U.S. officials have linked two prominent figures in English polo to an alleged scheme to launder proceeds from the illicit sale of Venezuelan oil, according to a Financial Times report that cited a recent Treasury Department notice about the now-defunct Swiss lender MBaer Merchant Bank.

The Treasury notice named Siri Evjemo-Nysveen, MBaer’s former vice-chair, and her husband Alessandro Bazzoni, an Italian businessman, in connection with allegations that the bank was used to move proceeds tied to corruption at Venezuela’s state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), according to the FT.

Earlier this month, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed designating Zurich-based MBaer a “primary money laundering concern” under the Patriot Act, a move that can effectively bar foreign banks from doing business with U.S. financial institutions and other businesses even without the bureau issuing a formal designation. 

FinCEN said MBaer “directly or indirectly facilitated money laundering for or on behalf of illicit actors,” including Russians and Iranians, and that its origins were “anchored in Venezuela corruption”. PDVSA secretly sold millions of barrels of Venezuelan crude in circumvention of U.S. sanctions and embezzled the proceeds, depriving the Venezuelan public of the benefits of those sales, the bureau said. 

Treasury officials alleged Evjemo-Nysveen used her position at MBaer to “further payments” through the bank related to a PDVSA corruption scheme and acted on behalf of Bazzoni, then a minority shareholder in MBaer, who had been sanctioned by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in January 2021 for providing material support to PDVSA as part of a sanctions-evasion network, according to the FT. The newspaper noted that Bazzoni was later removed from the U.S. sanctions list.

Both figures are active in England’s polo circuit, the FT reported. Bazzoni is identified as patron of the Monterosso team, while Evjemo-Nysveen was described as patron of a team called Vikings. Bazzoni played in a charity polo tournament against Prince William in 2022 while he was still under U.S. sanctions, and Monterosso remained active in last summer’s English polo season, according to the report. 

The Treasury notice also alleged MBaer maintained an account for Jose Luis Chavez Calva, whom it described as a key figure in laundering billions of dollars derived from PDVSA corruption through European banks, the Financial Times reported. The notice alleged Calva handled funds derived from corruption on behalf of both Bazzoni and Alex Saab, described as a close associate of Bazzoni.

Switzerland’s financial regulator, Finma, withdrew MBaer’s banking licence last month, saying the bank lacked an adequate structure to combat money laundering. The bank has since entered liquidation, according to the report.

MBaer was founded in 2018 by Michael Bär, a great-grandson of the founder of Julius Baer, according to the FT. 

Read more at the Financial Times