HOW DID YOU GET SO RICH, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH? U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity provided an outline of official corruption under Putin, including several officials among the 16 sanctioned by Treasury, and additional associates that were not targeted by the administration’s financial sanctions: Putin controls an estimated 37 percent of shares in the oil and gas company Surgutneftegaz; a 4.5 percent stake in the huge gas company Gazprom; and 50 percent of the oil trading company Gunvor. Putin has obtained cash from Gunvor through an associate, Gennady Timchenko, one of those sanctioned by Treasury and described as “directly linked to Putin.” Putin and his associates stole between $25 billion and $30 billion from funds used in developing Sochi for the Olympics. Putin has spent the illicit funds since the early 2000s on luxury items, including 20 residences, 58 aircraft, and four yachts. Putin controls the largest energy company in the world, Gazprom, which was set up in 1989 when all assets of the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Gas Industry were converted to a “private” concern. Through Gazprom, Putin has siphoned off cash from the company’s capital expenditures that in 2011 were estimated to be worth $52 billion. Corruption through Gazprom is known by the euphemism, according to the Russian opposition study, as “value detraction” and was estimated to be 70 percent of the capital expenditure. Putin also cashed in through his links to the Russian-German firm Saint Petersburg Real Estate Holding Co., serving as a director and on its advisory board prior to becoming president. The company, known by its Russian acronym SPAG, has been linked to Russian and Colombian organized crime money laundering operations in Liechtenstein. A key corruption vehicle for Putin is the Ozero Dacha Cooperative, a housing cooperative founded by Putin and his neighbors in 1996 that is located in a northern coastal suburb of St. Petersburg. Russia’s corrupt power elite under Putin has been dubbed the Ozero Cooperative Physicists Group. Ozero is Russian for lake. One of the co-founders of the cooperative, Vladimir Yakunin, was sanctioned by Treasury and was identified as head of the state-owned Russian Railways company and was described as “a close confidant of Putin.” Yakunin is a key Putin financial contact and has set up a huge business empire outside Russia and is also a director at Gunvor. The Putin-Gazprom connection was identified as connected to Sergei Fursenko, who is on the Treasury sanctions list. Fursenko is head of Gazprom Gas-Motor Fuel, a subsidiary of Gazprom, and was on Putin’s council for sports development. Andrei Fursenko, Sergei’s brother, also is a Putin associate, having helped start the Ozero cooperative and also working as head of two Russian ministries since 2002. Putin’s personal banker and the official who knows the most about Putin’s illicit wealth and corruption was identified as Yuri Kovalchuk, who is the largest shareholder in Bank Rossiya, the sole institution hit by the Treasury sanctions. Kovalchuk controls the bank and was described by Treasury as one of Putin’s “cashiers.” Putin is believed to have benefitted from another deal involving Vladimir Smirnov, who heads a nuclear export company called Techsnabexport that was linked by U.S. officials to the illicit export of polonium—the poison used by Russian intelligence to kill KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. Smirnov, a SPAG director, was the beneficiary of a Putin decree in 1996 that gave his company, Petersburg Fuel Co., a monopoly over retail gasoline sales in the St. Petersburg, allowing him to amass a fortune. Smirnov’s partner in the gasoline business was Vladimir Kumarin, head of the Tambov Gang organized crime group. Two other key Putin cronies are Nikolai Patrushev, former head of the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, and currently head of Russia’s Security Council, the key policymaking body in the Kremlin; and Victor Cherkesov, a former KGB official who once headed Russia’s counter-drug agency. Cherkesov currently heads the Russian Federal Agency for the Procurement of Military and Special Equipment. Both Patrushev and Cherkesov are linked to Putin through the Ozero cooperative. Another key figure in the Putin corruption network is Nikolai Shamalov, a major shareholder in Bank Rossiya who formerly owned what is called “Putin’s Palace,” a large residence on the Black Sea near Krasnodar. Shamalov’s son Yuri is president of Russia’s largest pension fund Gazfond, which was sold by Gazprom in 2006 to the SOGAZ Insurance Co. That fund was controlled by Bank Rossiya.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 07:04:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015