Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like those often slimy often criminal russian oligarchs. They got rich fast. Rather they got very rich, very fast. Of course their wealth causes a lot of envy by the public and by the government and Putin has the power and will to take their weath, throw them in jail or make them flee the country and then try to kill them with Polonium.
I would not mind, if the wealth Putin steals back would really do the normal Russian any good. But I have very strong doubts. What would you expect from a fucking Ex-KGB who might be less Ex than we hope for.
And I disdain Schroeder, the former German Chancellor who called Putin to be a flawless democrat. Probably Schroeder should have stayed away from the Vodka. At least his Putin has repaid his brown-nosed friend with a job in a Russian-German joint venture and an adopted two children from Russia (with love).
But I am drifting from the topic which is Mikhail Gutseriyev, born 1958, founder of one of the first cooperative banks and later started and run Russneft.
In July 2007 Gutseriyev stepped down from his oil company Russneft due to extreme pressure from Putin.
The usual modus operandi of Putin is to take advantage of the ambiguous Russian tax laws and then to claim tax evasion. An other approved method, used mainly for Western companies is to claim that environmental laws have been broken.
I am not saying, that neither tax evasion or environmental issues can happen, but their prosecution is very specific. As long as you are Putins friend, you can evade taxes and spill oil, but just don’t loose his friendship,.
Gutseriyev as many before him have fled Russia and arrived in London. There are claims he somehow transferred most of his 3 billion USD forture to London.
Putin often denouces Britain as a haven for criminals and terrorists later referring to Boris Berezovsky (whose friend Alexander Litvinenko was most probably murdered by the Russian Secret Service with radioactive poison) and to the Chechen rebel leader Akhmed Zakayew.
Numerous other Russian dissidents and opponents of the Putin regime now live in London including the former Kommersant journalist Yelena Tregubova and executives from the bankrupt oil company Yukos. Bankrupt thanks to Putin.
Mr Berezovsky said: "I know him and although I don't have an especially close relationship with him I will help if he gets in touch, although he will not need all that much help because he has big experience abroad and he has money." Mr Berezovsky said he expected more Russians to come to London because the UK's legal system offered protection from what he described as Russia's "gangster" government.
Gutseriyev was last seen at the funeral of his son who died last week following a mysterious car crash. It is very possible, that Putin had to do something with this ‚accident’ too. There are just too many critics of Putin dying premature.
The Guardian writes here.
Mr Gutseriyev's woes appear to have started after he bought up assets from the oil firm Yukos. On July 30 he published a damning letter accusing the Russian authorities of using regulation as a pretext to grab back oil and gas assets from Russian and western companies.
He wrote: "They made me an offer to leave the oil business, to leave on 'good terms'. I refused. Then, to make me more amenable, they tightened the screws on the company with unprecedented persecution." The letter marked the most significant public challenge to Mr Putin from a leading businessman since the imprisonment four years ago of the former chairman of Yukos Oil, Mikhail Khordorkovsky.
Khordorkovsky was jailed for eight years in 2004 for tax evasion and fraud. The case was widely seen as political punishment for his refusal to stop funding anti-Kremlin opposition parties ahead of 2004 elections. The oligarch, once Russia's richest man, is now in jail in Siberia.
Yesterday Russian newspapers dubbed Mr Gutseriyev a "second Mikhail" - a reference to Khordorkovsky. They predicted that, like Yukos, his RussNeft oil empire would be swiftly dismantled, sold off, and most probably absorbed into a new state-run firm. Russian investigators have already seized the firm and accuse Mr Gutseriyev of failing to pay $800m in tax.
Yeah, the virtue of a flawless democrat.
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