The Face of Latvia’s Scandal-Ridden Financial System Is Caught in a Corruption Case

Ilmārs Rimšēvičs, the governor of the Latvian central bank, had been enjoying the start of his vacation in Spain when a buzzing phone interrupted his dinner. The call on that February evening brought bad news. Back in Riga, police were searching his home and his office at the bank. Rimšēvičs, who along with heading the Bank of Latvia for almost two decades sits on the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, flew home in ignominy. When he landed, police detained him and questioned him for 48 hours on suspicion of bribery and corruption.

Several months later, Rimšēvičs is still seething at the way he was treated. “Why was it necessary?” he asks, working to contain his anger. The compactly built 53-year-old economist is looking elegant: dark blue suit, close-cropped hair, a sleek watch on his wrist. But the extent to which his personal circumstances and professional standing have been tarnished is obvious. Our hourlong interview takes place in his lawyer’s office because he’s barred from using his own inside the central bank’s imposing neo-Renaissance building on K. Valdemara Street. “Why,” he asks again, “could this investigation not go on under normal circumstances without having this widely public scene of detention?”