On November 26, 2007, the Russian Central Bank ordered to recall the banking licenses of the Bank of Investment Capital (Bikbank), Saturn bank, and Samoletbank, as these banks many times violated laws on countering money-laundering activities.
In a CB statement, it was said that one of these banks, Bikbank, failed to expose operations that are subject to compulsory control and failed to report on them to Rosfinmonitoring from late October to mid-November 2007. Economic residents transferred over 14 billion rubles under suspicious deals with goods that never crossed the Russia customs borders to the current accounts of eight companies, registered in the UK, the British Virgin Islands, and the Seychelles offshore jurisdictions. Later the money was transferred to accounts of other non-residents opened in Ukrainian, Kyrgyz, Moldavian, Latvian, and Cypriot banks.
Similar claims were launched against Samoletbank that failed to comply with CB’s demands and broke the cash order.
Bikbank (Moscow) was 898th on the Interfax-100 list of the beiggest banks in terms of assets as of the third quarter of 2007. The licenses were recalled from the three banks on November 27.