Putin's friends stole 24 billion from Russia

[Thanas]

Moscow Times

Investigation Reveals Putin's Inner Circle Has Amassed $24 Bln Fortune

President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle is estimated to have amassed almost $24 billion away from the public eye, a report by an investigative journalism group and an independent newspaper has revealed.

Putin’s private wealth has previously been estimated to be as high as $200 billion.

Members of Putin’s inner circle were implicated in a $2 billion money laundering scheme in a large-scale 2016 leak known as the Panama Papers.

The Panama Papers identified musician and Putin’s childhood friend Sergei Roldugin as the owner of offshore companies that the president’s inner circle used to channel the $2 billion to Russia.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project published findings with the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta on Tuesday that estimate Putin’s family and friends are worth almost $24 billion.

Putin’s inner circle, which has amassed the $24 billion, does not include state company executives or politicians.

The investigation singles out Roldugin and two other figures in Putin’s cohort as likely proxies with vast assets who cannot account for their wealth. They are not involved in politics, big business, don’t hold lucrative jobs or live a wealthy lifestyle.

“But, somehow, they’ve come to hold enormous assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars — though sometimes they can hardly recall the names of the companies they own,” the OCCRP says.

One of Putin’s proxies worth $573 million based on publicly available figures is identified as Mikhail Shelomov, 49, the son of the president’s cousin. His official salary at a state oil firm is $700 per month, according to the investigation.

The second member of Putin’s inner circle is a former butcher and another childhood friend Pyotr Kolbin, with an estimated net worth of $550 million.

In 2012 comments to a Russian newspaper that uncovered him as a stakeholder in an energy company rumored to be the source of Putin’s private wealth, Kolbin denied that he was a businessman.

The investigation quotes an unnamed ex-KGB officer as saying that Putin “will never leave any trace” of his vast assets.

“Why should [he], if there are trusted people from the inner circle or some distant relatives who can keep all the assets?"

[Zixinus]

This is not at all surprising. The only thing that would have been surprising if Russian citizens were at all surprised.

[wautd]

The only thing that would have been surprising if Russian citizens were at all surprised.

Would they even know about it? Is there still free press that can be critical about the regime in Russia?

[Zixinus]

I suspect that it doesn't matter if there are. I suspect that if there are, they might not mention this fact simply because nobody would turn their head. It is a statement as self-evident statement as "the powerful ,and those near them that they like, are rich".

[The Romulan Republic]

Yup.

Putin is corrupt.

In other news, Bernie Sanders is old, Joe Biden makes gaffs, and Donald Trump is an asshole.

[Vympel]

The assertion that Putin's private wealth is some $200 billion is not only absurd on its face, it comes entirely from the asshole of Bill Browder, who has no special credibility nevermind evidence on the matter whatsoever, and his reasoning is that of a moron:

“I believe that [Putin is worth] $200 billion," Browder said. "After 14 years in power of Russia, and the amount of money that the country has made, and the amount of money that hasn't been spent on schools and roads and hospitals and so on, all that money is in property, bank, Swiss bank accounts, shares, hedge funds, managed for Putin and his cronies.”

It's repeated far and wide because any asinine claim about Russia or Putin can be repeated and spread with no verification whatsoever. The standards of proof for repeating something transparently ridiculous are non-existent. You'd have to be a fucking idiot to believe that figure based on that 'reasoning'.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor ... 3f878c1369

As Leonid Bershidsky wrote for Bloomberg View in 2013, most of these numbers can be traced back to one man: Stanislav Belkovsky, a Russian political analyst, who first claimed in 2007 that Putin "controlled" 37 percent of oil company Surgutneftegaz and 4.5 percent of natural gas company Gazprom. If Belkovsky is right, that would certainly make Putin very wealthy. But where's the proof? Estimates of Putin's wealth lack even the smallest thread of evidence.

Perhaps that's for the best. In the highly personalized political world that Putin has created in Russia, his personal wealth is irrelevant. Consider a 2012 report made by a group of Russian dissidents and sarcastically titled "The Life of a Galley Slave" that took a look at the luxuries Putin's office afforded him. Among the many perks were a lavish estate called Constantine Palace that had recently been renovated at a cost of millions of dollars and 43 aircraft worth an estimated total of $1 billion.

Putin might not technically own these 43 aircraft, but, as the sole political power in Russia, he can act like they're his. He might not own Constantine Palace, either; but it's his, too. Given the enormous political power he has amassed, you can extend this logic further and further: Russia's currency reserves are his; Russia's military is his; even the asphalt that paves Russia's roads is his. Money may give Bill Gates power, but Putin already has the power: He doesn't need the money.