Londongrad: From Russia With Cash, , by Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley

[Magda Hassan]

I haven't read it but it might be interesting. The subject matter certainly is, that is the looting of the former USSR, not lawyers getting rich.





'If you find me dead, it won't be an accident': How Russian oligarchs' favourite English lawyer met his horrifying death

By Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley
Last updated at 3:01 AM on 19th July 2009

It is 6.56pm on March 3, 2004. A brand new, six-seater, £1.5million Agusta A109E helicopter lands under an overcast sky at Battersea heliport in South London. Waiting impatiently and clutching his two mobile phones is a broad-shouldered lawyer named Stephen Curtis.
The 45-year-old climbs aboard and manoeuvres his bulky frame into a rear seat. At 6.59pm the helicopter lifts off, bound for Dorset. Flying conditions are reasonable with visibility of four miles.
The lawyer turns off his phones and sits back. After a stressful day fielding a string of calls at his £4million penthouse apartment in Battersea, he is looking forward to a relaxing evening at Pennsylvania Castle, his magnificent retreat on the island of Portland.

Close friend: Boris Berezovsky, pictured with acquaintance Annika Ancverina, was among the clients of lawyer Stephen Curtis

By the time the helicopter approaches Bournemouth airport, it is raining lightly and the runway is obscured by cloud. The pilot, Captain Max Radford, who regularly flies Curtis to and from London, radios air traffic control for permission to land.
'Echo Romeo,' replies Kirsty Holtan, the air traffic controller. 'Just check that you are visual with the field.'
'Er, negative. Not this time.' Holtan increases the runway lighting to maximum intensity. This has the required effect and a mile from the airport the pilot radios: 'Just becoming visual this time.'
'Do you require radar?' asks Holtan. 'Yes, yes,' replies Radford, his voice now strained; he repeats the word 11 times in quick succession. Suddenly, the helicopter descends sharply to the left. It then swings around almost out of control. Within seconds it has fallen 400ft.
'Is everything OK?' asks Holtan. 'Negative, negative,' replies Radford. The helicopter is less than a mile east of the threshold of Runway 26 when the height readout is lost on the radar.
For the next 56 seconds, the pilot confirms he has power but then suddenly, frantically, radios: 'We have a problem, we have a problem.' As the chopper loses power, at 7.41pm Radford shouts down the open mike: 'OK, I need a climb, I need a climb.'
Radford can be heard struggling to turn out of a dive but he has lost control. 'No! No!' he shouts.
The helicopter nose-dives into a field at high speed and explodes on impact, sending a fireball 30ft into the air. Curtis and Radford die instantly.
The news of Curtis's dramatic death was not only deeply traumatic to his wife and young daughter, it also sent shockwaves through the shadowy world of Russian oligarchs, the Kremlin and those working in the murky offshore banking world where billions of pounds are regularly moved and hidden across continents.
But alarm bells were also ringing in the offices of Britain's intelligence and law enforcement agencies - because Stephen Curtis was no ordinary lawyer.
Blessed with remarkable intellect and a prodigious memory, Stephen Langford Curtis was born in Sunderland on August 7, 1958, the son of an accountant.
Graduating with a law degree from Aberystwyth University, Curtis's career took off in the early Eighties when he was a tax solicitor at City law firm Fox and Gibbons. In 1990 he set up his own firm, Curtis & Co, specialising in commercial and property transactions.
In 1997 he started working for Bank Menatep, set up by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then Russia's richest man.
In too deep: Stephen Curtis, who died in a helicopter crash in March 2004

Menatep - registered at a PO box in Gibraltar - was at the centre of all Khodorkovsky's business operations. The former mathematician owned the £15billion Siberian oil company Yukos: the potential flow of money from it was huge and required a complex set of arrangements.
Curtis set about masterminding the restructuring of Yukos and its offshore network.
Khodorkovsky trusted the sociable Curtis. He liked the way the lawyer kept most of the details in his head and the paper trail to a minimum. This helped maintain secrecy.
Like an absent-minded professor, Curtis often carried about him scraps of paper with scribbled notes relating to hundreds of millions of pounds. And on the rare occasions when he could not recall data, he would telephone his staff at 3am for the answers.
Sometimes minutes were kept. The scale of the operation was revealed in the leaked minutes of a meeting in June 1999 at Curtis's offices in Park Lane, Mayfair. These showed complex and impenetrable financial networks that stretched across the globe.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of Russian oil profits from Yukos were spirited away via offshore accounts in Gibraltar, the Cayman Islands and the Isle of Man. However, exactly how much will never be known.
In 1998, Curtis advised the American defence and communications contractor Lockheed Martin when it was looking for a Russian-based partner to help establish a satellite company for direct broadcasting in Russia.
Menatep recommended Boris Berezovsky and that is how he and Curtis first met. Berezovsky was another wealthy Russian - he had made his fortune from car dealerships, oil and a media empire.
At this time, Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky and another tycoon, Roman Abramovich, were unknown in Britain, as was the phenomenon of the Russian oligarchs, which they were to spearhead.
The term oligarchs to describe Russia's new breed of super-rich came to prominence in the early Nineties. On October 13, 1992, Bank Menatep announced plans to provide banking services for 'the financial and industrial oligarchy' - clients worth at least $10million.
However, Russia proved an uncomfortable place for these millionaires and billionaires. There were too many people pointing fingers in Moscow restaurants, too much scrutiny by the tax authorities, and the constant fear of assassination.
Russia's rich could not go anywhere without bodyguards and bullet- and bomb-proof cars. Even wearing bespoke suits attracted attention.
But in Britain they found they were able to travel around freely and mostly unrecognised, spending their gains without fear of censure or investigation.
And their earnings from their homeland were tax-free. In Britain, foreigners can claim they are 'domiciled' abroad even though they may have lived here for years and have British passports. Under this rule, 'non-domiciles' would pay tax on only their UK income and not on overseas income, which usually made up the bulk of their earnings.
From the turn of the 21st Century, the oligarchs scattered their wealth around like confetti, helping to transform London into the world's leading playground of the super-rich, contributing to runaway property prices and soaring profits for the retailers of luxury goods.
The oligarchs soon became famous but the untold story of 'Londongrad' is one of greed, excess, secret business deals and political intrigue.
After talking to associates who have never spoken before and drawing on new material, we have managed to build up the most comprehensive account so far of one of the most pivotal figures in the life of the oligarchs - the powerful and mysterious Stephen Curtis.

High roller: Roman Abramovich and his girlfriend Daria Zhukova

The fast-talking Curtis loved the complex and often unorthodox structure of the Russians' business and finances, but his colleagues had been less than happy when he first started to work for them.
Late one evening in 1998, sitting in the back of his Mercedes, Curtis told a confidant: 'I need to tell you something. We've got some major new Russian clients.'
The friend was dismayed. 'That's crazy,' he replied. 'Why are you getting into bed with the Russians? It will be a disaster. They play by different rules. If you fall out with them, they will come after you. You are dealing with the Devil.'
Curtis laughed. 'Well, I will jump on their backs and ride all the way down to hell.' He was mesmerised by the high-rollers and high stakes. This was his chance for the big time.
After one particular trip to Moscow, he told his staff breathlessly: 'It's like the Wild West out there. A few businessmen own everything. It's amazing.'
The Russians - by nature often sceptical, fearful, and paranoid - trusted Curtis with hundreds of millions of their money.
He protected their wealth from scrutiny by the Russian authorities. He was the guardian of their secrets, the only person who could identify and unravel the opaque ownership of their assets - property, yachts, art, cars, jewellery and jets, as well as their bank accounts, shareholdings, companies and trusts.
He revelled in the circles in which he now moved. A source who was present recalled how, during one business meeting at a bank attended by Curtis, Berezovsky, Abramovich and their associate Sheik Sultan bin Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, brother of the ruler of Abu Dhabi, the bank's compliance officer told the Sheik: 'We need your passport and a utility bill as proof of identity.'
The Sheik's aide was stunned. 'He is the son of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi,' he said. 'He does not carry around copies of his electricity bills.'
An amused Sheik responded by taking out his wallet and handing over a pile of dirhams - the currency of Abu Dhabi. The bank's official was shocked. 'Why are you offering me cash?' he asked.
'Well, you asked me for proof of identity,' he replied. 'My face is on these bills.' The meeting dissolved into laughter.
On one occasion, Curtis was given an inexpensive-looking Russian doll. His young daughter nonchalantly played with it and later discarded it in her toybox. Curtis did not realise its value until he saw the same doll on sale in a Moscow store - inside the toy was a diamond necklace worth thousands of pounds.
The lawyer immediately retrieved it from his daughter's playroom on his return from Russia.

Rich rewards: Stephen Curtis's castle in Dorset


By now, Curtis had amassed a sizeable personal fortune, enough to enable him to acquire his own helicopter, a private aircraft and his London penthouse as well as the 19th Century Pennsylvania Castle.
The sudden wealth, however, was accompanied by intense pressures. He was no longer easy-going but quick-tempered and impatient instead, behaving more like a typical oligarch himself.
He started tipping doormen £20 every time he walked into a hotel, and entertained lavishly at London nightclub Chinawhite, where he was given a special VIP room. During one epic night at another club, Stringfellows, he spent £20,000 on the best table, vintage champagne, dinner, lapdances in private rooms and tips.
He also hired executive boxes at Manchester United for Berezovsky and Yukos executives, and for Abramovich. It was at one such match that Abramovich decided to buy a football club - in 2003, he became the owner of Chelsea Football Club.
In November 2002, Curtis became a tax exile in Gibraltar, managing Khodorkovsky's global business empire from his hotel suite.
But events were to take a turn for the worse: in October 2003, Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint in central Siberia for alleged massive tax evasion and fraud.
'The s*** has hit the fan,' Curtis told colleagues. 'I cannot go back to Russia now. I will be arrested immediately.'
A month later Curtis found himself further embroiled in the conflict when he took over the running of Menatep following the arrest of its chairman, Platon Lebedev, on suspicion of fraud.
Russian newspapers began referring to a 'mystery man' in Gibraltar who controlled Russia's second-biggest oil producer.
Billions of pounds were at stake, the political survival of Russian President Vladimir Putin was in the balance (many Russians felt the oligarchs were sucking the nation dry and wanted Putin to bring them into line), and Curtis was billed to play a crucial role in the forthcoming trial of Khodorkovsky.
He feared that sooner or later the Russian authorities would come knocking on his door asking questions about his role in alleged tax avoidance and the filtering of cash out of the country.
He also feared that he might become the target of commercial enemies - rival oil companies and minority investors of Yukos who claimed that they were being defrauded. Curtis also knew contract killings in Russia were commonplace.
'I have dug myself into a hole and I am in too deep,' he told a colleague. 'I am not sure that I can dig myself out.'

Crash site: Investigators study the remains of Stephen Curtis's helicopter

A few weeks before his death, Curtis had returned to Britain and was under constant surveillance by private investigators acting for disgruntled minority shareholders in Yukos subsidiaries, and by Russian state investigators.
He even moved his office desk away from the window because he was convinced someone would shoot him in the back of the head.
In early 2004, Curtis's security consultants, ISC Global, discovered a small magnet - the type used to secure listening devices - at his Dorset castle. According to Curtis's uncle, Eric Jenkins, the lawyer received numerous anonymous threats and intimidating phone calls, and took them seriously enough to hire a bodyguard.
'There certainly were death threats against Stephen,' confirms Nigel Brown, head of ISC Global, which also provided security for Berezovsky and Khodorkovsky.
'The timing of his death was very suspicious and there were people out there who had a motive to kill him. He just knew too much.'
At first Curtis dismissed the threats, but when one phone call mentioned his wife and 13-year-old daughter, he decided to act.
In mid-February 2004, deeply worried, he approached the Foreign Office and National Crime Intelligence Service and offered full but covert co-operation.
As he was legally obliged, Curtis had always been scrupulous in reporting 'suspicious transactions' to NCIS, which investigates money laundering and organised crime. In May 2003, for example, he had filed a suspicious transaction report about one of his Russian clients.
Now, he told close friends, he offered to provide information about Russian commercial activities in Britain and the oligarchs' assets in return for protection for himself and his family. For NCIS, Curtis was a prized informant with insider knowledge of controversial Russian business activities in London.
He was immediately assigned a controller, but after only two meetings the NCIS officer was transferred to another operation. Curtis asked to be assigned a different controller, but before this was done, he was dead.
A week before the fatal crash Curtis told a friend: 'If anything happens to me in the next few weeks, it will not be an accident.' He had laughed, but he was not joking.
He had played the messages left on his mobile phone to colleagues. 'Curtis, where are you?' asked a voice with a Russian accent. 'We are here. We are behind you. We follow you.'
The threats convinced some of Curtis's colleagues and relatives that he was murdered.
'Definitely,' one former employee of his law firm claims. 'It was done by remote control. They knew about his flight plans in advance because they were tapping his phones.'


Naomi Campbell and her boyfriend, Russian businessman Vladimir Doronin


Captain Radford's father, Dennis Radford, told the subsequent inquest that he did not think that the Air Accidents Investigation Branch had properly investigated the possibility of foul play.
'The lack of security at Bournemouth airport is such that had anybody wished to sabotage the aircraft, they would have unchallenged and unrestricted access for that purpose,' he said.
Witnesses say that they heard an unexplained and extremely loud bang just before the crash.
'I heard a kind of thump and the dog started barking, so I came outside and I heard another couple of bangs. It made a particularly harsh noise, as if the engine was malfunctioning,' Jack Malt, who lives near the crash site, told the inquest.
But deteriorating weather conditions and pilot inexperience were blamed for the crash. According to the AAIB inspector: 'The most likely cause of the accident was that Captain Radford became disorientated during the final stages of the approach to Bournemouth airport.'
Yet flying conditions were not especially hazardous. As Dennis Radford later claimed: 'Max had flown many times in considerably worse conditions than that. And if he became disorientated, why was he on the radio describing the runway and talking to the control tower 29 seconds before the crash?'
The inquest jury at Bournemouth Town Hall took just over an hour to reach a verdict of accidental death. Curtis's former security advisers remain sceptical.
Nigel Brown is adamant that it was an assassination and is highly critical of the police. 'What I cannot understand is why there has never been a proper murder investigation,' he said.
'There was a just cause of suspicion because Stephen had received death threats, there was a motive because of what he knew and there were suspicious circumstances. But the police did not interview me or my colleagues or Stephen's clients or his employees.
'Usually, the police would interview the last person to speak to him and I was that person. We may not know for sure what happened to Stephen, but I think there could have been a more thorough inquiry.'
Curtis's funeral was held on April 7, 2004 at All Saints Church in Easton on the Isle of Portland. Most of Curtis's clients attended, as did Boris Berezovsky, with his girlfriend, two bodyguards and an entourage.
When Berezovsky and his colleagues left at the end of the service, the remainder of the congregation, who felt uneasy at the sight of these stern-faced Russians, moved out of the way to let them pass.
The death of Stephen Curtis, the lawyer who knew too much, remains a mystery.


Castles, super-yachts and a £40,000 takeaway meal

Roman Abramovich's purchase of Chelsea Football Club gave him access to two of the executive boxes that sit on the halfway line at their Stamford Bridge ground. Others cost up to £1million a season to rent.
As he often invites a crowd of friends to watch Chelsea games, Abramovich tried to hire another box, offering the owner considerably more than £1million. The owner refused and so Abramovich upped the price several times. The answer was still no.
So money can't buy absolutely everything, it seems, although for Russia's London-based oligarchs, it does come pretty close.

Money to burn: Roman Abramovich's vast yacht Pelorus

There are an estimated 300,000 Russians in the capital. Most are ordinary middle-class professionals, but dominating the group is the tiny subset of oligarchs with their apparently limitless wealth.
On arrival in London, an oligarch's first port of call is an estate agent, where deals are typically cut at high speed.
As one agent recalls: 'A buyer wanted to spend £64million on three properties - two in Central London and one in the country or in Scotland. I asked him for a banker's reference, and he said, "No need, I'll pay cash."'
In 2006, a fifth of all houses in the UK that sold for more than £8million went to Russians. And members of their inner circle are able to indulge in extravagant purchases, too - Stephen Curtis owned a castle in Dorset.
Size is necessary for the essentials of the oligarch lifestyle - an indoor pool, gym, and staff accommodation.
According to estate agents Knight Frank, some clients spent up to £400,000 on advanced electronics alone: 'One had a system that enabled him to see who was knocking on his door in London from anywhere in the world, via a video clip sent to his phone.'
Most oligarchs also acquire their own jet. Roman Abramovich has three, including a Boeing 767 nicknamed the Bandit.
Then there's the yacht. Billionaire property magnate Vladimir Doronin used his luxury Lady In Blue to whisk fiery model Naomi Campbell off on a romantic cruise last year.
In 2003, Abramovich bought Pelorus, the tenth largest private yacht in the world. It has a swimming pool with an artificial current and an owner's cabin with panoramic views.
Valerie Manokhina, a former friend of Abramovich, says Russian men are obsessed with competition.
'It is size that matters,' she explained. 'The ladies go to a restaurant with the latest bag, the boys do it with boats and planes.'
This influx of high-spending Russians has changed the profile of many of London's top retailers. Most luxury department stores and boutiques now hire Russian-speaking staff to help the wives and girlfriends of oligarchs shop.
The obsession with spending stems from a fatalistic approach to life.
'Russians have no concept of saving, just as they have no concept of tomorrow,' says Marina Starkova, a director of Red Square PR company.
Such fatalism may explain Russia's age-old reputation as a nation of enthusiastic vodka drinkers. But those who move to London quickly acquire a taste for fine wine.
One dealer admitted that some of his clients were spending enough to support a small wine merchant singlehandedly, though money can't buy sophistication.
Wine writer Tim Atkin remembers watching four cigar-smoking men at the Michelin-starred Hakkasan restaurant ordering a £1,560 bottle of 1996 Chateau Petrus - which they then diluted with Diet Coke.
Abramovich is teetotal, although he's developed an expensive taste for sushi. Late one afternoon he was in Baku, Azerbaijan, and remarked that he fancied sushi for dinner.
Baku isn't known for its Japanese cuisine, so the aide ordered £1,200 of sushi from Ubon in Canary Wharf. It was collected by limousine and then flown 3,000 miles by private jet to Azerbaijan.
At an estimated total cost of £40,000, it must surely rank among the most expensive takeaways in history.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/artic...death.html

[Chris Bowen]

Verrry interesting - looks a nice juicy read.

A little bit stodgier : from today's FT :- ( I wish someone would pay me $1.3bn for a couple of industrial corporations I don't actually own ! )

[size=12]Feuding oligarchs head to court

By Michael Peel and Andrew Jack in London
Published: July 20 2009 22:33 | Last updated: July 20 2009 22:44

Billions of dollars and claims of skulduggery around the aluminium industry and other businesses are at stake in the pair of lawsuits being heard in neighbouring rooms in London’s High Court....

The cases – Boris Berezovsky v Roman Abramovich and Michael Cherney v Oleg Deripaska – are seen as potential sources of political and commercial embarrassment to Russia.....

In written submissions before the case, Mr Abramovich conceded that he paid more than $2bn (€1.4bn, £1.2bn) to Mr Berezovsky and his business partner Badri Patarkatsishvili in relation to ORT, the television network, Sibneft, the oil company, and Rusal, the aluminium group while rejecting claims that Mr Berezovsky had shares in the latter two businesses.
He says Mr Berezovsky had no ownership of the other companies and that he paid $1.3bn in relation to Sibneft "in recognition of the political assistance and protection" Mr Berezovsky provided when Sibneft was set up, and $585m linked to Mr Patarkatsishvili’s "assistance" and "protection" with Rusal....

The two cases are separate but overlap intriguingly in that both involve disputes over the allocation of proceeds of investments in UC Rusal, the aluminium giant. Rusal was formed through a merger of Sibal, Mr Cherney and Mr Deripaska’s aluminium company, with the metals empire of Mr Abramovich and Mr Berezovsky.


Yards away, Mr Deripaska, an embattled plutocrat who is grappling to restructure huge international debts, has launched a fresh effort to stop Mr Cherney bringing a multibillion dollar claim against him in London over their investments in Rusal.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8a2b001e-756d-...ck_check=1
[/SIZE]

[Jan Klimkowski]

OK - cutting through some of this inevitably tangled web:

Curtis was one of Khodorkovsky and Yukos' foreign lawyers.

Yukos was used by western financial elites to seize control of Russia's natural resources and exploit them for the benefit of western financiers.

Russia's own spooky gangsters, including the likes of Putin, did not like this.

Curtis has a helicopter accident.

If the original piece is accurate, Curtis liked the high life and kept most of the legal and financial details of the transactions in which he was involved in his head.

I'm actually surprized he lasted so long.

[David Guyatt]

Nice people Bliar invited to come and enjoy the UK highlife eh. I wnder what his and New Labour's "cut" was?

I bet both were cheap at the price...

[Jan Klimkowski]

Classic piece of propaganda from the Guardian's onetime "Moscow Correspondent".

Those nasty Russkie spies are up to all sorts of games, like moving furniture around, but being decent chaps we Brits and Yanks don't complain....

One can only imagine the outrage if Russian drones were flying over British or American territory and blowing people, goats and cars up on the basis of some low quality and frequently erroneous "intelligence".

Foreign correspondent?

Huh.

Russian spy agency targeting western diplomats

FSB using psychological techniques developed by KGB to intimidate and demoralise diplomatic staff, activists and journalists

Foreign staff guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 September 2011 16.09 BST Article history

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was a lieutenant colonel in the KGB and ran its successor, the FSB. Photograph: Carlos Baria/EPA


Russia's spy agency is waging a massive undercover campaign of harassment against British and American diplomats, as well as other targets, using deniable "psychological" techniques developed by the KGB, a new book reveals.

The federal security service (FSB's) operation involves breaking into the private homes of western diplomats a method the US state department describes as "home intrusions". Typically the agents move around personal items opening windows, or setting alarms in an attempt to demoralise and intimidate their targets.

The FSB operation includes bugging of private apartments, widespread phone tapping, physical surveillance, and email interception. Its victims include local Russian staff working for western embassies, opposition activists, human rights workers and journalists. The clandestine campaign is revealed in Mafia State, a book by the Guardian's former Moscow correspondent Luke Harding, serialised in Saturday's Weekend magazine.

The British and American governments are acutely aware of the FSB's campaign of intimidation. But neither has publicly complained about these demonstrative "counter-intelligence" measures, for fear of further straining already difficult relations with Vladmir Putin's resurgent regime. Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, was head of the FSB.

British sources admit they have files "five or six inches thick" detailing FSB break-ins and other incidents of harassment against Moscow embassy staff. "Generally we don't make a fuss about it," one said. So pervasive is the FSB's campaign the British government is unable to staff fully its Moscow embassy. The intrusions are designed to "short-tour" diplomats so they leave their posts early, the source said.

Despite a recent improvement in US-Russian relations, the FSB has also targeted US diplomats and their families. In a 2009 confidential diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks, the US ambassador in Moscow John Beyrle complains that the FSB's aggressive measures have reached unprecedented levels.

Mafia State recounts how the KGB first became interested in "operational psychology" in the 1960s. But it was the Stasi, East Germany's sinister secret police, that perfected these psychological techniques and used them extensively against dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s. These operations were given a name, Zersetzung literally corrosion or undermining.

According to former Stasi officers the aim was to "switch off" regime opponents by disrupting their private or family lives. Tactics included removing pictures from walls, replacing one variety of tea with another, and even sending a vibrator to a target's wife. Usually victims had no idea the Stasi were responsible. Many thought they were going mad; some suffered breakdowns; a few committed suicide.

It was Erich Honecker, East Germany's communist leader, who patented these methods after concluding that "soft" methods of torture were preferable to open forms of persecution. The advantage of psychological operations was their deniability important for a regime that wanted to maintain its international respectability. Putin spent the late 1980s as an undercover KGB officer based in the east German town of Dresden.Harding was himself the victim of repeated FSB break-ins, and last November was, in effect, expelled from Russia when the foreign ministry said it was not renewing his journalist's accreditation.

Mafia State also reveals:

FSB officers privately admit the agency was involved in the assassination of dissident spy Alexander Litvinenko. They regret, however, the bungled way it was carried out.

The British embassy in Moscow has a "polonium" chair sat on by Andrei Lugovoi, the chief suspect in the Litvinenko murder. Uncertain what to do with it, officials have locked it in a room in the embassy.

Russia's footballing union knew a week before a vote in December that Fifa's executive committee would give Russia, rather than England, the 2018 World Cup

The FSB never explained why they targeted Harding with such zeal. Other western correspondents have also suffered from occasional "home intrusions", but on a much lesser scale.

[Peter Lemkin]

Switching one brand of tea for another......almost like waterboarding! I don't deny the likelihood that these or similar techniques were/are used....but the writer seems to miss the obvious - that the same goes on in the 'Western' 'democracies (sic)'..... Both 'sides' are equally evil, IMHO - they have their own styles, but neither are democracies under the rule of Law and the People. And your point about drone strikes is well taken...we do a bit more outside our countries to non-citizens than they do. They do a bit more [only a bit] taking out their reporters and whistleblowers, etc. in and outside their country by various means [killings; plutonium, etc.]

[Jan Klimkowski]

Another interesting piece of propaganda from the Daily Telegraph, which if read between the lines reveals far more than its surface argument.

For instance, this witches' brew. Mammon has its own rules, methinks:

Britain is home to 300,000 Russians, and London in particular has benefited from an influx of billionaires and millionaires grown fat on the privatisation of Russia's state assets in the Nineties. Some 100 Russian millionaires accounted for a quarter of Tier 1 UK visas in the year to June. The privileged permits allow long-term, non-domicile residence here in return for a minimum investment in British property, shares and bonds of £1 million.

But these people also bring their histories, their fears and feuds. Little is done in the way of background checks on applicants for Tier 1 status, and so large has been the influx of rich Russians that there is concern about their increasing involvement in British institutions. The Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, is known to consider this a significant potential threat.

The Russian rich are drawn to London by its relative safety, lack of official corruption, fair courts, good schools, varied shopping and sophisticated financial services allowing access to offshore tax havens. Russian patronage of the British capital has boosted property values in fashionable parts of west London even in a period of austerity.

(snip)

Lax anti-laundering measures in the UK mean ill-gotten gains can be transferred to tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands via shell companies nominally based here. Last year, the Financial Services Authority said three quarters of British banks it examined had failed to install sufficient safeguards against laundering.

Meanwhile, the private security industry in the UK is doing well out of the fears of wealthy Russians more used to travelling in armed convoys at home. Former SAS and SBS men who populate the bodyguard "circuit" are in demand.


And then there's this. Whoops - are these intentional revelations?

Litvinenko, who is believed to have been paid a stipend by British intelligence during his exile, lived for three weeks after poison was slipped into his tea in a restaurant in the West End. Berezovsky, who has declared his intention to overthrow Putin, was the next target. A plot to kill him at the Hilton Hotel in London in June 2007 was foiled by the Security Service, MI5.

Full article:

From Russia with hate - are Russian assassins on the loose in Britain?
With the death of a businessman in Surrey now being treated as suspicious, we look at the spate of hits that have taken place in Britain

Murder or mishap? The mysterious death of Russian businessman Alexander Perepelichny

By Neil Tweedie

7:56PM GMT 07 Dec 2012

Comments304 Comments

Apparently healthy people do drop dead, so Surrey Police were not unduly exercised by the sudden demise of Alexander Perepilichny. The body of the Russian businessman was found near his home on the St George's Hill estate in Weybridge on Saturday, November 10. A member of staff at his house, rented for £12,500 a month, happened upon the body as darkness fell. Perepilichny, aged 44, had been seen jogging earlier that day and was still in his running gear. There were no signs of violence, nothing to suggest foul play. The gated community, a collection of secluded detached houses selling for £3 million and above, is one of the most exclusive in Britain, favoured in the past by singers and soccer stars, and supposedly one of the most secure. For officers assigned to the case, Perepilichny's death initially represented a personal tragedy, but nothing more. Only later, when the alert was raised by his associates, did they begin to consider the possibility that something darker may have occurred. Following an inconclusive first autopsy, a second was ordered. A toxicology report is not expected for months.

Assassinations, successful or attempted, are rare things in Britain, but when they happen there is a reasonable chance that a Russian will be involved. Russia is a far less violent place than it was even five years ago, but for the many criminal entities in that vast country, some rooted deeply in government, there are still vendettas to be pursued and inconvenient people to be rubbed out. The fact that the target has sought shelter in the United Kingdom may serve as a deterrent to a would-be assassin, but it would not put them off completely.

Britain is home to 300,000 Russians, and London in particular has benefited from an influx of billionaires and millionaires grown fat on the privatisation of Russia's state assets in the Nineties. Some 100 Russian millionaires accounted for a quarter of Tier 1 UK visas in the year to June. The privileged permits allow long-term, non-domicile residence here in return for a minimum investment in British property, shares and bonds of £1 million.

But these people also bring their histories, their fears and feuds. Little is done in the way of background checks on applicants for Tier 1 status, and so large has been the influx of rich Russians that there is concern about their increasing involvement in British institutions. The Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, is known to consider this a significant potential threat.

The Russian rich are drawn to London by its relative safety, lack of official corruption, fair courts, good schools, varied shopping and sophisticated financial services allowing access to offshore tax havens. Russian patronage of the British capital has boosted property values in fashionable parts of west London even in a period of austerity.


"The Russian buyer is still hugely important to the top of the London market," says Liam Bailey, head of residential research at the estate agents Knight Frank. "In the £5 million to £10 million market Russians account for 10 per cent, and above £10 million their share rises to around 17 per cent. Some buy outside London but they tend to stay in the Surrey 'estates' places like Wentworth and St George's Hill."

Disputes between Russian "businessmen" are nowadays more likely to be settled in the courts than at the point of a gun, but occasionally the old rules of the "Wild East" apply. In March this year, German Gorbuntsov, a Russian banker, was shot six times at close range as he approached his flat in London's Canary Wharf. He survived the assassination attempt, later blaming it on former business associates in his home country.

Criminality and officialdom in Russia are intimately linked and it is difficult to separate the two when examining murders. The country's bureaucracy is not one monolithic structure but a host of competing interests with ties to business and the underworld. Some killings, however, suggest higher direction.

In the eyes of Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation, Britain's willingness to provide sanctuary for that group of disaffected Russians known as the London Circle, headed by his friend-turned-mortal-enemy Boris Berezovsky, makes it a hostile power. Anglo-Russian diplomatic relations plunged into deep freeze in 2006 when Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer and fugitive from the Putin regime, was poisoned with the radioactive isotope polonium 210. Litvinenko, who is believed to have been paid a stipend by British intelligence during his exile, lived for three weeks after poison was slipped into his tea in a restaurant in the West End. Berezovsky, who has declared his intention to overthrow Putin, was the next target. A plot to kill him at the Hilton Hotel in London in June 2007 was foiled by the Security Service, MI5.

Suspicions linger about other deaths, such as that of Stephen Curtis, a wealthy British lawyer who tended to the affairs of some of Russia's richest men. The sell-off of Russia's state assets by Boris Yeltsin in the Nineties resulted in two dozen oligarchs owning 40 per cent of the economy. Curtis helped transfer fortunes into offshore accounts. He died in 2004 when the helicopter taking him to his home in Dorset crashed.

Perepilichny, who fled his homeland with his wife three years ago, was certainly inconvenient to a powerful group of Russian criminals. At the time of his death he was aiding a Swiss investigation into the laundering of the proceeds of a vast fraud perpetrated in Russia. Russian tax officials had conspired with a criminal syndicate to claim a bogus tax refund of a quarter of a billion dollars. To do so, they had to steal control of companies belonging to the western investment house Hermitage Capital Management.

Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer, paid with his life for acting on behalf of Hermitage in Russia, dying in a Moscow prison in 2009 following prolonged mistreatment. This week, the US Senate passed the Magnitsky Act, intended to name and shame corrupt Russian officials, as well freezing their assets and barring their entry to America. Former British foreign secretaries Sir Malcolm Rifkind and David Miliband have called for similar sanctions to be imposed by the UK.

None of this will prevent the growth and integration of the Russian community in London. A failing Russian economy is fuelling a brain drain in favour of the British capital, while the City of London's reputation for light-touch regulation is proving another draw.

Robert Palmer of the campaign group Global Witness, which monitors corruption around the world, says British financiers are reluctant to delve too deeply into the origins of Russian money. "People in the banking industry say to me, 'How far back can you go with these Russians? We can't say this or that company was bought or gained legitimately in the fog of the Nineties.' It is hard to work out what happened during that huge binge of privatisation following the fall of communism, so a line has been drawn under the past."

Lax anti-laundering measures in the UK mean ill-gotten gains can be transferred to tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands via shell companies nominally based here. Last year, the Financial Services Authority said three quarters of British banks it examined had failed to install sufficient safeguards against laundering.

Meanwhile, the private security industry in the UK is doing well out of the fears of wealthy Russians more used to travelling in armed convoys at home. Former SAS and SBS men who populate the bodyguard "circuit" are in demand.

The relative ease of London life means that many Russian businessmen with interests in their home country prefer their families to live here while they make the four-hour commute to Moscow by executive jet. They are also keen to send their children to British schools such as Eton half a dozen sons of oligarchs started there this year.

"The Russians come to London because it is pleasant and safe," says Andrew Wordsworth, partner in the Mayfair-based private investigators GPW, whose clients include British-based Russians. "If there is a downside in terms of some criminality, it is hugely offset by the benefits of our playing host to a thriving Russian community that spends its money here."

Russian-related killings in Britain will, Wordsworth believes, remain a rarity. "Russia is much safer than it was, but if people want to commit violence they are much more likely to do it there, when targets are visiting, than here, where they face an effective police force."

That may be true of those who venture back to Mother Russia. But for the Russians living in self‑imposed exile in Belgravia and Surrey, who have crossed the wrong people, there is always the risk of an unwelcome visit from home.

[Peter Lemkin]

Agreed Jan, while Putin and the FSU's intelligence apparat are nothing to drool/croon/applaud over [actually, things to condemn firmly!], the 'West' led by the USA and their Poodle-in-Chief [the UK] are also guilty of the exact same things - and perhaps more so outside of their national boundaries, at this time in history. The old trick of tyranny, whoever and wherever it is, is to point at others to divert attention from what they are doing themselves.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Breaking news channels reporting that Berezovsky has just died...

[Jan Klimkowski]

Story Number One (of many soon to emerge, most likely), is suicide:

Russian Billionaire In Exile Boris Berezovsky Commits Suicide - The First Cyprus Casualty?

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2013 13:07 -0400 Zero Hedge


Just your ordinary run of the mill Russian billionaire oligarch in exile who had so much money he was terminally depressed... or just the opposite, and the first tragic casualty of the Cyprus capital controls which are about to eviscerate a whole lot of Russian wealth (and ultraluxury Manhattan real estate prices)?

From RT:

Exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has died at the age 67, according to a Facebook post from his son-in-law Egor Schuppe. Details regarding the nature of his death are yet to be released.



His death has not been officially confirmed, and details have not been disclosed.



According to Schuppe, Berezovsky was recently depressed. He failed to keep in touch with friends and acquaintances, and often chose to stay at home rather than go out.



Damian Kudriavtsev, the former CEO of Kommersant Publishing House also commented on the businessman's death saying he passed away at 11:00 GMT in London.



On his twitter account, Kudriavtsev said there were no signs of a violent death.



Aleksandr Dobrovinksy, a famous lawyer and head of Moscow-based The Alexander Dobrovinsky & Partners law firm has said that Berezovsky committed suicide.



"Just got a call from London. Boris [Abramovich] Berezovsky committed suicide. He was a difficult man. A move of disparity? Impossible to live poor? A strike of blows? I am afraid no one will get to know now," the lawyer said on his social network page.

His name was Boris Berezovsky.