Polo patrons linked to laundering of Venezuelan oil sale proceeds, says US Treasury

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Two leading figures in English polo have been accused of using their positions at a now-defunct Swiss bank to launder the proceeds of the illegal sale of millions of barrels of oil belonging to Venezuela’s national oil company, according to the US Treasury.

A notice issued by the Treasury department earlier this month about the activities of Zurich-based MBaer Merchant Bank linked both Siri Evjemo-Nysveen, the bank’s former vice-chair, and her husband Alessandro Bazzoni, an Italian businessman, to allegations of money laundering.

Both are leading figures in England’s polo scene, with Bazzoni acting as patron of the Monterosso team while Evjemo-Nysveen acted as patron of a team called Vikings. Patrons are wealthy players who bankroll a team and play alongside hired professionals.

Bazzoni played in a charity polo tournament against Prince Williamthe Prince of Wales, in 2022 while he was on the US sanctions list for trading with Venezuela. He has since been removed from that list.

His team Monterosso played an active role in last summer’s English polo season.

Last month, Switzerland’s financial regulator Finma withdrew MBaer’s licencesaying it did not have an adequate structure in place to combat money laundering. The bank subsequently went into liquidation.

On March 2, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FCEN), a bureau of the US Treasury department, published a notice proposing MBaer be designated an “institution . . . of primary money laundering concern”.

It said that for years the bank had “directly or indirectly facilitated money laundering for or on behalf of illicit actors”, including Russians and Iranians.

It added that the bank’s beginnings were “anchored in Venezuela corruption”.

MBaer was founded in 2018 by Michael Bär, great-grandson of the founder of Switzerland’s Julius Baer private bank, according to a page on its website that has since been removed.

According to the UK’s Land Registry, Evjemo-Nysveen owns an eight-bedroom house with stables and fields near Windsor that she bought for £8mn in 2021.

The FCEN notice said that press reports had accused Evjemo-Nysveen of using the bank to launder the proceeds of a corruption scheme at Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state oil company.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac), which oversees the US sanctions regime, imposed sanctions on PDVSA in January 2019 over its role in shoring up the regime of Venezuela’s then-president Nicolás Maduro.

The FCEN notice said that PDVSA had allegedly “secretly sold millions of barrels of Venezuelan crude oil in circumvention of US sanctions” and embezzled the proceeds “in a manner that deprived the Venezuelan public of the benefits” of the “illegal sales”.

It said: “Siri Evjemo-Nysveen, MBaer’s vice-chairperson from September 2020 through May 2023 and board member from 2019 to 2023, reportedly used her position to further payments through MBaer related to a PDVSA corruption scheme.”

It added: “She reportedly did so on behalf of her husband, Alessandro Bazzoni, a minority shareholder of MBaer at the time, who was sanctioned by Ofac in January 2021 for providing material support to PDVSA in his role as a core facilitator of the sanctions evasion network.”

The statement said that Evjemo-Nysveen’s activities took place while Bazzoni was still on the US sanctions list, although it acknowledged that he was subsequently removed from it.

In a response to the notice, Bazzoni, Evjemo-Nysveen and their solicitors said the references to Bazzoni in the Treasury notice referred to “unsubstantiated or debunked sources”.

They said: “Mr Bazzoni was previously vindicated through his successful sanctions delisting by one arm of the US Treasury and expects to be vindicated once again with this second arm of the same department.”

They added: “US (and Swiss) authorities have never taken any action, investigative or otherwise, against Ms Evjemo-Nysveen in the context of the allegations referred to in the discredited article, which are denied.”

The Treasury’s notice also alleged that MBaer maintained an account for Jose Luis Chavez Calva, whom it called “a key figure involved in laundering billions of dollars obtained through PDVSA corruption through European banks”.

It said Calva was alleged to be a financial facilitator handling “funds derived from corruption” on behalf of both Bazzoni and Alex Saab, a close associate of Bazzoni.

Calva told the FT he had no criminal convictions in any jurisdiction worldwide and that any account with the bank had been held for legitimate personal and professional purposes.

He said: “I strongly deny any involvement in money laundering or acting as a financial facilitator.”

No UK law enforcement agency has publicly acknowledged investigating or taking any action against Bazzoni or Evjemo-Nysveen. In response to an inquiry by the FT on Friday, the National Crime Agency said it routinely refused to confirm or deny the existence of investigations.

Additional reporting by Mercedes Ruehl in Zurich