HOT Slovenian Police Raid Central Bank;Draghi Flips Out

More than 40 criminal police raided four locations in Slovenia on Wednesday (6 July), including the headquarters of the Central Bank of Slovenia, major state owned bank Nova Ljubljanska banka (NLB), and the local offices of international accountancy firms Ernst & Young and Deloitte, reports the Euro Observer
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Slovene police said the raids focused on collecting evidence for the suspected crimes of abuse of office and official duties. Four persons are suspected. None have been arrested.

According to Slovene media, the four suspects are the governor of the central bank Bostjan Jazbec, former vice-governors Stanislava Zadravec Caprirolo and Janez Fabijan, and the head of the central bank’s assets evaluation division, Tomaz Cemazar.

According to Slovene police, there is reasonable ground to suspect that officials of a legal entity under public law took part in a scam worth €257 million.

The case involved a Slovene central bank decision to cancel part of NLB’s debt, held in the form of subordinated bonds.

The central bank issued the “urgent measure” on grounds that NLB was at risk due to its negative working capital - a situation in which a bank’s current liabilities exceed its monetizable assets - resulting in the multi-million euro windfall.

The Slovene police said on Thursday that central bank employees do not enjoy special immunity and that they performed the raids in line with a search warrant.

 The Special Prosecutor's Office for organised crime, corruption and terrorism.  mocked European Central Bank president by posting a press release with links to a letter of complaint about the raid by Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank.

Draghi’s letter, which was addressed to the European Commission and to Slovenia’s prosecutor general, said the police were guilty of “unlawful seizure of ECB information” and of violating “the ECB’s privilege on inviolability of its archives”.

 -RW