Translated material
Putin's money on distant shores
The Kremlin refused to comment on the essence of the investigation about the schemes of money laundering by Putin's possible acquaintances
The Kremlin will not comment on the essence of the publication of offshores presented by the Center for Corruption and Organized Crime Research (OCCRP) , the International Consortium of Journalistic Investigations (ICIJ), Wikileaks and the world media sites, said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov. On Sunday evening, they published a large material on corruption in the highest echelons of power in Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Serbia, Iceland, Great Britain and other countries. A significant part of the work is devoted to Russia - it states that people close to Vladimir Putin through the Russian Bank and the Panama offshore companies “pamble” more than $ 2 billion received by “dubious” transactions. According to Dmitry Peskov, Moscow knows well who finances such a "journalistic community."
It was required for almost 17 hours to Russian officials to notice a report published on Sunday evening on laundering money through offshore and the possible connection of these Russian companies with Russian presidents Vladimir Putin. According to his spokesman Dmitry Peskov , they will not comment on this publication in the Kremlin, since there is nothing specific about Putin and everything is built on arguments and speculations. Therefore, according to Peskov, the Kremlin does not see the point in preparing claims for the authors of the report.
At the same time, Dmitry Peskov admitted that the musician Sergei Roldugin, as well as "other people from different areas of employment, continued to remain friends of the president mentioned in the report." As for the authors of the report, the Kremlin, as Dmitry Peskov stated, is well aware who finances this "journalistic community"-in its composition "many ex-representatives of the State Department, CIA and other special services." "Apparently, the traditions of high-quality journalistic investigations have sunk into oblivion," the press secretary of the Russian president said. In general, according to him, the target of the presentation presented is Vladimir Putin in the context of the upcoming parliamentary and then presidential elections in Russia, and the purpose of his publication is to destabilize the situation in Russia. Therefore, the Kremlin is waiting for the continuation of publications of such investigations and, according to Dmitry Peskov, it will be.
The Panama Gate report-this is how the publication has already christened due to the geographical location of the offshore company on the documents of which it is based. "Panama Gate" was the largest leakage of information with which journalists have ever had to work. In electronic form, it is approximately 2.6 terabyte data.
The most complete Russian-speaking version of the published materials of Panama Gate, dedicated to Russian officials, politicians and their children, is on the special website of Novaya Gazeta. This site, like the website of the consortium of OCCRP journalists, immediately after publication was attacked.
The investigation was presented by its authors (in this case - almost a hundred journalists from dozens of countries) as a sensational. The head of the OCCRP Drew Sullivan even stated that after him the world will change. In Russia, many Internet users, however, before the ICS - 21:00 on April 3 by Moscow time - were inclined to perceive it skeptical. According to a significant part of the commentators, the accusations of theft and kum, at least, are hardly able to shake his power against Putin. Others, like an opposition politician Alexei Navalny, welcomed an investigation.
The main section of the "Russian part" of documents is dedicated to the Petersburg cellist Sergei Roldugin and the "offshore network" "related to Putin" that has already appeared in the previous investigation to Putin. The investigation also mention the names of the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Russia Alexander Makhonov , relatives of high-ranking Russian officials: nephew of the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev , the son of another deputy minister of internal affairs, Igor Zubov , spouse of the press secretary of President Dmitry Peskov Tatyana Navka , head of the department of Moscow Maxim Liksutova .
The investigation also mention deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from United Russia and members of the Federation Council.
The publication says that the commercial bank "Russia", apparently, is involved in the potential scheme of money laundering in which these people and a number of close acquaintances of Russia Vladimir Putin could be involved.
Almost all conclusions in the report are based on the documents of the Panama Legal Company, the registrar of offshore companies Mossack Fonseca & Co. They cover the period from 1977 to 2015 and were transferred by an anonymous source to the German edition of SueDdeutsche Zeitung and only then to other journalists who participated in the investigation. The authors of the final work, a kind of compilation of investigations, believe that Mossack Fonseca & Co. She helped customers wash money and evade taxes.
The documents mention four companies that are related to Russia to Russia. They are registered in offshores and, according to the authors of the investigation, are associated with the Bank "Russia" and some close friends of the President of Russia. It is assumed that it was from these structures that Roldugin received money earned by “dubious transactions” with shares of Russian companies (for example, Rosneft and Gazprom), and transferred them to offshore. As participants in transactions are the businessmen Arkady and Roman Rotenbergs , Yuri Kovalchuk (head of the Bank "Russia") and others.
An examples of such “dubious transactions” provide an agreement on the purchase of Rosneft shares with Roldugin. Rosneft immediately terminates the purchase agreement, pays a fine (750 thousand dollars), which is transferred to offshore.
Also, in the report, from the point of view of the business logic, individual lending transactions with the participation of the RCB Bank, which were controlled by the Russian Bank of VTB, were questioned. On Monday, his head Andrei Kostin said in an interview with Bloomberg TV that RCB could simply not issue unsecured loans. "There can be no question that RCB could give a loan without security," he said. The bank is regulated by the European Central Bank, and people who do not own information about financial transactions draw conclusions about its transactions.
No evidence of the personal enrichment of Roldugin himself due to such transactions is not given in the publication, as well as evidence of Vladimir Putin’s personal involvement in them.
According to Ilya Shumanov , Deputy General Director of the Russian Branch of Transperational International , the main blow to the publication of the OCCRP material may come to Russian banks mentioned in it:
In general, on social networks to publication, they reacted differently.
This is anecdotal organization OCCRP. The world, he says, will change after our revelations. Ahaahhah https://t.co/ei7lzxdlmg
- Rustem Adagamov (@adagamov) April 3, 2016
OCCRP investigation is really cool. Based on these documents, the entire top of the Russian government should be in prison.
- Alexey Navalny (@navalny) April 3, 2016
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Sullivan announced the time of publication on Saturday evening. Earlier, on March 28, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that "an information attack from abroad is being prepared against Putin and his environment." ICIJ was also mentioned in Peskov.
As you know, the world will change tomorrow at 9 pm Moscow time - read https://t.co/ddakrd4k1u @veloshum
- Drew Sullivan (@drewoccrp) April 2, 2016
Between this statement by Putin’s spokesman and tonight on the Internet on television between the Kremlin and the conditional “opposition” a whole “Compromat War” unfolded-material was published about enriching women close to Putin at the expense of the state, compromising on Mikhail Kasyanov and one of the Parnas party leaders Natalya Pelevina.
In his statement dated March 28, Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin “from many media” received the same questions - “whether Putin contributed to the legalization of shares in offshore companies.”
The fact that the main theme of the ICIJ investigation will be offshore was finally confirmed on Sunday afternoon. Bloggers drew attention to the post on Facebook, published by the Ukrainian journalist-investigator Dmitry Gnap on March 31.
In it, GNAP mentioned that "on the evening of April 3, journalists of different countries will simultaneously publish investigations about offshore secrets of the highest level politicians, each in their country." In the comments on the record of Kirill Mikhailov, Drew Sullivan confirmed his guesses.
On Sunday evening, the Law Firm Mossack Fonseca & Co. Published on her website a message about the hacking of the postal server of the company.
In total, the names of more than 20 acting and former heads of states, more than 100 politicians from around the world, appear in the investigation. In particular, it refers to the undeclared offshore company related to the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko , and the offshores of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev . It was for the investigation of the financial fraud of the latter, according to Azerbaijani human rights activists, a journalist of the Azerbaijani Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe Hadija Ismailov was put to prison .