Posts Tagged ‘michael schuman’
State-Run Shakedown
Alex Shifrin thought he found a surefire way to profit from Moscow’s new consumers with an old Russian tradition: soup. Russians can’t get enough of the stuff, slurping down an incredible 32 billion bowls each year. But with the city’s emerging middle class increasingly adopting Westernized, on-the-go lifestyles, soup fans have less time to boil it for themselves. Shifrin, an advertising executive, and three partners smelled an opportunity. Why not cook it for them? They pooled their personal savings and in April 2010 launched Soupchik, a chain of takeaway outlets serving up borscht, chicken noodle and other local favorites to upwardly mobile Muscovites.
The investors, however, learned that nothing in Russia is a sure thing, thanks to the unpredictable and predatory government. A steady stream of corrupt tax officials, police officers and other security agents began harassing them for payoffs. Within weeks of Soupchik’s opening, two tax inspectors claimed the start-up was violating an obscure retailing regulation. Shifrin protested, and amid the negotiations, a tax administrator suggested that some $1,000 in cash would resolve the matter. (Shifrin refused to ante up, and the tax office eventually dropped its case.)
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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
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- Sergei Magnitsky