Briton uses YouTube to accuse Russian tax official of £25m fraud
The Sunday Times
A leading British investor has accused a Russian official and her husband of embezzling more than £25m (€29m) through their part in a scam that led to the theft of three of his companies and the largest tax fraud in Russia’s history.
William Browder, a British citizen born in America who has been barred from Russia since 2005, has gathered evidence that, he claims, shows a senior Moscow tax official and her husband went on a multimillion-pound spending spree, despite earning a combined annual salary of only £25,000.
It happened after interior ministry officials allegedly stole three companies from Hermitage Capital, Browder’s London-based investment fund, and used them to apply for a fraudulent £140m tax rebate, which was paid in a single day.
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Russia summons British hedge fund exec concerning murder of lawyer investigating corruption in Moscow
Russian Interior Ministry investigator Oleg Silchenko, who was responsible for the false arrest, torture and murder in custody of Hermitage Fund’s lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, has issued a summons to question the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, William Browder, in Moscow.
The summons came by fax from Silchenko just two days before the date of the intended questioning. Silchenko’s notice was printed on Russian Interior Ministry letterhead and was faxed to Hermitage’s London office on 10 May, inviting William Browder to appear in Moscow two days later on May 12, at 11am at the Ministry of Interior Investigative Committee: Office 71, 10/2 B Nikitskaya, Moscow, Russian Federation.
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Russians accused of Swiss money laundering
Russian tax officials are being investigated for alleged money laundering in Switzerland, the federal prosecutor’s office has confirmed.
The Swiss money laundering reporting office received a complaint from legal representatives of an investment fund run by Hermitage Capital Management, a company based in Guernsey that specializes in Russian markets.
The company’s head, Bill Browder, who works out of London, said Switzerland has frozen the accounts of the husband of one of the Russian tax officials suspected of financial fraud.
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Assets probed in Russian lawyer’s killing
The people responsible for killing Russian lawyer Sergey Magnitsky have stolen money in European accounts, his former boss says.
Bill Browder, head of Hermitage Capital Management, and his staff have spent a year hunting the assets of Russian officials exposed in a $250 million tax fraud by Magnitsky soon before he was jailed, the EUObserver reports.
Magnitsky died under suspicious circumstances in police custody Nov. 16, 2009, after almost a year in prison.
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Stolen Russian tax money is in EU banks, US sleuth says
People responsible for the death of Russian lawyer Sergey Magnitsky have salted away stolen money in EU bank accounts, Magnitsky’s former employer has claimed.
Bill Browder, the US-born head of the UK investment firm, Hermitage Capital Management, and five of his staff have spent the past year hunting down the assets of Russian officials exposed in a €175 million tax fraud by Magnitsky shortly before he was jailed and murdered in his cell.
Browder scored a victory last week when Swiss authorities froze a number of accounts in the Credit Suisse bank following evidence brought to light by Hermiatge and broadcast on YouTube.
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Swiss freeze Russian accounts over giant tax swindle
The Swiss authorities have frozen the bank accounts of Russian tax officials alleged to have pulled off Russia’s largest tax fraud, a U.S. magazine has said.
Credit Suisse accounts held by a former Moscow tax bureau head, Olga Stepanova, and her deputies were blocked at the request of Swiss prosecutors, according to an article in Barron’s Magazine.
Stepanova is alleged to have approved a $230 million tax refund in 2007 to a ring of embezzlers masquerading as representatives of subsidiaries of British investment company Hermitage Capital Management, once the leading foreign portfolio investor in Russia.
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Russian Accounts Frozen at Credit Suisse
Swiss authorities have apparently closed bank accounts held by Russians alleged to have been part of a giant Russian tax swindle.
Swiss law enforcement officials have apparently frozen the Credit Suisse (ticker: CS) bank accounts of the Russians alleged to have participated in Russia’s largest reported tax swindle.
Records from those bank accounts formed the basis of a Barron’s story (“Crime and Punishment in Putin’s Russia,” April 18) which showed that the family of an influential Russian tax official, Olga Stepanova, became fabulously wealthy after she approved part of a $230 million tax refund to scammers in 2007 who used corporate identities stolen from the well-known Russia-focused hedge fund Hermitage Capital. When Hermitage and its attorney Sergei Magnitsky presented evidence that the conspiracy involved Stepanova and police officials in Russia’s Internal Ministry, the police instead arrested Magnitsky and kept him in detention until he died in prison in November 2009.
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Magnitsky and The Mentality Of the Siloviki
A new conflict broke out between the Interior Ministry and the British hedge fund Hermitage Capital when a Moscow court Wednesday ordered the arrest of Ivan Cherkasov, a Hermitage partner who has lived in Britain since 2006.
The case against Cherkasov was presented in court by Interior Ministry investigator Oleg Silchenko.
Silchenko’s involvement in this case is an affront to President Dmitry Medvedev’s efforts to attract foreign investors, clean up the police force and protect business from the extortion of “law enforcers.”
Silchenko’s name first surfaced in 2007, when he led a case against Manana Aslamazyan, then-head of Internews International in Russia. Internews trained more than 15,000 regional journalists.
Aslamazyan was caught after she passed through customs at a Moscow airport with slightly more than the limit of $10,000, which she did not declare. This minor offense is usually punishable with a small fine, but Silchenko and colleagues turned it into an attack against Internews. The NGO had to close after its financial documents were seized by investigators.
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The European Union – Russian Federation human rights
On 4 May 2011, the European Union and the Russian Federation held their thirteenth round of human rights consultations in Brussels. The consultations were held in an open and constructive atmosphere. The EU and Russia focussed in particular on the rule of law and the working of civil society as well as cooperation in international fora and the fight against discrimination. The EU and Russia also discussed the rights of the child.
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To learn more about what happened to Sergei Magnitsky please read below
- Sergei Magnitsky
- Why was Sergei Magnitsky arrested?
- Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and death in prison
- President’s investigation sabotaged and going nowhere
- The corrupt officers attempt to arrest 8 lawyers
- Past crimes committed by the same corrupt officers
- Petitions requesting a real investigation into Magnitsky's death
- Worldwide reaction, calls to punish those responsible for corruption and murder
- Complaints against Lt.Col. Kuznetsov
- Complaints against Major Karpov
- Cover up
- Press about Magnitsky
- Bloggers about Magnitsky
- Corrupt officers:
- Sign petition
- Citizen investigator
- Join Justice for Magnitsky group on Facebook
- Contact us
- Sergei Magnitsky
