Latvian Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis said he will lead a new effort to prosecute and prevent money laundering in the Baltic state to avoid international sanctions against the country's banks

Latvian Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis said he will lead a new effort to prosecute and prevent money laundering in the Baltic state to avoid international sanctions against the country's banks. "Signals from the U.S. and elsewhere about suspected money laundering in Latvia have intensified in recent months," Kalvitis, who took office in December, said at a news conference Wednesday. "If we don't take action, Latvia could lose a large part of its banking business and even face sanctions." Latvia, a country of 2.4 million people that joined the European Union in May, is home to 22 banks and one foreign bank branch, some of which are active in neighboring Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. The U.S. government's annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, published last March, listed Latvia alongside bigger countries like the United States, Britain, Germany and France in terms of "the significance of criminal proceeds laundered." Kalvitis said he will head a new Anti-Money Laundering Council, which will also include senior officials from Latvia's central bank, general prosecutor's office and court system. "Amid thousands of suspicious transactions, we've had no convictions" for money laundering "and no one can say if there are 50, 100, or however many real cases" of money laundering, Kalvitis said. "We have to check them all, to eliminate the suspicions and stop whatever crimes there are." The New York branch of ABN AMRO, the Netherlands' biggest bank, last year cut links with almost 100 banks in Russia, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean after the Federal Reserve said it was improperly moving funds of dubious origin through the U.S. financial system, The Wall Street Journal reported in September, citing U.S. officials and filings in a U.S. district court. Connections with banks in Latvia were under particular scrutiny, the Journal said.