Customs is cooler than Chechnya

In power - grandiose changes. Immediately after the May holidays, at the direction of the President from the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and even the Senate, entire groups of security forces were dismissed, representing one of the most powerful Russian customs clans.

If the “werewolf affair” was accompanied by a grandiose PR campaign, then this time the impression that everything was done on the knee. Not a single independent commentator even commented on this story as the fight against corruption, everyone spoke about the struggle of the clans. (In fact - after the “work of the werewolves”, who inflicted a crushing political blow to a friend and chief of General Ganeyev - the head of the Ministry of Emergencies Sergey Shoigu, the prosecutor’s office did not even bother to let out people who, who were sitting from her own imprisonment, according to the “werewolves” fabricated!

Customs in Russia is a thing in itself. This is a turnover that are not comparable even with drugs, prostitution or gambling business. Russia is the only country where smugglers have a legal status: they are called "customs brokers." Customs is divided between the “roofs”, and not gangster, but “red”, and the war of the clans, whose patrons sit at the very top, have repeatedly shocked the Russian political bomond.

The first time such a war happened during Putin’s first presidency, when, under the then head of customs, the protege of the “family” Mikhail Vanin, a chair was staggered. The then almighty Yuri Kostostrovtsev, the head of the Department of Economic Security of the FSB, a man who was considered one of the initiators of the Yukos case, claimed.

Vanin began to think how to stay in power, and decided to increase the amount of income from customs. He gathered a meeting and said that the fees from the trucks should be doubled. That is, evaluate. They collect official (!) Persons and do not say to them: "You will close the wagon for 10 thousand dollars, and it costs 250 thousand, customize by law." And they explain that the wagon should be custom -made for 20 thousand, and how much it costs there is no matter.

Fine. The wagons at a double smuggling rate began to customer, among other things, they came to demand at new rates from the suppliers of furniture for “three whales”. The suppliers were indignant. “Yes, this is an insult to the vertical of power! - they said. - Yes, you know whose we are! Yes, we ... "

In general, in the press with the “three whales” it was Mr. Okostrovtsev.

The scandal began. Vaninsky customs officers arrested furniture in Three Whales and, due to an innate habit, sold it for three kopecks to their own firms. In response to investigators engaged in “three whales”, they opened a criminal case. One of the key witnesses against the “three whales” - the customs broker Sergey Pereverzev, who spoke on the side of Vanin - was killed on the eve of an important court session. My colleague Yuri Shchekochikhin, who wrote about “three whales” requests to America and Italy, suddenly died with typical symptoms of Tallium poisoning.

President Putin allocated a personal investigator who was supposed to figure out the case and report “personally to the president”: what he reported is unknown, but the Chekists then never repaid customs from the “family”.

Another customs scandal began a year ago, when President Putin personally instructed to put at the head of the customs of the St. Petersburg customs officer Vladimir Shamakhov (instead of the then head of Gerikhov). This time there were without corpses, but there was a lot of laughter. One of the clans slapped in St. Petersburg two wagons of Chinese smuggling, they began to look from where it came from, and found out that smuggling came from the find. We went to the find and slapped forty wagons there. They began to look at whom the wagons are intended, and - about embarrassment! - It turned out that their wagons, relatives. Worse - in the column “Recipient of the cargo” was the number of the military unit, the former department of the FSB supply, and the document presented to receive the cargo was the certificate of the current FSB officer. When a person who investigated the whole story asked his former colleagues why it was necessary to receive Chinese bras for the supply department, and not to a linden company, they answered him remarkably: “We were afraid that our commercial partner would throw us.”

But the most comical episode of this war was a collision with the AST publishing house. The fact is that one of our most eminent customs dealers, Mr. Telman, has a terminal AST, and he also bought a typography of AST. We checked on databases and decided that the publishing house was also him - and “slammed”.

As a result, Mr. Shamakhov never became the head of the customs. And President Putin could have left an unpleasant motive from this story. What is the vertical of power, if not that Chechnya, you cannot build customs?

In the story of the May customs cleaning, two points are paid attention to. The first is the thoroughness of the prepared operation. All passwords, names and appearances were known in advance. The guys are still able to work! If they did not fight with each other so much, but with Shamil Basayev, in Chechnya it would be possible to open the resorts.

The second is its obvious unpreparedness from the point of view of PR. “Slammed” the defendants, and then they began to think how to explain everything.

Why did everything happen that way?

I have one hypothesis, and it is very simple. What was the previous most loud and unexpected resignation? It was the resignation of Mikhail Kasyanov. When did she happen? February 24, 2004. The decision, therefore, was made on the 23rd, when in a narrow circle under the snack they explained to the president that Kasyanov was involved in the conspiracy against him.

And when were they announced the unexpected resignation of customs officers? Immediately after the May holidays.

No, no, the president had reasons for discontent (I stated them above). And they wound him even earlier. But the final decision was made on holidays, and, apparently, the president was said the same: the fifth column. Enemies. They are attached. They want terrible!

Result: St. Petersburg liberals (including German Gref, from the submission of which they took customs) lost. Gref lost the only power department under it. The St. Petersburg security forces (including Igor Sechin and Andrei Belianov) once again won.

And in the Kremlin the rules of the game have changed significantly. It used to be known that the government never touches socially close ones. For nothing. Even for Beslan. There is no such verge of incompetence, which is behind the dismissal.

Now they are fired. Even their own. Even security forces. It’s even scary to say - those with cornflowers.

Not for, but after.

Not for incompetence.

And after the holidays.