The bank “Menatep", according to an American official, had "a horrible reputation" because of its participation in Russian organized crime. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on October 7, 1996.
On this day 27 years ago, on October 7, 1996, the American newspaper “The Washington Post” on its pages reported that “Russian crime has found safe haven in the Caribbean Basin” («Russian Crime Finds Haven in the Caribbean», By Douglas Farah, Washington Post Foreign Service, Monday, October 7, 1996; Page A15).
Douglas Farah, the author of this article, referring to representatives of the law enforcement agencies of the United States and the Caribbean Basin, argued that “Russian organized crimes groups, flush with billions of dollars looted from the former Soviet Union and profits from drug trafficking and other criminal activities, are using unregulated and secretive Caribbean banks to launder their illicit gains".
“THEY HAVE A HORRIBLE REPUTATION”
“The billions of dollars now believed to be flowing through such offshore bank havens as Antigua, Aruba, the Cayman Islands, and St. Maarten are difficult for authorities to trace because under these countries' laws it is easy to open a bank, and depositor and transaction information must be kept secret. In some Caribbean nations, money laundering is not a crime", pointed out the newspaper.
According to Barry McCaffrey, a retires general and representative of the Bill Clinton administration on anti-drug activity, up to $50 billion from the sale of narcotics, out of the annual world total of $500 billion, is laundered through the Caribbean, making it a “ferociously corrupting influence” in the region”.
On the backdrop of the mentioned and other quite righteous emotions with mentioning of astronomical sums which had figured in estimates of murky turn-overs of that time, emerge “European Union Bank” (EUB), bank “Menatep”, and, naturally, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. They all have a “horrible reputation”.
“EUB caught the attention of investigators when it was chartered in July 1994 as an offshore subsidiary of Menatep, a large Russian bank according to bank documents here.”
“Menatep, which, as the senior U.S. official said, had a "horrible reputation" for alleged involvement with Russian organized crime, reportedly withdrew from backing the bank within weeks The sole shareholder was Alexander Konanykhin, who is in as U.S. prison on charges of violating conditions of his visa. He is wanted in Russia for allegedly embezzling $8.1 million from the Exchange Bank in Moscow in 1992. He denies the charges”, pointed out “The Washington Post”.
"But on Feb. 27, 1995, the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, in a restricted memo, said it had been advised by the Bank of England that Konanykhin had visited Antigua in January 1995, “where he called on government officials to request their cooperation in keeping Menatep’s ownership of European Union Bank confidential”.
“In a letter in March, Antigua’s Finance Ministry told the bank that it was “not in good standing”. It continued to operate, however. In June the ministry warned potential investors to “proceed with great caution”, according to the bank documents”.“Menatep’s president Mikhail Khodorkovsky denies his involvement in “EUB” or any ties with organized crime", stressed at that time the reporter.
Khodorkovsky once again used cunning – having become the director of “EUB”, he then, literally, in several days stepped down from this position. However, several years later, the investigation put everything in its proper place. The machinations of Mikhail Khodorkovsky through this offshore bank were exposed in the course of the investigation of the criminal case pertaining to stealing carried out by Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev stocks of the company “Apatit”. As it turned out, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev fabricated on behalf of their own offshore bank “EU Bank” a counterfeit commitment letter and then used this forgery for acquiring shares of “Apatit”.
As to the ties of “Menatep” and Yukos with organized crime, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and this time didn’t present the true facts of the matter. By courts' ruling was established not only the connection of Yukos with freaking bandit groups but also the fact that through Alexey Pichugin and Leonid Nevzlin “the most transparent” company had employed to the utmost services of bandits, who had received contracts of murders and attempted murders “in Yukos interest”.
At that time, however, this was only on the level of operative information and press publications, including American. Nevertheless, finance crimes were quite visible. That is why in the fall of 1999, tenderhearted American politicians and public activists demanded from Russia, referring to such persons as Khodorkovsky, to wage an unmerciful fight against money laundering and threatened with finance isolation, and cutting "the young democracies" from the help of international credit organization.
GAPS IN MEMORY
All this cheap show of “American struggle against offshores” from the past, emerging from time to time in agenda, leads us to the present day. American "investigators" once again publish tons of materials, which have not yet passed juridical verification and assure that these are “secret operations of the rich and politicians,” and make low-key reservations that this all, perhaps, “is legal”. And once again, as at the end of the past century, they call for "the fight against offshores and money laundering".
Except that, to have it straight, there isn’t much trust. The Yukos case has made it clear – dirty money, laundered in offshores, through the same offshores is funneled to American lobbyist firms, and with the money the tax criminals like Khodorkovsky buy a “position” for themselves of the American political leadership, declaring for the whole world that a person, sentenced for the proved in all courts tax crimes is “a victim of political persecution” and “injustice”.
Moreover, such an American-style "commercial" approach to global problems not only undermines trust to large-scale opposition to financial crimes, but also "shortens the memory" of experienced reporters and editorial boards.
The same newspaper “The Washington Post”, 9 years later after reflections on the Caribbean offshore of Khodorkovsky, suddenly experiences an attack of amnesia. For instance, on October 7, 2005, the reporter Peter Finn informed of the series of searches with regard to the case of the Khodorkovsky’s oil company in the article entitled “Raids on Yukos Affiliates Presage New Charges". Description of events, the position of the Office of the Prosecutor General, words of lawyers - and that’s it. Not a word from the archive of the editorial office of the newspaper that was among the first to catch Khodorkovsky “red handed”. Perhaps, they have forgotten that there is a dossier in the office of “The Washington Post” relating to this gentleman?” asks the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article “On this day, "tax skeletons" dropped out of the Yukos closets”. Tax “optimization” worth $6.1 billion. Yukos affiliates registered on lost passports. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on October 6, 2004.
On this day 25 years ago, on October 7, 1996, the American newspaper “The Washington Post” on its pages reported that “Russian crime has found safe haven in the Caribbean Basin” («Russian Crime Finds Haven in the Caribbean», By Douglas Farah, Washington Post Foreign Service, Monday, October 7, 1996; Page A15).
Douglas Farah, the author of this article, referring to representatives of the law enforcement agencies of the United States and the Caribbean Basin, argued that “Russian organized crimes groups, flush with billions of dollars looted from the former Soviet Union and profits from drug trafficking and other criminal activities, are using unregulated and secretive Caribbean banks to launder their illicit gains".
“THEY HAVE A HORRIBLE REPUTATION”
“The billions of dollars now believed to be flowing through such offshore bank havens as Antigua, Aruba, the Cayman Islands, and St. Maarten are difficult for authorities to trace because under these countries' laws it is easy to open a bank, and depositor and transaction information must be kept secret. In some Caribbean nations, money laundering is not a crime", pointed out the newspaper.
According to Barry McCaffrey, a retires general and representative of the Bill Clinton administration on anti-drug activity, up to $50 billion from the sale of narcotics, out of the annual world total of $500 billion, is laundered through the Caribbean, making it a “ferociously corrupting influence” in the region”.
On the backdrop of the mentioned and other quite righteous emotions with mentioning of astronomical sums which had figured in estimates of murky turn-overs of that time, emerge “European Union Bank” (EUB), bank “Menatep”, and, naturally, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. They all have a “horrible reputation”.
“EUB caught the attention of investigators when it was chartered in July 1994 as an offshore subsidiary of Menatep, a large Russian bank according to bank documents here.”
“Menatep, which, as the senior U.S. official said, had a "horrible reputation" for alleged involvement with Russian organized crime, reportedly withdrew from backing the bank within weeks The sole shareholder was Alexander Konanykhin, who is in as U.S. prison on charges of violating conditions of his visa. He is wanted in Russia for allegedly embezzling $8.1 million from the Exchange Bank in Moscow in 1992. He denies the charges”, pointed out “The Washington Post”.
"But on Feb. 27, 1995, the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, in a restricted memo, said it had been advised by the Bank of England that Konanykhin had visited Antigua in January 1995, “where he called on government officials to request their cooperation in keeping Menatep’s ownership of European Union Bank confidential”.
“In a letter in March, Antigua’s Finance Ministry told the bank that it was “not in good standing”. It continued to operate, however. In June the ministry warned potential investors to “proceed with great caution”, according to the bank documents”.“Menatep’s president Mikhail Khodorkovsky denies his involvement in “EUB” or any ties with organized crime", stressed at that time the reporter.
Khodorkovsky once again used cunning – having become the director of “EUB”, he then, literally, in several days stepped down from this position. However, several years later, the investigation put everything in its proper place. The machinations of Mikhail Khodorkovsky through this offshore bank were exposed in the course of the investigation of the criminal case pertaining to stealing carried out by Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev stocks of the company “Apatit”. As it turned out, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev fabricated on behalf of their own offshore bank “EU Bank” a counterfeit commitment letter and then used this forgery for acquiring shares of “Apatit”.
As to the ties of “Menatep” and Yukos with organized crime, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and this time didn’t present the true facts of the matter. By courts' ruling was established not only the connection of Yukos with freaking bandit groups but also the fact that through Alexey Pichugin and Leonid Nevzlin “the most transparent” company had employed to the utmost services of bandits, who had received contracts of murders and attempted murders “in Yukos interest”.
At that time, however, this was only on the level of operative information and press publications, including American. Nevertheless, finance crimes were quite visible. That is why in the fall of 1999, tenderhearted American politicians and public activists demanded from Russia, referring to such persons as Khodorkovsky, to wage an unmerciful fight against money laundering and threatened with finance isolation, and cutting "the young democracies" from the help of international credit organization.
GAPS IN MEMORY
All this cheap show of “American struggle against offshores” from the past, emerging from time to time in agenda, leads us to the present day. American "investigators" once again publish tons of materials, which have not yet passed juridical verification and assure that these are “secret operations of the rich and politicians,” and make low-key reservations that this all, perhaps, “is legal”. And once again, as at the end of the past century, they call for "the fight against offshores and money laundering".
Except that, to have it straight, there isn’t much trust. The Yukos case has made it clear – dirty money, laundered in offshores, through the same offshores is funneled to American lobbyist firms, and with the money the tax criminals like Khodorkovsky buy a “position” for themselves of the American political leadership, declaring for the whole world that a person, sentenced for the proved in all courts tax crimes is “a victim of political persecution” and “injustice”.
Moreover, such an American-style "commercial" approach to global problems not only undermines trust to large-scale opposition to financial crimes, but also "shortens the memory" of experienced reporters and editorial boards.
The same newspaper “The Washington Post”, 9 years later after reflections on the Caribbean offshore of Khodorkovsky, suddenly experiences an attack of amnesia. For instance, on October 7, 2005, the reporter Peter Finn informed of the series of searches with regard to the case of the Khodorkovsky’s oil company in the article entitled “Raids on Yukos Affiliates Presage New Charges". Description of events, the position of the Office of the Prosecutor General, words of lawyers - and that’s it. Not a word from the archive of the editorial office of the newspaper that was among the first to catch Khodorkovsky “red handed”. Perhaps, they have forgotten that there is a dossier in the office of “The Washington Post” relating to this gentleman?” asks the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article “On this day, "tax skeletons" dropped out of the Yukos closets”. Tax “optimization” worth $6.1 billion. Yukos affiliates registered on lost passports. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on October 6, 2004.
