There is a record about the co-owner of Baltic International Bank Valery Belokon (Valērijs Belokoņs) in the file of informants of the KGB of the LSSR.
As per the agent’s card, Valery Belokon was recruited in 1987 by the fifth department of the KGB of the Latvian SSR, which was involved in countering ideological sabotage.
This unit, formed in 1967, supervised religious groups, intellectuals, students, and dissidents until 1990.
Valery Belokon was given the alias “Balls” when he was recruited. At that time, he worked for the newspaper “Soviet Youth” and was a member of the CPSU.
Valery Belokon chooses not to discuss his past as an informant. However, after Latvia regained independence, he maintained close relationships with many former KGB officers, including Yuri Shabashov, who has been in a civil partnership with Larisa Kondrakhin, the daughter of KGB General Nikolai Kondrakhin.
Recently, the Latvian portal Kompromat.lv published an article about Valery Belokon’s associate Arnolds Babris, the former head of the economic security department of the Satversme aizsardzības birojs, SAB.
Arnold Babris, a former counterintelligence officer, has no official accusations against him. Nevertheless, he has been associated with various scandals and even tragedies, from meat smuggling to the murder of Vyacheslav Listsov, the head of the Ludza regional branch of the State Revenue Service. In 2008, due to Arnold Babris's dubious reputation, the party “Society for a different policy” (Sabiedrība citai politikai) declined to accept him into its ranks.
Shortly after leaving SAB, Arnold Babris became a business partner of Valery Belokon and together they formed the Conservative Party. They also ran for the European Parliament together in 2004.
It is worth noting that Arnold Babris is among the most frequently cited Latvian businessmen by Russian propagandists.
In 2004, Yuri Shabashov and Arnold Babris established the PVB enterprise. The shares were registered in Babris's company Baltic Strategic Security Alliance.
According to Kompromat.lv, in 2010, the Riga mayor’s office, under the direction of Nil Ushakov, planned to allocate a significant part of the Daugava bank for casinos and gambling halls to the company PVB, which was also comprised of former intelligence officers.
Boris Karpichkov, a former officer of the KGB of the LSSR, stated that the success of the former “clerks” can be attributed to their collaboration with the Russian special services.
In 2016, the Office for Combating Economic Crimes (ENAP) conducted searches at Baltic International Bank. Special forces, wearing black masks, took part in the operation. According to our sources, Beloknya was forewarned by Ints Kyuzis, who was leading the State Police at the time. Kyuzis also planned to work for a banker after retiring, but was elected to the Riga City Council from the Unity party.
Evgenia Litovchenko.
During the investigation, a top manager of the bank was detained: Evgenia Litovchenko, director for the development of markets in Eastern Europe.
The lady was responsible in BIB for interaction with the Ukrainian representative office.
– Evgenia and Valery have a joint child. But he married Katya Kuznetsova, who is now Ekaterina Belokon, says Victoria Monro, an expert on Latvian official and unofficial bohemia.
In the same year, 2016, the Financial and Capital Market Commission (FKTK) fined the bank 1.1 million euros. The supervisory authority stated that BIB repeatedly violated the provisions of the law on the prevention of money laundering.
