On Thursday, 26 May, Riga City Council Vidzeme Suburb Court decided decided to put under arrest a suspect in the insolvency administrator and lawyer Mārtiņš Bunkus criminal case – businessman Mihails Uļmans.
Uļmans has the right to appeal the court’s decision at Riga Regional Court.
On Wednesday the court applied an arrest to another suspect in this criminal case – businessman Aleksandrs Babenko. His defence attorney Helēna Purviņa told journalists that this decision will be appealed. At the same time, she said the regional course will likely insist on bail.
Latvian State Police announced on Tuesday that police have managed to determine nearly all people involved in the crime – from the one who ordered the hit to the person who did the deed. Multiple persons were detained by police on 24 May.
The case is now based on the section of the Criminal Law regarding murder committed in especially aggravating circumstances by an organised group of people.
This crime is punishable with life-long prison sentence or 15 to 20 years in prison.
At the same time, police urge the people who may have information that may prove valuable for the investigation and who have yet to provide it, to do it voluntarily.
Uļmans and Babenko are former business partners. Representatives of Bunkus’ family members had previously mentioned Uļmans’ name in the context of Mārtiņš Bunkus’ murder. In 2016 Bunkus himself turned to the police after receiving death threats. That same year Uļmans had a conflict with Bunkus in the Rego Trade insolvency case, in which the administrator requested enforcement of several hundred thousand euros from the businessman in court.
Food wholesale trade company Rego Trade was declared insolvent in spring 2008. After becoming its insolvency administrator, Bunkus found that the company’s board members – Uļmans, Aleksandrs Budovskis and Dans Vapne – had used up Rego Trade assets before the company was declared insolvent. The administrator therefore turned to court against them, requesting enforcement of funds. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the administrator’s plea and enforced from Uļmans LVL 265 626 (EUR 377 952) in 2012.
Rego Trade insolvency was the only active insolvency procedure in which Bunkus was the administrator.
Uļmans took the accusations from Bunkus’ family to court, requesting compensation for baseless accusations. He lost the case. In May 2021 the Supreme Court refused to commence a cassation lawsuit following Uļmans’ request. This was the court of third instance that decided to not commence a procedure based on this case. Riga Regional Court had concluded that Bunkus family had a justified reason to say that Uļmans had employed different methods to force or convince Bunkus to drop the case against LLC Rego trade.
The brother of the victim Kristaps Bunkus made a public announcement at the start of 2022. In it he suspected the former high-ranking police official Andrejs Sozinovs of having ties with Uļmans. «In 2016 sworn attorney Mārtiņš Bunkus attempted to warn law enforcement institutions of suspicious coincidences in the career of the chief of Criminal Police Sozinovs. M.Bunkus reported it to the Finance and Economic Crimes Prosecution Office, KNAB and ENAP, as well as Prosecutor General’s Office regarding the ties between Sozinovs and the owner of Latvian Post Bank Mihails Uļmans and possible cooperation between them. Specifically, when Sozinovs was chief of Riga Region Criminal Police, he was able to combine duties with work at Uļmans’ owned bank, first officially and later, possibly unofficially. This caused suspicions that Sozinovs, as chief of Criminal Police, may have acted in the interest of certain businessmen,» K.Bunkus wrote.
According to information from Firmas.lv, Uļmans worked in multiple companies. Between 2015 and 2017 he was co-owner of Mego. 60% of shares of Mego are owned by LLC Gruodis, whose sole owner is Babenko.
LLC Mono is the sole owner of JSC LPB Bank. Mono, on the other hand, is owned by Uļmans (49.4%), US citizen Aleksandr Plotkin (32.7%) and Kajem Biomin (17.9%), according to information from Firmas.lv. Asset-wise, LPB Bank was the 10th largest bank in Latvia in 2020. According to provisional data, LPB Bank worked with profits of EUR 5.4 million last year.
Bunkus was shot in the morning on 30 May 2018. He was shot in his car when passing Riga Forest Cemetery. Shortly after the murder police found a burned down car with a fake registration number plate not far from the scene of the crime.