Here is an old article that I found while browsing thru SC Archives today and thought was interesting. You may also find it interesting so I am posting it here 
. Hope you enjoy.
--kilobit
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was posted on CarderPlanet by 'nick'. nick is based in moscow provides a variety of incorporation and banking services. When I asked Script for his opinion, he said, '(nick is) a good russian who has been here (CarderPlanet) for over a year and has stolen from nobody.' He then later posted in an advertising thread by nick, 'nick good russian guy. now he work good and he dont want to cheat anybody. You can work with him.'
There are many questions in the forum and to me directly about
Latvian banks, their terms, conditions and purpose. Script asked
me to post a small article about this topic. I will base my
words on my own 3-years exprience.
Latvia is a European country and is an independent coutry since
1990. Thanks to a smart politics of Central Latvian Bank there is
a very stable bank system in the country. The number of Latvian
banks hasn't been changed since 1996. National currency is LAT.
Many economists think that this is one of the most stable currency
in Europe. One lat costs around $1.63.
Latvian banks have a wide network of intermediary bank accounts
over the world. Any transaction (in USD, EUR, LAT, RUR, etc.) they
process in less than 24 hours.
There are several banks in Latvia that we recomend to use:
Aizkraukles Banka
Lateko Banka
Hanza Banka
Parex Banka
Each of these banks has an address in SWIFT and is a registered
member (principal or affiliate) of VISA International and Europay.
They are located in Riga - capital of Latvia. They have official
offices or affiliate consulting companies in Russia and Ukraine.
When your partners send money to your account in, say, Lateko bank,
they have to send this info to their bank (remitter's bank):
Beneficiary: Software Company LLC
Bank: Lateko Bank
SWIFT: LATBLV22
Account#: 2040089678
Bank address: 21 Birznieka Upisha St., 1011 Riga Latvia
Latvian banks, as all other European banks have individual and
corporative accounts. To register/open a corporative account you
have to register a company first. It doesn't matter where the
company is registered - any offshore or "onshore" region.
1. How you withdraw money from your account?
The easiest way to convert your funds into cash is to use ATM
cards (Cirrus/Maestro or VISA Electron). They don't have any
limits for ATM withdrawals or purchases. You will be able to
take, say, $50,000 from ATM or more.
2. Who can freeze or close the account?
Your account won't be closed because of fraud. You can receive
money from any sources you want (fake sales at auctions, billings,
merchant accounts, hacked bank accounts, etc.) Only Latvian cops
will be able to close or freeze your account or the bank. You have
to work with amounts less than $100,000 and you won't have any
problems.
3. How you send outgoing wire transfers from this accounts?
To send funds from the account by wire transfer you will have to
use special secret words or "digipass". Only you will have these
words and digipass. Nobody else will be able to use your funds.
You will pay $20 for each outgoing transfer. Incoming wire transfers
are free.
4. Can you receive payments from credit cards to this account.
No. This is just a checking account. Not a merchant account. You
are able to receive ONLY wire transfers.
5. Should I pay some fees and/or taxes?
You will pay about $8.00 per month for Internet banking and no
taxes at all, unless your company is registered in Latvia. You have
to pay taxes in the country where your business is registered.
Main purpose of the account in Latvian bank is to receive payments
from other "dirty" accounts in other banks and hold them for some
time. Latvian banks are rather safe and secure. They won't do
anything with your money, unless you do one of the following:
- child porno
- online blackmailing
- offline terrorism
Guys, stay away from these businesses
-------------------
Some comments by nick, on his website, about various banks
Lateko Bank
The bank is good, reliable and completes all transactions quickly. No restrictions on the amounts of payments are imposed.
Rietumu Banka
The bank is good, reliable and completes all transactions quickly.
Aizkraukles Bank
The bank is good, reliable and completes all transactions quickly. No restrictions on the amounts of payments are imposed.
Hanza Banka
The bank is good. It does not create accounts for citizens of Russia and the other countries of the CIS by fax or by mail. They feel more than trust in clients from Europe.
Trasta Komerc Banka
Bank is small, but rather old. Works precisely and practically has no clients from Russia.
-------------------
bratok posted this in response in reply to the article by nick.
Hi from Latvia,
A little suggestion - don't use Hanza Banka.
They aren't really a Latvian bank, more like a branch of some Swedish or Norway in Latvia, so they are looking very stricktly at any suspicious money activites. They'll be the first ones to report to the cops (or anybody else who might listen) if they smell something fishy!
Recently they busted a group of "good people" who opened a merchant accout there and started swiping cards with dumps. When they got about $100,000 in a few hours, the bank called in the cops.
Similar is with Lateko Banka, it's a small bank that belongs to some foreiners who don't give a shit about their client's privacy is
Now the good part -
The best one is Parex Banka, it is the biggest bank in Latvia, belongs to a local businessman Valerij Kargin. They have very good internet banking and respect for privacy.
Aizkraukles Banka is also a good one. Rumors say that it was created my bratva (russian mafia) for money laundring. One of our government members was suspected for some illegal operations through this bank and the court had a very hard time pulling any info out of them.
So this bank won't give you out in case of something.
Good Luck!
-------------------
arty anon has written a response to the article by nick, and should be read by anybody interested in this topic. The writer of the original article 'nick' runs a financial services business in Russia, so there are possibilities that the banks offer him speicial treatment due to the fact he brings in a lot of business, or the banks may hold different attitudes towards Westerners. arty anon provides a prosepective from someone based in the Americas, similar to the majority of people here and should be listened to. Also, arty's suggestions urge more caution than nick, and anyone who has dealt with banks for "shadow-ey" business knows that playing with them is like playing with fire.
The statements by nick are in italics
The responses by arty anon are plain text.
2. Who can freeze or close the account?
Your account won't be closed because of fraud. You can receive
money from any sources you want (fake sales at auctions, billings,
merchant accounts, hacked bank accounts, etc.) Only Latvian cops
will be able to close or freeze your account or the bank.
Not true. They comply with Interpol and will close accounts and freeze funds on just a complaint of a few thousand USD, so it can happen. If you suspect it might, keep the balance low.
You have to work with amounts less than $100,000 and you won't have any problems.
Too high. IMHO you should keep incoming deposits below $USD40K to fly below radar.
Aizkraukles Banka is also a good one.
Aizkraukles Banka is very very good for big dollar transactions.
-------------------
In a post about Webmoney, Macgyver gave some sound advice about Parex Bank, and its use in conjunction with US Bank Accounts.
I believe the reason that so many of the Russians use this service (Webmoney) is that it runs using accounts at Parex Bank - the Lithuania version I believe. Parex is viewed with suspicion by many westerners, although this isn't necessarily justifiable. One problem you MAY have is that a number of US banks will automatically send a SAR if you wire transfer to or from Parex, and Netbank has been known to lock accounts instantly if you try to wire funds to them.
-------------------
Peter Macfarlane wrote an article on Latvian banking for PTClub.com
First of all, you might be scared of Latvia because you barely know its location but you know it used to be part of the USSR. You've heard horror stories about the mafia running Eastern Europe. I think you could calm a lot of these fears by actually travelling to Latvia, and I always encourage clients to check out their banks in person (maybe not to identify themselves to staff, but that's another matter…) In fact Riga is a pretty, historic and cosmopolitan town and its streets are safer than much of Western Europe and North America. That's not to say there is no mafia, but there is mafia in London or New York too… even in Douglas, St Helier or Hamilton. You will encounter them in mafia-style activities like prostitution, gambling, bars and protection rackets… they are not in the offshore banking business.
Secondly, I advocate Latvia as a passthrough, not as a mother lode repository. My regular readers will have seen my articles on Latvia before, and those who took the opportunity to open a passthrough account as recommended will be very happy that I referred readers to a bigger, more stable bank - not Paritate! For those who haven't read my previous articles, a passthrough is a way of getting money in or out of your main offshore "mother lode" account without sending direct transfers from your home country or risking using bankcards associated with your mother lode. Effectively it's money in, money out and the vast bulk of your savings only needs to remain a day or two in Latvia, before it wings its way to somewhere more stable like Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria or Andorra.
Thirdly, in all the Baltic states technology and language skills are good. Internet penetration (including broadband) into ordinary households is higher than in many western countries such as France and Spain. Compare this to, say, Costa Rica or Panama where nobody has internet banking yet and the local population barely have computers.
Fourthly, the trend in Latvian banking is towards consolidation. Two banks we work with for coded internet accounts have just merged with each other. Mergers like this bring strength and reliability.
Finally… you can still do so much in Latvia that you can't do elsewhere, like large cash transactions, pseudonymous/numbered accounts you can operate by internet, and bearer no-name ATM cards. So like it or not, if you need these facilities you are basically stuck with Latvia at the moment.
I'm not the only one to be reasonably upbeat. Fitch IBCA, the international credit rating agency, has just increased Latvia's credit rating and given it a "positive outlook", the highest evaluation.
-------------------
Summary
Latvian banks offer opportunities that in other jurisdictions would either be unavailable or only available to high net worth clients who take the time to establish a business relationship. Their basic account opening procedures, coupled with low restrictions make them a good option for use as an account that will get burnt, or to move money from one jurisdiction to another quickly. However, it must be rembered that whenever money is sitting in a bank account it is liable to be frozen and in this occurance little recourse is availabe.
-------------------
Links
Banks
Aizkraukles Banka: hxxp://www.ab.lv
Lateko Banka: hxxp://www.lateko.lv
Hanza Banka: hxxp:www.hanzanet.lv
Parex Banka: hxxp://www.parex.lv
Trasta Komerc Banka: hxxp://www.tkb.lv
Bibliography
Original post by 'nick': hxxp://www.carderplanet.net/viewtopic.php?t=7189&highlight=&sid=d5f6b0031dd90d7ee819d56a93f6ff8e
'nick's website with his experience of banks (in Russian): hxxp://www.alegria.biz/a/accounts.html
Original post by 'bratok': hxxp://www.carderplanet.net/viewtopic.php?t=7189&highlight=&sid=d5f6b0031dd90d7ee819d56a93f6ff8e
Original post by 'arty anon': hxxp://www.shadowcrew.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3858
Original post by 'macgyver': hxxp://www.shadowcrew.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1501
Original article by Peter Macfairlaine for ptClub: hxxp://ptclub.com/Banksafety.html
. Hope you enjoy.--kilobit
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was posted on CarderPlanet by 'nick'. nick is based in moscow provides a variety of incorporation and banking services. When I asked Script for his opinion, he said, '(nick is) a good russian who has been here (CarderPlanet) for over a year and has stolen from nobody.' He then later posted in an advertising thread by nick, 'nick good russian guy. now he work good and he dont want to cheat anybody. You can work with him.'
There are many questions in the forum and to me directly about
Latvian banks, their terms, conditions and purpose. Script asked
me to post a small article about this topic. I will base my
words on my own 3-years exprience.
Latvia is a European country and is an independent coutry since
1990. Thanks to a smart politics of Central Latvian Bank there is
a very stable bank system in the country. The number of Latvian
banks hasn't been changed since 1996. National currency is LAT.
Many economists think that this is one of the most stable currency
in Europe. One lat costs around $1.63.
Latvian banks have a wide network of intermediary bank accounts
over the world. Any transaction (in USD, EUR, LAT, RUR, etc.) they
process in less than 24 hours.
There are several banks in Latvia that we recomend to use:
Aizkraukles Banka
Lateko Banka
Hanza Banka
Parex Banka
Each of these banks has an address in SWIFT and is a registered
member (principal or affiliate) of VISA International and Europay.
They are located in Riga - capital of Latvia. They have official
offices or affiliate consulting companies in Russia and Ukraine.
When your partners send money to your account in, say, Lateko bank,
they have to send this info to their bank (remitter's bank):
Beneficiary: Software Company LLC
Bank: Lateko Bank
SWIFT: LATBLV22
Account#: 2040089678
Bank address: 21 Birznieka Upisha St., 1011 Riga Latvia
Latvian banks, as all other European banks have individual and
corporative accounts. To register/open a corporative account you
have to register a company first. It doesn't matter where the
company is registered - any offshore or "onshore" region.
1. How you withdraw money from your account?
The easiest way to convert your funds into cash is to use ATM
cards (Cirrus/Maestro or VISA Electron). They don't have any
limits for ATM withdrawals or purchases. You will be able to
take, say, $50,000 from ATM or more.
2. Who can freeze or close the account?
Your account won't be closed because of fraud. You can receive
money from any sources you want (fake sales at auctions, billings,
merchant accounts, hacked bank accounts, etc.) Only Latvian cops
will be able to close or freeze your account or the bank. You have
to work with amounts less than $100,000 and you won't have any
problems.
3. How you send outgoing wire transfers from this accounts?
To send funds from the account by wire transfer you will have to
use special secret words or "digipass". Only you will have these
words and digipass. Nobody else will be able to use your funds.
You will pay $20 for each outgoing transfer. Incoming wire transfers
are free.
4. Can you receive payments from credit cards to this account.
No. This is just a checking account. Not a merchant account. You
are able to receive ONLY wire transfers.
5. Should I pay some fees and/or taxes?
You will pay about $8.00 per month for Internet banking and no
taxes at all, unless your company is registered in Latvia. You have
to pay taxes in the country where your business is registered.
Main purpose of the account in Latvian bank is to receive payments
from other "dirty" accounts in other banks and hold them for some
time. Latvian banks are rather safe and secure. They won't do
anything with your money, unless you do one of the following:
- child porno
- online blackmailing
- offline terrorism
Guys, stay away from these businesses
-------------------
Some comments by nick, on his website, about various banks
Lateko Bank
The bank is good, reliable and completes all transactions quickly. No restrictions on the amounts of payments are imposed.
Rietumu Banka
The bank is good, reliable and completes all transactions quickly.
Aizkraukles Bank
The bank is good, reliable and completes all transactions quickly. No restrictions on the amounts of payments are imposed.
Hanza Banka
The bank is good. It does not create accounts for citizens of Russia and the other countries of the CIS by fax or by mail. They feel more than trust in clients from Europe.
Trasta Komerc Banka
Bank is small, but rather old. Works precisely and practically has no clients from Russia.
-------------------
bratok posted this in response in reply to the article by nick.
Hi from Latvia,
A little suggestion - don't use Hanza Banka.
They aren't really a Latvian bank, more like a branch of some Swedish or Norway in Latvia, so they are looking very stricktly at any suspicious money activites. They'll be the first ones to report to the cops (or anybody else who might listen) if they smell something fishy!
Recently they busted a group of "good people" who opened a merchant accout there and started swiping cards with dumps. When they got about $100,000 in a few hours, the bank called in the cops.
Similar is with Lateko Banka, it's a small bank that belongs to some foreiners who don't give a shit about their client's privacy is
Now the good part -
The best one is Parex Banka, it is the biggest bank in Latvia, belongs to a local businessman Valerij Kargin. They have very good internet banking and respect for privacy.
Aizkraukles Banka is also a good one. Rumors say that it was created my bratva (russian mafia) for money laundring. One of our government members was suspected for some illegal operations through this bank and the court had a very hard time pulling any info out of them.
So this bank won't give you out in case of something.
Good Luck!
-------------------
arty anon has written a response to the article by nick, and should be read by anybody interested in this topic. The writer of the original article 'nick' runs a financial services business in Russia, so there are possibilities that the banks offer him speicial treatment due to the fact he brings in a lot of business, or the banks may hold different attitudes towards Westerners. arty anon provides a prosepective from someone based in the Americas, similar to the majority of people here and should be listened to. Also, arty's suggestions urge more caution than nick, and anyone who has dealt with banks for "shadow-ey" business knows that playing with them is like playing with fire.
The statements by nick are in italics
The responses by arty anon are plain text.
2. Who can freeze or close the account?
Your account won't be closed because of fraud. You can receive
money from any sources you want (fake sales at auctions, billings,
merchant accounts, hacked bank accounts, etc.) Only Latvian cops
will be able to close or freeze your account or the bank.
Not true. They comply with Interpol and will close accounts and freeze funds on just a complaint of a few thousand USD, so it can happen. If you suspect it might, keep the balance low.
You have to work with amounts less than $100,000 and you won't have any problems.
Too high. IMHO you should keep incoming deposits below $USD40K to fly below radar.
Aizkraukles Banka is also a good one.
Aizkraukles Banka is very very good for big dollar transactions.
-------------------
In a post about Webmoney, Macgyver gave some sound advice about Parex Bank, and its use in conjunction with US Bank Accounts.
I believe the reason that so many of the Russians use this service (Webmoney) is that it runs using accounts at Parex Bank - the Lithuania version I believe. Parex is viewed with suspicion by many westerners, although this isn't necessarily justifiable. One problem you MAY have is that a number of US banks will automatically send a SAR if you wire transfer to or from Parex, and Netbank has been known to lock accounts instantly if you try to wire funds to them.
-------------------
Peter Macfarlane wrote an article on Latvian banking for PTClub.com
First of all, you might be scared of Latvia because you barely know its location but you know it used to be part of the USSR. You've heard horror stories about the mafia running Eastern Europe. I think you could calm a lot of these fears by actually travelling to Latvia, and I always encourage clients to check out their banks in person (maybe not to identify themselves to staff, but that's another matter…) In fact Riga is a pretty, historic and cosmopolitan town and its streets are safer than much of Western Europe and North America. That's not to say there is no mafia, but there is mafia in London or New York too… even in Douglas, St Helier or Hamilton. You will encounter them in mafia-style activities like prostitution, gambling, bars and protection rackets… they are not in the offshore banking business.
Secondly, I advocate Latvia as a passthrough, not as a mother lode repository. My regular readers will have seen my articles on Latvia before, and those who took the opportunity to open a passthrough account as recommended will be very happy that I referred readers to a bigger, more stable bank - not Paritate! For those who haven't read my previous articles, a passthrough is a way of getting money in or out of your main offshore "mother lode" account without sending direct transfers from your home country or risking using bankcards associated with your mother lode. Effectively it's money in, money out and the vast bulk of your savings only needs to remain a day or two in Latvia, before it wings its way to somewhere more stable like Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria or Andorra.
Thirdly, in all the Baltic states technology and language skills are good. Internet penetration (including broadband) into ordinary households is higher than in many western countries such as France and Spain. Compare this to, say, Costa Rica or Panama where nobody has internet banking yet and the local population barely have computers.
Fourthly, the trend in Latvian banking is towards consolidation. Two banks we work with for coded internet accounts have just merged with each other. Mergers like this bring strength and reliability.
Finally… you can still do so much in Latvia that you can't do elsewhere, like large cash transactions, pseudonymous/numbered accounts you can operate by internet, and bearer no-name ATM cards. So like it or not, if you need these facilities you are basically stuck with Latvia at the moment.
I'm not the only one to be reasonably upbeat. Fitch IBCA, the international credit rating agency, has just increased Latvia's credit rating and given it a "positive outlook", the highest evaluation.
-------------------
Summary
Latvian banks offer opportunities that in other jurisdictions would either be unavailable or only available to high net worth clients who take the time to establish a business relationship. Their basic account opening procedures, coupled with low restrictions make them a good option for use as an account that will get burnt, or to move money from one jurisdiction to another quickly. However, it must be rembered that whenever money is sitting in a bank account it is liable to be frozen and in this occurance little recourse is availabe.
-------------------
Links
Banks
Aizkraukles Banka: hxxp://www.ab.lv
Lateko Banka: hxxp://www.lateko.lv
Hanza Banka: hxxp:www.hanzanet.lv
Parex Banka: hxxp://www.parex.lv
Trasta Komerc Banka: hxxp://www.tkb.lv
Bibliography
Original post by 'nick': hxxp://www.carderplanet.net/viewtopic.php?t=7189&highlight=&sid=d5f6b0031dd90d7ee819d56a93f6ff8e
'nick's website with his experience of banks (in Russian): hxxp://www.alegria.biz/a/accounts.html
Original post by 'bratok': hxxp://www.carderplanet.net/viewtopic.php?t=7189&highlight=&sid=d5f6b0031dd90d7ee819d56a93f6ff8e
Original post by 'arty anon': hxxp://www.shadowcrew.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3858
Original post by 'macgyver': hxxp://www.shadowcrew.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1501
Original article by Peter Macfairlaine for ptClub: hxxp://ptclub.com/Banksafety.html
