When John Christmas was hired by Parex Bank, he was contacted by Dimitry Yermolaev, the Third Secretary of the Russian Embassy in Latvia, to have lunch.
Yermolaev informed Christmas that Parex was a criminal organization.
Christmas informed Yermolaev that the new Latvian government, run by Prime Minister Einars Repse, would crack down on corruption. At the time, a large corruption issue in Latvia was the obviously criminal purchase of the “Baltic Kristina” ferry. Parex was involved. Repse said that the government would take action.
Yermolaev informed Christmas that Repse will never take action against Parex because Repse worked for the “Jewish KGB Mafia” (Yermolaev’s words). Yermolaev said that in earlier years Repse worked in cooperation with former KGB agent Grigory Krupnikov to put Bank of Latvia (Latvian central bank) deposits into KGB banks.
The allegations were never investigated. The story has been censored by the Latvian press. Repse remains a leading Latvian politician.
The only action taken by the Latvian government was to eject Yermolaev from the country. Christmas had already been ejected from the country by this time.
pdf snapshot from 20 March 2012:
link, if not yet censored by Latvian authorities:
I received an interesting message on this subject on Facebook. The message from Dmitry Jermolayev clearly refers to Parex Bank as the “Mafia.” Isn’t it interesting that Parex Bank, described by the Commercial Attache of the Russian Embassy as the “Mafia,” is endorsed by Ernst&Young and PWC and funded by the IMF, World Bank, EU, and EBRD?
22 June 2012 from John Christmas to Dimitry Yermolaev “I am still fighting the Mafia banks in Latvia.”
22 June 2012 from Dimitry Yermolaev: “i live now in Moscow. and i am a journalist. I know? that you fight with Mafia.”
Of course anyone who wants to verify this message can do so, for example if the EBRD wants to know the truth about its investment in Parex Bank.