The Central Criminal Police (NBI) said on Wednesday that it has closed a preliminary investigation into suspected money laundering offenses involving Russian-owned Airsiton Helms in an investigation that began more than four years ago.
The law enforcement authority announced that it would hand over approximately EUR 3.5 million in cash that was seized during a large police operation in the Turku archipelago on 22 September 2018.
Following an raid on Airsiton Helmi’s 17 properties involving hundreds of authorities, the company was suspected of a number of financial crimes, including aggravated money laundering. On Wednesday, however, the NBI announced it would close its investigation of this part on the advice of a lawyer.
The second part, on tax issues related to undeclared work, has since been decided and sent to the Southern Finland Prosecutor’s Office for investigation. The case was investigated as aggravated tax fraud, aggravated accounting fraud and aggravated occupational pension insurance premium fraud.
The money laundering investigation, which concerns unpaid taxes and pension contributions of approximately EUR 2.85 million, was expanded last year by an order of the District Court of Southwest Finland.
After receiving legal guidance on the matter, police said they had come to the conclusion that the money seized during the investigation should be returned and plan to suggest to the prosecutor that the money laundering section of the investigation be closed.
"The pre-trial investigation has been exceptionally long and internationally extensive. The reason for the process was the large amount of information investigated by the police and the questions sent to legal advisers and authorities in more than 20 countries. Within the framework of this preliminary investigation, they have co-operated with the authorities both in Finland and abroad," said the head of the investigation, the commander of the NBI, Tomi Taskila.
Source: The Nordic Page