A rising number of Russian banks are involved in dubious foreign currency cash operations performed by individuals, the Russian Central Bank said in a letter.
The same people buy foreign currency cash worth no less than $100,000 at a time in different banks regularly, sometimes daily or several times a day. The foreign currency is never sold.
The Interior Ministry on request from the central bank questioned some of the people who said that they either did not buy foreign currency on that day, or bought it in lesser volumes.
Checks of the source of the money is only formal, without requests for documents or comparison with the sums of operations, the Vedomosti newspaper reported.
The newspaper added that such operations are done for illegal foreign exchange points, which service the shady economy and swap uncollected revenue of wholesale outlets and markets.
The central bank said that such operations can be done "with corruption or other illegal aims" and demanded that banks improve their system of checking the source of income.
