BY PAUL O’DONOGHUE, Senior Correspondent
Mihails Ulmans, the former owner of Latvia’s LPB Bank, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for orchestrating the 2018 murder of Mārtiņš Bunkus, a lawyer who exposed potential money laundering within the bank.
In 2016, Bunkus, an insolvency practitioner, had alerted regulators to his suspicions of possible money laundering linked to LPB Bank. At the time, Ulmans owned 49% of shares in the lender.
On May 30, 2018, Bunkus was shot and killed in broad daylight while driving through Riga. Assailants fired seven rounds from a Kalashnikov rifle at his car, hiding behind a makeshift tent mounted on a trailer.
Bunkus had survived a previous assassination attempt in 2016 when a gunman’s weapon malfunctioned.
It is alleged that Ulmans, along with his associate Aleksandrs Babenko, had offered €300,000 to have Bunkus killed.
As well as Ulmans, Babenko also received a 15-year sentence. Viktor Krivoshey, the shooter, was sentenced to life in prison for carrying out the murder for €70,000. All sentences are subject to appeal.
In statements issued before the trial, both Ulmans and LPB Bank denied all the allegations.
LPB, rebranded as Magnetiq Bank following its sale in December 2023, stated that no specific money laundering cases had been identified.
Kristaps Bunkus, Mārtiņš’ brother, said that Mihails Ulmans and Aleksandrs Babenko had been found guilty of “ordering my brother’s murder”.
“The court determined they hired a killer to silence him — all because Mārtiņš exercised his professional duties with dedication,” he said in a statement to the Financial Times.
“Given the circumstances, 15 years hardly feels sufficient.”
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