Raids were conducted in three locations in Luxembourg yesterday on behalf of the Office of the Special Prosecutor in Iceland in connection with the office’s investigation on alleged market abuse and breach of trust in Landsbanki before its collapse in 2008.

Landsbanki. Photo by Páll Stefánsson.

“Six of us are [in Luxembourg] working on this affair on behalf of the office and 24 of its other employees have also been involved,” Special Prosecutor Ólafur Þór Hauksson told Morgunblaðið.

The locations that were searched were the office of Landsbanki’s bankruptcy estate in Luxembourg and the offices of two related companies.

The raids were conducted in collaboration with the local police but no one was arrested. Data has been confiscated, but Ólafur would not reveal further details.

“It is always the procedure that when Icelandic authorities request actions abroad it is done by local authorities,” Ólafur explained.

According to Fréttablaðið, yesterday’s raids were connected to nine different cases and are based on three requisitions that were submitted in the summer of 2011.

Among them are four cases on which raids and arrests that took place in Iceland in January 2011 were based: Landsbanki’s alleged market abuse with shares issued by the bank; loans to Hunslow S.A., Bruce Assets Limited, Pro-Invest Partners Corp and Sigurður Bollason ehf. for purchase of shares in Landsbanki; Landsbanki’s purchase of the loan portfolio of Landsbanki in Luxembourg; and purchase of shares in the bank on behalf of companies which protected the purchasing right of Landsbanki’s employees and granted loans to companies in their ownership.

“The investigation of these affairs is going fairly well,” Ólafur concluded.

Click here to read more about the investigations of the Special Prosecutor’s Office.

ESA