland.
In february last year the OSP did house searches in Luxembourg in an operation that was, at the time, one of the largest of its kind in Luxembourg. Some 19 parties did at the time protest the handing over of the documents and it took the OSP the best part of a year to get the documents, after the 19 took their case to an appeal court. However, since then the rules in Luxembourg have been changed and it’s no longer possible to appeal. It means that this time the process to get the documents could take no more than a few months, not a year like last time.
Update: here is how the Guardian reported on the searches.
Further update: the searches were at two homes and three work places. The homes were those of Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson ex-CEO of Kaupthing and Magnus Gudmundsson manager of Kaupthing Luxembourg. The three work places were Havilland, Consolium and the third place, so far unidentified.
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