Russian Blogger Exposes $4 bln “Theft”

Alexey Navalny, a Russian minority shareholder rights lawyer and well-known blogger, accused the former management of Russia’s pipeline monopoly, Transneft, of embezzling at least $4 billion during the construction of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline. Navalny published in his blog copies of the documents allegedly presented in 2008 to Russia’s Audit Chamber by the new management of Transneft (its former CEO Semen Vainshok was removed in 2007 and now lives abroad). The documents appear to explicitly confirm large-scale overpricing and other financial violations. Audit Chamber’s head, Sergey Stepashin, later denied the existence of the $4 bln theft, but confirmed that the Audit Chamber had inspected Transneft in 2008. “We sent the materials to the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office,” the official said.

http://lenta.ru/articles/2010/11/17/tube/
http://en.rian.ru/business/20101118/161390696.html
http://navalny.livejournal.com/526563.html