The Unites States federal investigators study the question of whether the bank "Menatep” legally transferred pecuniary assets through the Bank of New York. The Western spirit of Steven Theede. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on August 28, 1999, and 2003.
On this day 24 years ago, on August 28, 1999, the reporter of the American newspaper “The New York Times” Timothy O’Brien published an article under the title "Russian says official funneled cash to a bank in laundering case" devoted to his conversation with Mikhail Khodorkovsky whose name “blazed” in connection with the scandal of money laundering through The Bank of New York.
“In the interview with the editorial board of the “The New York Times” that Khodorkovsky himself called from Moscow, “a powerful Russian industrialist whose empire is under the investigation in the money laundering at the Bank of New York”, said that “the large part of the billions of dollars moved through the bank was controlled by Russian officials protecting their fortunes by shipping their money abroad” before the collapse of the Russian market in August 1998.
“Mikhail Khodorkovsky said by telephone from Moscow that many Russian officials began selling Government securities in 1998 because they had inside knowledge about Government deliberations in the months leading to a decision to permit the devaluation of the ruble”.
“Mr. Khodorkovsky said he believed the Russian officials did just that, shipping their profits abroad through a front company and into the Bank of New York”. “Khodorkovsky, of course, has a vested interest in this story”, noted the author.
"By pointing his finger at the investigators' current and former political bosses, Mr. Khodorkovsky seemed to be warning Russian leaders that they may be dragged into the wide-ranging investigation".
"Mr. Khodorkovsky, 35, is the chairman of Yukos, one of Russia's largest companies, and was the chairman of Menatep, a now insolvent bank. Federal investigators are examining whether Menatep moves funds illegally through the Bank of New York”, pointed out the journalist Timothy O'Brien explaining to his readers the details of the story.
(Quite recently, as I remember, Khodorkovsky laughed at the golden toilet bowls of the head of the Traffic Inspection of the Stavropol Region. Apparently, he forgot what he had been like in 1994 – “a new Russian” banker in tiger’s skin).
The Americans had questions to the bank Menatep in connection with scandals around the offshore bank EUB in Antigua, as well as in connection with the borrowed money that he had received from the administration of the City of Moscow “for support of the bank” in the amount of 120 million US dollars. Instead of using this money inside Russia, Khodorkovsky “syphoned” it to the Bank of New York by three tranches of $ 40 million each.
"The investigation that is underway in the U.S. appears to be of great importance", he said. "Because if the investigation is carried out competently, we will see that Russian criminals will be caught red-handed.” And “Menatep” never in its history has done any money laundering”, he said through an interpreter and lied as usual.
However, the time has shown that the words of Khodorkovsky are not the ultimate truth, but a deficiency in the work of the investigation.
In this case, of the American investigation, which organized a show around “the disappeared credit of the IMF, BoNY and the dubious entity Benex. In all appearances, they had no questions on other directions concerning “the participants of the privatization robbery” in Russia – America loves too much other peoples money.
That is why the murky financial flows, passed through, for instance, the account No 81738 opened in Cedel on May 15, 1997, by the bank "Menatep”, were not properly investigated, and the case of the Bank of New York ended up with a modest press release.
And the dodgy Russian civil servants who played at that time on the market with the state treasury bills and at whom Khodorkovsky diligently poked at, trying to exculpate himself, turned out to be in the first row of the defenders of the tax criminals from Yukos. As to American publications, they do not return to this subject – Khodorkovsky for them is now, sort of, "sacred cow”.
The American Theede in a role of cover
On the same day 20 years ago, on August 28, 2003, Steven Michael Theede, who previously had held the office of the president on exploration and production in Europe, Russia, and on the Caspian sea of the company ConocoPhillips, was named first vice-president on operating activities of the JSC “Yukos-Moskva”.
“As it is explained in Yukos, the tasks of Steven Theede, the new vice-president of the “Yukos-Moskva” will consist in overseeing business planning, finances, audit, control, interaction with state agencies and public relations of the oil company”, pointed out the newspaper “Vedomosti" stressing that "he will have to fulfill his duties during the process of merger of Yukos and “Sibneft” which had already begun.
After the beginning of the investigation on the "Yukos affair", it became clear – the wheeler-dealer Khodorkovsky simply decided to create from foreigners “his own security perimeter”, as in the field of finance, audit, and taxes a downright catastrophe was exposed. To a large extend, it’s because of doubts about the cleanness of the “offshore stables” of Yukos that so yeaned-after “merger with “Sibneft” didn’t take place in the end.
By the way, almost a year after the appointment to office in Yukos of the American, the newspaper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung” told about a somber Theede and rather frankly informed why Khodorkovsky needed in Yukos a number of foreign managers with one main useful quality – with American citizenship.
“As recently as four weeks ago, Steven Theede openly demonstrated the confidence of an American businessman. “My task in the new position is the assertion of the Yukos leading positions”, he said soon after he was appointed head of the second-biggest oil company. But yesterday, on Thursday, Theede, sitting in the Moscow headquarters, was gloomy, with a tense face, predicting the scenarios of the decline of the company”.
"Khodorkovsky, obviously, appreciated the willpower, experience, and managing abilities of Theede – as well as his citizenship. The former head of Yukos earlier on engaged foreigners in order to enrich Russian entrepreneurship with the Western spirit. So, he didn't hesitate in the necessity to lure away Theede. Last summer Khodorkovsky made him vice-president and thus the third face in Yukos in terms of importance. He was an American with experience, and his task was to hold out till Americans firms would be co-owners of Yukos”, pointed out this newspaper, supposing that criminal indictment didn’t threaten “the gloomy Theede”, as he was an American.
(See also: “Theede and other former managers of Yukos have legalized entrusted to them property of other persons”).
To put it simply, Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky, pretending to be “the most transparent company” in the world, decided with personal benefit to put a huge Russian asset under control of his American patrons, who already considered themselves unlimited owners of the Russian oil", noted the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article entitled “Khodorkovsky and Lebedev fabricated a false letter of indemnity in the name of EU Bank…"The European Union Bank looked like an online robber in an expensive suit. "Mr. Khodorkovsky said that he left the post of the European Union Bank's director in 1994". The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on August 27, 1997).
