Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russian Accounts Frozen at Credit Suisse

Barron’s Online

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.