Posts Tagged ‘mark galeotti’
Latvia Adopts Euro, Dirty Money an Issue
When Latvia adopts the euro on Jan. 1, it will bring with it a banking sector that is swelling with suspicious money from Russia and the East—just as the currency bloc is clamping down on money laundering and other illicit banking activities.
It was just nine months ago that the eurozone had to rescue Cyprus, a similarly tiny member state that also specialized in attracting huge deposits from Russia and former Soviet states. Since then, eurozone leaders have vowed to crack down on financial sanctuaries and improve transparency.
But as the 18th member of the eurozone, Latvia is likely to see a greater—not smaller—influx of dirty money as the country will be viewed as safer than its eastern neighbors while financial oversight remains loose.
“Immediately after Latvia joins the eurozone, I imagine we’re going to see an actual spike in dubious money flowing in,” said Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University who researches organized crime in the former Soviet Union.
Read More →
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
Do Snowden and Browder matter?
The United States wants Snowden back, but Ambassador McFaul insists it’s not extradition, just “returning” him. I’m still not clear on the distinction between forcibly “returning” someone they don’t want to go and extraditing them, or maybe we’re in hoods-and-shackled rendition territory. In any case, even if with no great eagerness, the Russian government instead looks likely to grant his asylum request.
Meanwhile, Moscow petitioned Interpol to put out a “Red Notice” – an international arrest warrant – on financier Bill Browder, the man who seems to have replaced not-so-dearly departed Boris Berezovsky as the Kremlin’s bête noire. The body that reviews such requests, the snappily-named Independent Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files, decided that this was essentially a political rather than criminal case and declined the request. They had already rejected a “Blue Notice” that would have required member states to gather information on Browder and send it to the Russians.
And, of course, Moscow still regards arms dealer, convicted terrorist supplier and reputed Russian spy Viktor Bout, currently serving 25 years in a U.S. federal penitentiary, as a political prisoner and wants him back.
All of this obviously matters to the principals in question and also to diplomats, for whom this kind of dispute is meat and drink. But does it really matter in the big picture?
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Interpol won’t arrest Moscow’s foreign enemy number one
Interpol has refused a Russian request to issue an international arrest warrant for controversial hedge fund manager Bill Browder. Although the Russian Interior Ministry claims it was “puzzled” by the decision, this simply represents the latest phase in an unprecedented struggle between the multi-millionaire and the Russian government.
Browder was an early investor in Russia, co-founding Hermitage Capital in 1996. After ten years of rapid expansion in Russia, though, the company began to run into problems in 2006 when Browder was barred from the country. In 2007, Hermitage officers were raided by the police, who claimed it had been used to defraud the tax authorities of $230 million. In 2008, one of Browder’s lawyers, Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested: after eleven months of pre-trial detention, he died in prison, having been denied medical treatment.
Browder has countered the official charges with allegations that they were a front for the theft of assets by a criminal conspiracy within Russian officialdom and successfully lobbied for the passage in the U.S. of the 2012 Magnitsky Law, blacklisting 60 officials regarded as involved in the theft and the subsequent persecution of Magnitsky in prison.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
