Making Russian Sanctions Stick and Fighting Financial Crime, with Ilze Znotina

Financial Crime Matters

Kieran talks with Ilze Znotina about the challenges Latvia has faced over the past four years she has been head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, including enforcing sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. “Baltic states have suffered… a very similar situation that Ukraine is suffering right now, [but] thankfully not in recent years,” Ilze says, adding that the region is for that reason united in trying to make the sanctions work. “[Ukraine] fights for themselves and all of us in the Baltic states,” she says. Ilze, who became head of the FIU in the wake of the collapse of the country’s second largest bank and under the looming threat the Financial Action Task Force would place the country on its so-called “grey list,” also details how Latvia has moved from those darker days to put in place vigorous anti-financial crime controls.