IS THIS HOW RUSSIANS ARE PAYING FOR THEIR DOMINICA DIPLOMATIC AND CBI PASSPORTS ?

Meet Dmitrijus Apockinas, a Lithuanian banker, educated in Moscow. He is so close to Dominica's Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, that the PM named his son after him; Skerrit's first-born legitimate son is named Dimitri. Apockinas, who has a fistful of Dominica passports, currently lives and works in London.

It was not always so; longtime Caribbean observers may recall that he was the owner of Griffon Bank, Ltd., an offshore Dominican bank then located in the Government finance Centre, on Kennedy Avenue, precisely where Skerrit maintained his offices. Griffon was later sold to his Russian partner in crime, Vladimir Antonov, who needs no introduction. Antonov is currently in custody in Russia for bank fraud, among other charges. He allegedly was involved in criminal activity, including money laundering, in both the Baltic countries (Bank Snoras), and in Russia, which has been previously reported on this blog.

 Both Antonov and Apockinas own the West Indies Power Company (WIPO), which was rumored to have paid a substantial bribe to secure a government license from Dominica, to engage in geothermal drilling on the island nation.

 The bank was renamed Banco Transatlantico, and a branch was organized in the Republic of Panama as Banco Transatlantico SA. Antonov was the Vice President, and Apockinas was Secretary; the president was Jorge Jelinsky. Transatlantico subsequently went into liquidation in Dominica, and bank customers lost all their deposits.

After the bank's failure, Apockinas holds a number of positions, including at Net Element, Inc., a payments processing company on South Florida. His LinkedIn page claims that he was the CFO there. He relocated to London, currently residing in Penbroke Gardens.

Last year, he sets up a tele-pay company in the United Kingdom, PayAlly Limited. His partners are:

(1) Rafal Andzejevski, a Lithuanian engaged in trading with Russia, primarily petroleum products.
(2) Maxim Ivanchenko, a Russian national, and IT specialist, and the founder of Advapay OU, which is registered in Estonia.

Though PayAlly has a London base, it also maintains a customer support facility, for Russian-speaking clients, located in Warsaw, according to the published telephone number.

The question remains:  is Apockinas facilitating payments, by wealthy Russian nationals, for Dominica diplomatic and CBI passports, through Payally, and its affiliates ?