Posts Tagged ‘the times’
Death threats in fraud case ‘ignored’
The Times. The British authorities were accused last night of ignoring evidence about death threats and intimidation linked to a multimillion-pound Russian fraud, months before a “whistleblower” in the case was found dead outside his Surrey home.
10 December 2012
Fiona Hamilton Crime Correspondent
Alexander Perepilichny, 44, whose cause of death is described as “unexplained”, had passed documents to campaigners fighting to expose the huge tax fraud in Russia that had led to the death of an anti-corruption lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky.
The alleged fraudsters are said to have stolen three companies from a British-based investment firm, Hermitage Capital, and used them to perpetrate the fraud.
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Paranoid? Quite possibly, but it’s the price of survival
Wealthy Russians have moved to the Home Counties not to indulge a love of golf but to find shelter from what they see as predatory tax authorities, intrusive secret policemen, politicised courts and the infighting of the business caste that had a habit of turning nasty.
The high walls of gated communities in Surrey or the reassuring proximity of Windsor Great Park have not taken away the fear, however. Some assassination plots are imagined, others are real but botched. And, sometimes, a rich man drops dead in Leatherhead or Weybridge, far away from home.
The sudden death of Alexander Perepilichny, 44, and the apparent heart failure of Badri Patarkatsishvili, 52, the Georgian entrepreneur, may not have been hits — but suspicions linger on. There are too many scores being settled, too many open feuds between Russia and the exiled Russians of Britain, to have blind faith in an innocent death.
When German Gorbuntsov, 45, a banker, was shot in Canary Wharf in March it seemed to some Russians that to be paranoid was to be in full possession of the facts. He survived — but it appeared to demonstrate the deadly reach of Russian vengeance.
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Ban suspected Russian gangsters from the UK Dominic Raab
The body of the whistleblower Alexander Perepilichny was discovered near his Surrey home only months after he gave evidence to a Swiss investigation into money laundering. It is understood that he fingered the husband of an official implicated in Russia’s biggest tax fraud. His death is “unexplained” — the fourth unexplained death linked to the case.
Sergei Magnitsky was the first to pay with his life in 2009. Having exposed the $230 million scam, the dissident lawyer was persecuted by the officials he named. Magnitsky is the Solzhenitsyn of his age — except that Solzhenitsyn was sent to the gulag, whereas Magnitsky was tortured to death and is now being prosecuted posthumously for the crime he uncovered. Only in Putin’s Russia.
Toxicology tests are being carried out on Mr Perepilichny. Meanwhile we need to know whether any of the 60 named suspects in the Magnitsky case have been allowed to enter the UK. Government policy is not to routinely reveal the names of those subject to visa bans, but the Foreign Affairs Select Committee recommended disclosure in the public interest. In this kind of case it is vital.
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The lawyer and businessman who tried to take on the criminal gang
Sergei Magnitsky, 37, was a lawyer for the US firm Firestone Duncan and represented the London-based hedge fund Hermitage Capital. Hermitage’s founder Bill Browder was once Russia’s biggest foreign investor until he was banned from the country on national security grounds in 2005.
Mr Magnitsky testified against a group of Interior Ministry police officers that he had accused of fraudulently reclaiming $230 million (£144 million) in state taxes paid by Hermitage companies in 2008. He alleged that they had raided the law firm to seize documents relating to the companies, and had then changed the ownership to carry out the largest tax fraud in Russian history.
The same police arrested him a month later and accused him of tax evasion. He complained of repeated torture and beatings to try to force him to withdraw his testimony, while family members were barred from visiting him.
Mr Magnitsky was denied medical treatment for his illnesses and died in pre-trial detention shortly after being beaten in his cell by a group of eight guards as an ambulance waited for more than an hour outside the prison in November 2009.
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Whitehall fears ‘another Litvinenko’ as police probe businessman’s death
Ministers were warned six months ago about the activities of Russian officials linked to a “whistleblower” businessman who was mysteriously found dead outside his Surrey mansion.
Police are investigating after the body of Alexander Perepilichny was discovered in the grounds of his home in Weybridge. Mr Perepilichny, 44, had passed vital documents to campaigners fighting to expose a massive tax fraud in Russia that had led to the death of an anti-corruption lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky.
The businessman, who is said to have sought refuge in Britain three years ago after falling out with a crime syndicate, had been helping Swiss prosecutors to investigate a money-laundering scheme involving Russian government tax officials.
He is the fourth person linked to the Magnitsky case to have died in unexplained circumstances. Surrey Police said that a post-mortem examination had been “inconclusive” and that further tests were being carried out before an inquest.
Mr Magnitsky, 37, died in agony in Matrosskaya Tishina prison in Moscow in November 2009 after being held for a year in pre-trial detention and denied medical treatment for serious illnesses. He repeatedly complained that he was tortured in prison to try to force him to withdraw testimony against a group of Interior Ministry police who he had accused of stealing $230 million from businesses owned by Hermitage Capital, a British investment company.
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London Rules; Russians and Russian money are welcome in Britain, subject to British laws
In late 1991 Russia transformed itself from a country where entrepreneurs were outlaws to one of entrepreneurs without laws. A new statute book was written, but two decades on its enforcement is a joke — or would be if the spillover effect of Russian lawlessness were not so serious.
The death of Alexander Perepilichnyy on a Surrey cul-de-sac outside his rented mansion may turn out to have been from purely natural causes; a fit 44-year-old cut down in his prime by an unexpected heart attack, for instance. Alternatively, it may be linked to his apparent role as a supergrass in a long-running Swiss investigation of money-laundering and tax fraud by a ruthless and extremely well-connected Moscow-based crime syndicate known as the Klyuev Group.
In Russia, the odds against such a death being properly investigated would be vanishingly high. At least in Britain Mr Perepilichnyy’s next of kin will be able to request the results of his post mortem and find out what other tests are being carried out to learn the cause of death. But they may not be enough to close the case.
British police and security officials have so far shown little interest in the evidence Mr Perepilichnyy is said to have been providing to the Swiss; nor in the Klyuev Group’s alleged involvement in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer hired by a well-known British investor to investigate a £140 million tax fraud in Moscow in 2007.
Not so the United States Congress. Earlier this month, after years of lobbying by William Browder, the British chief executive of Hermitage Capital Management, the House of Representatives passed a Bill to freeze the assets of Klyuev Group members and stop them travelling to America. Dominic Raab, the Conservative MP, has tabled a House of Commons motion seeking similar measures by the British Government.
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It matters where Russian money comes from; Oligarchs find it easy to settle in Britain. But more questions should be asked about them
A huge stream of money has flowed into Britain from the old Soviet Union since the end of Communism. The British public seems used to the fact that, from time to time, another flamboyant or publicity-shy oligarch whom nobody had previously heard of pops up on the radar as if descending from another planet.
All he has to do is buy a stake in a high-profile business or make a record-breaking bid on a house or country estate and a Russian billionaire or millionaire can easily break into elite British society.
Very little is required to establish oneself as a plutocrat in this country. Local banks apply meagre “know your client” procedures to vet applicants: a passport copy and a utility bill are all that is needed to open an account at any London-based private bank. Then, as if by magic, funds pour into the UK as clean capital, free from any taxation or further scrutiny. Getting the right to stay permanently in the UK with an investor visa is just as easy; all that is needed is a minimum of £2 million in personal assets.
Most rich Russians living in the UK have made their wealth honestly, but there is money sloshing around Britain tainted by corruption. Yet few new arrivals can expect to be challenged on where the money came from, or what they had to do back in Russia to acquire it.
Many in the British Establishment aren’t bothered by this laxness. After all, few Russian billionaires have so far parlayed their fortune into politics — particularly after the fuss caused when George Osborne and Peter Mandelson enjoyed the hospitality of Oleg Deripaska on his yacht off Corfu.
But you should be bothered. Evidence in the court case brought by Boris Berezovsky against Roman Abramovich gave us an insight into how those who amass (and lose) fortunes in Russia, however upright or law-abiding, have to do so against a backdrop of corruption and political interference. This case introduced British lawyers to krysha (the Russian for roof) — the protection money many businessmen pay to do business.
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Putin’s Olympics snub welcomed
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be going to the London Olympics. British MPs, who have campaigned against human rights abuses in Russia, immediately welcomed the snub.
Former Europe minister Denis MacShane claimed it was a way for the newly-sworn President to avoid pressure on Syria.
He said: “Putin now realises that he is not welcome in London because of Russia’s flagrant rejection of European values and norms and failure to investigate and punish officials who violate rule of law.”
It is possible that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev may attend the Games which kick off with the opening ceremony on July 27.
Russia will host the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The death of anti-corruption campaigner and lawyer Sergei Magnitsky has also triggered major diplomatic tensions with Russia.
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Ministers in joint attack on Russian corruption
Three former foreign secretaries will join forces this week to condemn “corruption and impunity” in Russia ahead of the presidential election on Sunday.
David Miliband, Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind will urge the Commons to introduce travel bans and asset freezes against officials implicated in the death of a young lawyer fighting government corruption in 2009.
Mr Miliband will press the case of Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison after investigating the country’s biggest tax fraud, and make clear that he believes the episode “has rightly become a cause célèbre for what is wrong in Russia” .
In a warning shot at Vladimir Putin, days before he is expected to be returned as president, Mr Miliband will point out that “democratic spirit [in Russia is] stronger than many people thought”. The motion, put together by Dominic Raab, the Conservative MP and former Foreign Office lawyer, is backed by MPs from across the political spectrum.
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