Moscow tax official’s $39 million fortune revealed
A Moscow tax official who approved a fraudulent $230 million tax return in 2007 has bought luxury real estate in Moscow, Dubai and Montenegro and wired money through her husband’s bank accounts worth $39 million, a U.S. investor said Monday.
All that was done with an average annual household income equivalent to $38,000, according to documents released by William Browder, an American-born investor barred from Russia.
Browder has been campaigning against Russian corruption since 2009 when his lawyer died a year after being sent to prison. Authorities have not explained why Browder was himself expelled as a security risk in 2005 in the first place.
Browder, who used to head up Hermitage Capital Management in Moscow, a multibillion-dollar fund, is seeking to get justice for lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, who discovered the alleged fraud involving the Interior Ministry.
Magnitsky, who died in prison in 2009 after being charged with tax evasion linked to his defense of Hermitage, had discovered that officers at the Interior Ministry had seized ownership documents for three of the fund’s subsidiaries, then used those documents to register their own people as owners and directors.
They then reportedly filed a tax claim, saying they made a much smaller profit than originally described and asked for a tax return, according to Hermitage.
The $230 million refund was made in one day.
Magnitsky’s former employers, including Browder and Jamison Firestone, the head of the law firm where Magnitsky worked, revealed an array of documents Monday, which they said described the wealth of the tax official allegedly involved in the fraud.
The two are working together to expose the officials they believe are responsible for Magnitsky’s death and the tax fraud. More than a year later, Magnitsky’s death remains uninvestigated.
Browder and Firestone said the family of Olga Stepanova, who headed Moscow’s district tax office No. 28 until January this year, had incurred $39 million in expenses in the past few years.
Copies of bank account statements and property registration papers show Stepanova’s husband, an employee of a small construction firm, wire money through Switzerland’s Credit Suisse ( CS – news – people ) to build a $8 million luxury house west of Moscow and buy a vacation home in Montenegro and multi-million dollar properties on the Palm Jumeriah in Dubai in the name of his 85-year-old mother.
These transactions were allegedly made several weeks after Stepanova’s tax office authorized the $230 million tax refund.
Firestone on Monday sent the documents to Russia’s chief investigator and petitioned him to open a criminal probe against Stepanova and her colleagues.
Meanwhile, Browder said in a letter to Switzerland’s attorney general that criminal proceeds from the tax fraud may be held on various accounts in Credit Suisse.
The Interior Ministry has acknowledged the fraud but said it has been unable to locate the funds. The ministry said its officials had no part in the fraud and insisted the tax authorities were also innocent and had simply been deceived by the criminals.
Over the past year, authorities have turned down scores of petitions by Magnitsky’s former employers and human rights groups to investigate the Interior Ministry officials that Magnitsky believed were involved in the tax fraud.
Magnitsky posthumously received a prestigious anti-corruption award from Transparency International, an international anti-corruption watchdog.
Browder told the Associated Press on Monday that the documents came from a person who worked with Stepanova and her partners. Browder would not identify the person.
“This information is so complete and so damning that the Russian government will lose any legitimacy it has left in bilateral relations with the West if it doesn’t act and prosecute the officials who killed Sergei Magnitsky and stole $230 million from their own people,” Browder said. займ на карту займы онлайн на карту срочно https://zp-pdl.com/get-a-next-business-day-payday-loan.php https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php hairy women
Crime and Punishment in Putin’s Russia
Russian police say they have closed the case file on the country’s largest tax fraud. It occurred on December 24 in 2007, when Moscow tax officials approved a same-day refund of 5.4 billion rubles — or $230 million — to a gang masquerading as officers of Hermitage Capital, once the largest hedge-fund manager in Russia and founded by financiers Edmond Safra and Bill Browder. Interior Ministry police claim the complex scam was pulled off by a sawmill worker and a burglar, both currently serving five-year sentences, in cahoots with four others, all of whom are now dead. One had a fatal heart attack before the crime took place. A second fell from his balcony. The third plummeted out a penthouse window.
And then there was Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer for Hermitage who died in prison after complaining police were torturing him to retract evidence that the $230 million had been stolen by a ring of corrupt tax officials, Interior Ministry cops and career criminals. Magnitsky’s November 2009 death made him an icon to those who want to clean up Russia’s chronic corruption — yet the Interior Ministry surprisingly turned the tables, claiming he was one of the culprits. The police ministry exonerated the cops and tax officials who Magnitsky had accused — most of them got promotions.
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Limiting Russia’s Sovereign Democracy
Ever since Kremlin first deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov introduced the term “sovereign democracy” in 2006, senior government officials have claimed that the West does not have a right to meddle in Russia’s domestic affairs, particularly regarding human rights issues. But according to the post-World War II paradigm governing international law, gross human rights abuses are a global concern, regardless of where they occur.
Russia’s interpretation of national sovereignty is back in the spotlight after the Western coalition started bombing Libya last month. Although the military intervention was approved by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, with Russia abstaining, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin likened it to medieval crusades and said the West should not interfere in “internal political conflicts.”
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Some EU countries ready to impose sanctions on Russian officials who could be involved in Magnitsky case
Interfax
Some EU countries are considering introducing sanctions on Russian officials who could be responsible for the death of Hermitage Foundation lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
“The foreign ministers of some EU countries are ready to take practical measures and decisions in this area,” European Parliamentarian Heidi Hautala told a press conference at the Interfax central office on Monday.
The statement on the possible sanctions made in the European parliament became a powerful signal to the entire EU to take decisive measures, she said.
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Russia raps U.S. state dept human rights report
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that last week’s U.S. State Department report, criticizing Moscow’s human rights record, reflected double standards and was politicized.
“As before, the document has unfortunately become obvious evidence of the use of “double standards” and the politicization of human rights issues by the United States,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its website www.mid.ru.
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European Parliament members: Russia must permit free assembly, elections
Two members of the European Parliament, visiting Moscow to meet with human rights organizations, called on Russia on Monday to permit citizens to assemble freely without harassment and to guarantee free and fair elections for parliament later this year and for president next year.
“If the elections are not free,” said Kristiina Ojuland, a member of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, “it’s clear the next Parliament would have no legitimacy.”
Ojuland and Heidi Hautula, head of the parliament’s human rights committee, praised Russia for promising an independent investigation into the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the imprisoned former billionaire, but said those officials responsible for the death in pretrial detention of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky must be tried and punished.
“We will see very soon if something is accomplished,” Hautula said, “or if it’s just another nice gesture by the president without too many consequences.”
Perhaps hundreds of other similar cases have not reached public attention, Ojuland said. payday loan hairy woman https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php https://zp-pdl.com займы онлайн на карту срочно
“The State We’re In – Seeking Justice” – Bill Browder Interview with RNW
A debt of honour
William Browder managed the biggest investment fund in Russian history and it was stolen from him by corrupt government officials. The lawyer for his firm, Sergei Magnitsky, was imprisoned, tortured, and died after one year in custody. Now William is taking up the fight in honour of Sergei’s belief that justice will eventually prevail. займ на карту онлайн онлайн займы zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php unshaven girls
