Posts Tagged ‘new york times’
Putin Plays Hardball
This week marks the fifth anniversary of Sergei Magnitsky’s death in a Russian prison. He was 37 years old, a member of the emerging middle class who worked as a lawyer for a man named Bill Browder, the leader of the largest Russia-only investment firm in the world. Browder’s company, Hermitage Capital Management, started with $25 million during the Wild West-era of early Russian capitalism and had $4.5 billion in assets by the early 2000s.
Over time, Browder became an activist investor of sorts, exposing corruption in Russian companies and trying to make Russian capitalism more transparent. In doing so, he thought, he could both steer Russian companies a little closer to the Western model while also making money for his firm.
But, when Vladimir Putin became the president of Russia in 2000, he and his cronies were not interested in corporate transparency. How could they line their pockets if everything was transacted out in the open? So Browder became persona non grata. After a trip to Britain in 2005, he was refused re-entry. A few fictitious documents later, and Hermitage had $1 billion in “liabilities.” Then, a handful of officials involved in a takeover of Hermitage requested — and received within 24 hours! — a $230 million tax refund. It was a textbook example of the kind of corporate pillaging for which the Putin kleptocracy became infamous.
Browder pleaded with Magnitsky to flee the country, as his other lawyers had done. But Magnitsky insisted on investigating — and speaking out about — the fraud that had taken place. For his troubles, he was imprisoned in 2008. By summer of 2009, he had developed pancreatitis, which went untreated despite his pleas. He died that November. Browder says that when he learned of Magnitsky’s death, it was “the worst news I had ever received in my life.”
Read More →
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
Putin in the Times
President Putin’s “plea for caution” to the U.S. in the New York Times raises two questions – one a matter of fact, the other a question of sincerity.
The factual question concerns the attack itself. Putin acknowledges that someone used poison gas in Syria but argues that “there is every reason to believe” it was the rebels. He offers no support for this key assertion.
The Russians are capable of amassing evidence. They have already done so in the case of the possible chemical-weapons attack March 19 in Khan al-Assal in which 26 persons were killed. Their 100-page report was presented to the United Nations with its principal conclusions released on the eve of the G-20 St. Petersburg summit. Why then, despite having excellent sources in the Syrian government, are they unable to provide any evidence to support their arguments in the case of Ghouta where the death toll was 1,429?
The other question raised by Putin’s op-ed is that of sincerity. Putin discourses at length about the importance of the United Nations, where Russia has a veto, and of international law. But is it reasonable to trust the stated defense of international law by a country which is itself completely lawless?
In December, 2012, the U.S. passed the Magnitsky Act which provided for a travel ban and the confiscation of assets of Russians implicated in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who exposed a massive tax-cheating scheme run by high-ranking Russian officials. Were Russia a law-based state, its leadership would have been grateful to the U.S. for this added assistance in bringing criminals to justice. Instead, the leadership defended the criminals and retaliated against the U.S. legislation by banning the adoption by American families of Russian children.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
U.S. Seeks Forfeiture of Manhattan Real Estate Tied to Fraud
Federal authorities announced on Tuesday that they were seeking forfeiture of expensive Manhattan real estate tied to a fraud that they say was uncovered by a whistle-blowing Russian lawyer before he died behind bars.
A civil forfeiture complaint filed against the assets of a Cyprus-based real estate corporation and other holding companies contends that some of the proceeds from a $230 million tax fraud in Russia were laundered through the purchase of four luxury condominiums in a Wall Street doorman building, where apartments can sell for more than $3 million, and two commercial spaces in prime locations in Midtown and Chelsea.
“Today’s forfeiture action is a significant step toward uncovering and unwinding a complex money-laundering scheme arising from a notorious foreign fraud,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement. “While New York is a world financial capital, it is not a safe haven for criminals seeking to hide their loot, no matter how and where their fraud took place.”
The whistle-blower, Sergei Magnitsky, was a lawyer for the British investor William Browder, who was born in the United States. Mr. Magnitsky said in 2008 that organized criminals colluded with corrupt Russian Interior Ministry officials to fraudulently claim a $230 million tax rebate after illegally seizing subsidiaries of Mr. Browder’s Hermitage Capital investment company.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
U.S.-Russian Ties Still Fall Short of ‘Reset’ Goal
Just days before Vladimir V. Putin reassumed the presidency of Russia last year, President Obama dispatched his national security adviser to Moscow. Mr. Obama had made considerable progress with Dmitri A. Medvedev, the caretaker president, and wanted to preserve the momentum.
Any hopes of that, however, were quickly dashed when Mr. Putin sat down with the visiting American adviser, Tom Donilon, at the lavish presidential residence outside Moscow. Rather than talk of cooperation, Mr. Putin opened the meeting with a sharp challenge underscoring his deep suspicion of American ambitions:
“When,” he asked pointedly, “are you going to start bombing Syria?”
At the time, Mr. Obama had no plans for military involvement in the civil war raging in the heart of the Middle East, but Mr. Putin did not believe that. In Mr. Putin’s view, the United States wanted only to meddle in places where it had no business, fomenting revolutions to install governments friendly to Washington.
The meeting 16 months ago set the stage for a tense new chapter in Russian-American relations, one that will play out publicly this week when Mr. Obama travels to St. Petersburg for a Group of 20 summit meeting hosted by Mr. Putin. Although Mr. Obama had no intention of bombing Syria last year, on Saturday he said he now favored military action against Syrian forces, not to depose the government of Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally, but in retaliation for gassing its own citizens — an assertion Mr. Putin denounced as “utter nonsense” to justify American intervention.
While it was the Kremlin’s decision last month to shelter Edward J. Snowden, the National Security Agency leaker, that finally prompted Mr. Obama to call off a separate one-on-one meeting he had scheduled with Mr. Putin while in Russia, the core of the schism is not so much that case as the radically different worldviews revealed by the Syria dispute. Where Mr. Obama feels compelled to take action to curb the use of unconventional weapons, Mr. Putin sees American imperialism at work again.
The story of the administration’s “reset” policy toward Russia is a case study in how the heady idealism of Mr. Obama’s first term has given way to the disillusionment of his second. Critics say he was naïve to think he could really make common cause with Moscow. Aides say it was better to try than not, and it did yield tangible successes in arms control, trade and military cooperation before souring.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Dead Lawyer, a Kremlin Critic, Is Found Guilty of Tax Evasion
The steel cage reserved for the defendants was empty Thursday, which was not surprising since one of them is dead and the other lives in London. As the judge, his voice nearly inaudible, read out his verdict, one of the main defense lawyers paid no attention, tapping nonchalantly on his tablet computer instead.
If the posthumous prosecution of Sergei L. Magnitsky, the lawyer who was jailed as he tried to expose a huge government tax fraud and died four years ago in a Russian prison after being denied proper medical care, seemed surreal from the moment the authorities announced it, the verdict and sentencing on Thursday did not disappoint.
By all accounts, it was Russia’s first trial of a dead man, and in the tiny third-floor courtroom of the Tverskoi District Court, it took the judge, Igor B. Alisov, more than an hour and a half to read his decision pronouncing Mr. Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion.
Mr. Magnitsky was convicted along with a former client, William F. Browder, a financier who lives in Britain and was tried in absentia on the same charges. Mr. Browder, once Russia’s largest foreign portfolio investor, was sentenced to nine years in prison — a sentence that he will almost certainly never serve. Interpol in late May refused a request by the Russian government to track Mr. Browder’s whereabouts, a relatively rare instance of a law enforcement inquiry’s being set aside as politically motivated.
Mr. Browder, who has been barred from Russia since 2005, said in a telephone interview from London on Thursday that he believed that the Kremlin was acting out of desperation.
“Russia is a criminal regime,” Mr. Browder said. “The Russian state is a criminal state. And in order to operate in Russia, you have two options as a businessman: you can become part of the criminality, in which case you become a criminal, or you can oppose it, in which case you become a victim, and there’s no way you can avoid it.”
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
So much for the reset
The news that Russia has no plans to hand over former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden casts an important light on the “reset” policy that has defined US–Russian relations for almost five years.
The Snowden case should be relatively straightforward. He has violated the laws of the US. His passport has been cancelled, and he cannot legally leave the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. The US has asked for his return. In the last five years, the US has returned 1,700 Russian citizens to Russia at the request of the government. Of these, 500 were criminal deportations.
Despite this, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Snowden had the right to “fly in any direction” from the transit zone. This type of response was exactly what the reset policy was supposed to prevent. The policy was based on the notion that President Bush had mishandled Russia and responsiveness to Russian concerns would produce positive results. The policy, however, had a serious flaw. It failed to account for the nature of the Russian system and the psychology of the Russian leaders.
In making policy toward Russia, the US has concentrated on what are called “deliverables” — treaties, agreements, working groups. In the interest of obtaining these deliverables, the US deliberately downplayed Russian violations of human rights. When Putin was elected president of Russia for the third time in elections marked by massive falsification, Obama congratulated him. At the 2009 Moscow Summit, Obama praised the “extraordinary work” that Putin had done in Russia. He described Putin as “sincere, just and deeply interested in the interests of the Russian people.” This was done despite credible reports that while running Russia, Putin had amassed a personal fortune of nearly $40 billion and was the richest man in Europe.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
INTERPOL REBUFFS RUSSIA ON HUNT FOR BRITON, A KREMLIN CRITIC
Interpol has rejected a Russian request for a worldwide police hunt for William F. Browder, a British investment banker and a Kremlin nemesis who has made no secret of his whereabouts or of his battle against the government of President Vladimir V. Putin over accusations of human rights abuses.
The decision, announced on Friday by Interpol, to delete all information about Mr. Browder from its databases amounted to a rare — and sharp — rebuke of Russia for trying to use international law enforcement agencies in a political dispute.
Mr. Browder, once the largest private foreign investor in Russia, has crusaded against Russia’s government since the death of his lawyer, Sergei L. Magnitsky, in a Russian prison in 2009, apparently after he was denied proper medical care.
Mr. Magnitsky was arrested while trying to expose a government corruption scheme, in which a company once owned by Mr. Browder was used to file a fraudulent $230 million tax return.
In December, President Obama signed a law named for Mr. Magnitsky that aims to punish human rights abuses in Russia by prohibiting Russians accused of such violations from traveling to the United States or holding financial assets there. Russia retaliated with its own law on human rights abuses by Americans, and barred American citizens from adopting Russian children.
Mr. Browder was a major force behind the American legislation and has been pushing for similar laws to be adopted in Europe.
Mr. Putin and other officials have brushed off questions about why no one has been convicted in Mr. Magnitsky’s death, and they have increasingly sought to portray Mr. Magnitsky and Mr. Browder as criminals.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Russia Expels Former American Embassy Official
A former senior Justice Department official at the American Embassy here was declared “persona non grata” and barred from Russia this month, according to people familiar with the case, possibly because he had rebuffed an effort by the Russian Federal Security Service to recruit him as a spy.
The former official, Thomas Firestone, had been living and working in Moscow as a lawyer for an American law firm, and had extensive contacts in the Russian government. He was detained at Sheremetyevo airport outside Moscow on May 5 while trying to return to Russia from a trip abroad; the authorities held him for 16 hours and then put him on a flight to the United States.
Mr. Firestone was contacted in March by Russian intelligence operatives who sought to enlist him to spy for the Russians, according to one person who is familiar with the case. Mr. Firestone turned them down, the person said. It was not clear whether the episode was the cause of his ejection from Russia.
The Obama administration has raised the matter of Mr. Firestone’s expulsion with the Russian government, according to one American government official. Spokesmen for the White House, the State Department, and the American Embassy in Moscow all declined to comment.
Details of Mr. Firestone’s case emerged on Sunday as Ryan C. Fogle, an American Embassy official who was arrested in Moscow last week in an embarrassing spy scandal, finally left Russia, as the Russian Foreign Ministry had demanded. Mr. Fogle, whose official title at the embassy in Moscow was third secretary of the political desk, was arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service, and was accused of trying to recruit a Russian counterterrorism officer to spy for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Senior political leaders, including Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, have made clear that they do not intend to let the Russian-American spy games disrupt their cooperation on larger issues of international security, in particular a conference in Geneva aimed at resolving the civil war in Syria.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
One Man Against the Kremlin
William F. Browder has succeeded in making the Kremlin very angry, which is perhaps the best he could hope for after a remarkable three-year campaign to hold Russian government officials accountable for the wrongful death of Sergei L. Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer, in a Moscow prison in 2009.
Luckily for Mr. Browder, when Russia’s leaders get really mad, they tend to spray the landscape with ammunition that often ends up hitting themselves in the feet, sometimes in the face.
From his London office, decorated with wall-to-wall framed newspaper articles about his case, Mr. Browder keeps turning each incoming attack into further proof that he is dealing with what he calls an evil, murderous, duplicitous and vengeful regime headed by President Vladimir V. Putin.
“What is the crux of the matter?” asked Mr. Browder, a U.S.-born British citizen, answering a question about the recent arrest warrant issued against him by a Moscow court.
“The crux is that in Russia, there is a kleptocracy run by Putin, and all the guys around him,” he said, warming to a familiar theme. “They’re not in their job for the execution of public service; their job is to steal money.”
On the face of it, the Browder vs. Russia match is uneven: One Man Against the Kremlin is almost a comic book title. In fact, it leveled out last December when the U.S. Congress, after heavy lobbying by Mr. Browder, adopted the so-called Magnitsky list, which imposes sanctions on 18 Russian officials alleged to have been complicit in the lawyer’s mistreatment. At that moment, Mr. Browder’s crusade turned into a major diplomatic onslaught, adding another issue to an already tense U.S.-Russia relationship.
Mr. Browder said that the Russian reaction, notably a ban on the adoption of Russian children by Americans, was aimed at Europe, where similar sanctions against Russian officials — visa bans and a freezing of assets — could hurt members of a governing elite who have chosen to shelter their assets, and in some cases their families, there.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
