Latvian honorary consul for Malta accused of €18 million fraud

Latvian honorary consul for Malta and lawyer Jānis Zelmenis has been accused of committing large-scale fraud and indicted in the Riga city court, according to Latvian news sources.

The lawyer, who has served as the honorary consul for Malta in Latvia since 2006, was part of a group of people accused of falsifying documents to fraudulently sell shares worth almost €18 million from a Latvian-registered New Zealand company.

The lawyer served as a representative of a Lichtenstein-registered business whose director, along with Zelmenis, forged documents that falsely identified them as owners of the New Zealand company’s shares. They used the falsified documents to sell the shares for their own profit between March 2016 and April 2018.

Zelmenis’ indictment was handed to the Riga city court on 27 February by the Latvian prosecutor’s office, which issued a statement detailing the accusation.

The prosecutor’s statement, which does not name the accused and his accomplice, describes how they obtained a duplicate share certificate by falsely claiming the original had been lost. Latvian news sources Delfi and TV NET later identified the accused as Zelmenis.

Zelmenis and his accomplice forged the duplicate documents, backdating them to a period in which they held administrative rights over the New Zealand company’s shares between September 2002 and October 2015.

In 2018, the fraudsters forged a second document, backdated to August 2015, authorising the transfer of 1,046 shares from the New Zealand company to their own Lichtenstein business, worth a total of €17,972,375.

Zelmenis has pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the charge and has said that he will use his right to remain silent, refusing to testify in court. His accomplice, the director of the Lichtenstein-registered business, will be charged separately.

Zelmenis was appointed honorary consul for Malta in 2006 and has held the position ever since. The consulate is meant to serve as a point of call for any Maltese citizens in Latvia who need assistance with matters such as lost travel documents or other emergencies.

Zelmenis has attended events celebrating Malta’s EU Presidency in 2017 and a conference in Dubai related to global residence and citizenship with disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat.

The Latvian Council of Sworn Advocates has not yet suspended the lawyer from his work as chairman of the Latvian arm of BDO Law. BDO Law is an international legal advisory and auditing company considered the fifth largest in the world.