Russia Ranks 136th on Corruption Index

Russia has fallen nine places for the past year to 136th out of 175 countries in Transparency International's 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), a ranking of public sector corruption, made available on Wednesday. The CPI, released annually, scores and ranks the world’s countries and territories according to the perceived corruptness of their public sectors. The CPI is a composite index based on a “combination of surveys and assessments of corruption, collected by a variety of reputable institutions,” according to an information sheet provided by Transparency International. Each country in the index is assigned both a score and a ranking. The score falls on a scale ranging from zero to 100 – zero being the worst in terms of the perception of corruption, and 100 being the best. Russia has maintained the score of 27 which it shares with with Nigeria, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Iran and Cameroon.

http://rapsinews.com/anticorruption_news/20141203/272700044.html

Navalny Convicted of Libel

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was found guilty Tuesday of libel and fined 300,000 rubles ($8,400), a decision his spokeswoman said is aimed at paving the way to move the ex-Moscow mayoral candidate from house arrest to a jail cell. A local court in Moscow found that the prominent blogger and critic of President Vladimir Putin called the head of a Moscow district a drug addict in a Twitter post earlier this month. Mr. Navalny, who has been under house arrest and barred from communicating with the outside world since late February, in court denied writing the tweet, saying he had no access to the Internet. His wife, Julia Navalnaya, and his supporters say they have continued posting on his Twitter and LiveJournal pages.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303825604579517402175983832?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303825604579517402175983832.html

Opposition Activist Navalny Loses House Arrest Appeal

The Moscow City Court upheld a lower court’s ruling Monday to place anti-corruption crusader and opposition stalwart Alexei Navalny under house arrest, RAPSI reported from the court room. Prosecutors argued that Navalny, charged with embezzlement, should be isolated after he violated a pledge to remain in Moscow as well as having participated in an unsanctioned protest in central Moscow, inciting chaos and resisting arrest. The Basmanny District Court in Moscow granted the motion in late February, putting Navalny under house arrest in connection with the embezzlement case. Under the court order Navalny is prohibited from using communication devices, including the Internet.

http://en.ria.ru/crime/20140324/188712711/Opposition-Activist-Navalny-Loses-House-Arrest-Appeal.html

Navalny Proposes Punishing Putin

Prominent Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, now under home detention, published an article in The New York Times, entitled "How to Punish Putin," proposing a system of sanctions against Russian officials and the businessmen (identified by names) linked to the government, whom Navalny calls "the Kremlin mafia." "Western nations could deliver a serious blow to the luxurious lifestyles enjoyed by the Kremlin’s cronies who shuttle between Russia and the West. This means freezing the oligarchs’ financial assets and seizing their property," Navalny says. "Second, Western authorities must investigate ill-gotten gains from Russia within their jurisdictions," he continues. Navalny also criticizes Russia's "invasion of Ukraine." "Mr. Putin has cynically raised nationalist fervor to a fever pitch; imperialist annexation is a strategic choice to bolster his regime’s survival," he comments. "There is a common delusion among the international community that although Mr. Putin is corrupt, his leadership is necessary because his regime subdues the dark, nationalist forces that otherwise would seize power in Russia. The West should admit that it, too, has underestimated Mr. Putin’s malign intent. It is time to end the dangerous delusion that enables him," Navalny concludes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/opinion/how-to-punish-putin.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0

Russia Grants Amnesty to Former Defense Minister

Russia’s top federal law enforcement agency has closed a criminal case against the former defense chief, but the probe into a multi-million dollar embezzlement in the ministry continues. Anatoly Serdyukov was given amnesty by the Investigative Committee after a personal request from the former minister, the Interfax news agency reported on Thursday quoting an unnamed source acquainted with the situation. According to the source military prosecutors had no objection and the amnesty request was agreed almost immediately. However, Serdyukov’s defense attorney Konstantin Rivkin has refused to confirm the report. The Investigative Committee has not commented on the report either. The amnesty that halted the probe into the former official was put in place in December last year to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the modern Russian Constitution. It applied to first-time offenders tried for crimes not connected with violence against representatives of authority and sentenced to terms of up to five years. The news of Serdyukov’s amnesty was first circulated by the Russian media in late February. Then the agencies quoted an anonymous source in the Investigative Committee and military police as saying that the ex-minister was seeking amnesty as a person with state decorations who took part in active combat. (This is a reference to the brief war with Georgia in August 2008 when Anatoly Serdyukov occupied the defense minister’s post). Anatoly Serdyukov served asdefense minister from February 2007 till November 2012 when he was sacked after investigators uncovered a huge embezzlement scheme run by his subordinates in the real estate and other branches of the ministry. According to law enforcers, the suspects managed to defraud the state of about $215 million.

http://rt.com/politics/minister-defense-russia-amnesty-142/
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/06/uk-russia-amnesty-serdyukov-idUKBREA250GY20140306

Navalny Report Details Sochi Corruption Claims

Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny published an analysis of Russia’s spending for the 2014 Winter Olympics on Monday alleging that billions of dollars have been stolen and siphoned off for the benefit of top state officials. President Vladimir Putin is linked to the corruption through a $64.2 million road built to an exclusive ski resort, and lucrative contracts for businessmen with whom he reportedly enjoys close ties, according to the Navalny report. Allegations of large-scale corruption have dogged preparations for the Sochi Games, which are due to begin on February 7. Russian officials initially estimated that the Games would cost over $50 billion, making them the most expensive Olympics in the history of the event. However, Putin said earlier this month that only $6.5 billion had been spent on staging the competition, while the remainder was invested in local infrastructure development. Putin also denied that there was any large-scale corruption in the preparations for Sochi, and has challenged critics to produce evidence of graft.

http://en.ria.ru/sochi2014/20140127/186965218/Navalny-Report-Details-Sochi-Corruption-Claims.html

IOC Member: Corruption Took 1/3 of Sochi Spending

Senior International Olympic Committee member Gian Franco Kasper told Swiss journalists that one-third of the spending on the upcoming winter Olympics in Sochi has disappeared because of corruption. He said contracts were given to a "construction mafia" of businessmen closely linked to the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin. "The contracts were given to people who already had a foot in the door. We know it," Kasper said in an interview. The games are estimated to cost a record $51 billion in sports and infrastructure projects. Boris Nemtsov, a former Russian deputy prime minister-turned-Kremlin critic, alleged in a report released in May 2013 that up to $30 billion has been stolen in the run-up to the games.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ioc-member-corruption-took-1-184554351--oly.html

Kremlin's New Anti-Corruption Chief Accused of Plagiarizing Thesis

A grassroots anti-plagiarism group said Tuesday that the head of the Kremlin’s newly created anti-corruption department ripped off a significant portion of his doctoral thesis. Oleg Plokhoi – whose name, incidentally, means “bad” in Russian – defended his dissertation at the Federal Prison Service’s in-house judicial academy in 2006. But Dissernet.org claimed that about 62 of 152 pages in the thesis on staffing principles of Russian law enforcements had been borrowed from other books without proper attribution. Plokhoi, 45, who was appointed to his job last week by President Vladimir Putin, had not commented on the group’s allegations as of this article’s publication. He served in the KGB and its successor, the FSB, prior to joining the Kremlin administration in 1999. Dissernet.org was formed in 2011 and bases its studies on digital text analysis services. It has identified what it says is theft of written work by numerous high-ranking officials, including Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin and several federal legislators. Most have denied allegations of plagiarism.

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131211/185436465.html
http://navalny.livejournal.com/889132.html (Oleg Plokhoi, photo)

Russia Opens Criminal Case into Former Defense Minister

Russian investigators opened a criminal case Thursday into former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who is suspected of causing 56 million rubles ($1.7 million) worth of damage to the state. This is the first time that a criminal case has been opened against Serdyukov, who was fired by President Vladimir Putin a year ago amid allegations of high level corruption. During his tenure as minister, Serdyukov ordered his subordinates to use serving soldiers to build a road to an elite holiday resort in southern Russia, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131128/185094229/Russia-Opens-Criminal-Case-into-Former-Defense-Minister.html

Ukraine Delays Tymoshenko Release Law, EU Deal Under Threat

Lawmakers in Ukraine on Wednesday again delayed consideration of measures to enable jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to travel abroad for medical treatment, possibly dashing prospects for a historic trade deal with the European Union. The draft law has undergone sustained debate in the ex-Soviet nation's unruly legislature, and its failure is likely to be blamed on pressure from Russia, which has sought to persuade Kiev to join its own Customs Union trade bloc instead of seeking closer ties with the EU. Tymoshenko, a prominent opposition leader, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2011 for abuse of power over a gas contract with Russia that was determined to be financially unfavorable for Ukraine. She insists that the charges were politically motivated. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said last month that the EU would only be ready to sign a free-trade agreement with Ukraine at a summuit scheduled for late November only if a "suitable solution" was found for the Tymoshenko issue.

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131113/184684235/Ukraine-Delays-Tymoshenko-Release-Law-EU-Deal-Under-Threat.html

US Seizes Ukraine Ex Prime Minister's $6m California Mansion

US authorities have confiscated the $6.75 million California mansion of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko in connection with his money laundering conviction nearly a decade ago and have also sanctioned the seizure of a Pablo Picasso lithograph that he is believed to own. The sprawling 20-room home in the city of Novato, 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of San Francisco, was formally handed over to the United States last month in an Oct. 8 order issued by Judge Charles Breyer of the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The mansion, where comedian Eddie Murphy reportedly once resided while filming a movie nearby, was seized as part of the US government’s efforts to recover $22.8 million from Lazarenko based on his 2004 conviction by a federal jury in San Francisco on charges of extortion, fraud and money laundering. The seizure comes as Lazarenko, who served as Ukraine’s prime minister from May 1996 to July 1997, faces possible deportation from the United States following his release from federal prison last November after serving out a nine-year sentence.

http://www.rapsinews.com/news/20131105/269518260.html

Prosecutors Crack Down on Skolkovo President

The president of the Skolkovo Foundation, Russia's high-tech development center, had a personal stake in issuing unfounded research and developments grants, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced on Wednesday. The prosecutors claim that 17 grants totaling 3.6 billion rubles ($112 million) were issued without the requisite evaluation, and that three members of the grant committee, including the fund’s president, had a personal stake in the matter. In addition, The Prosecutor General's office reports a possible misuse of up to 125 billion rubles ($4 billion) of budget funds, and that the construction of the fund's facilities was conducted without proper licenses and papers confirming property rights. The Prosecutor General’s Office issued a warning, calling upon the fund to compensate the damages and to determine the party responsible. The Skolkovo Foundation, set up in 2010 by then-President Dmitry Medvedev, is the primary agency for the Skolkovo high-tech development hub, which includes a business center, a science and technology institute, and a management school. The project is intended to showcase the drive to diversify and modernize the Russian economy. Billionaire Renova Group president Viktor Vekselberg is the foundation's president and head of the Skolkovo Fund.

http://rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20131030/269454934.html
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/skolkovo-warned-over-potential-4bln-in-misspending/488793.html

Russia Cancels Handgun Order after Navalny Expose

Russia has canceled an order for Austrian-manufactured Glock pistols placed by the Defense Ministry after the prices were found to be inflated. The Federal Defense Contracts Service said Friday that the procurement process is to be investigated. A preliminary probe revealed that the Defense Ministry’s procurement agency inflated the initial contract price in a notice on its website earlier in October, a contracts service spokesman told RIA Novosti. He said that other defense, security and law enforcement agencies could buy the same guns at a quarter of the price. The procurement agency said it would pay up 210,000 rubles ($6,600) for Glock 17 handguns and 191,000 rubles for Glock 26 models. This sum covers a full set, including barrels and silencers not mentioned in the order, the spokesman said. The order was canceled after a post in the blog of prominent opposition leader Alexey Navalny who pointed out the the retail price of the guns is around 50,000 rubles and surmised the price had been corruptly inflated.

http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20131025/184348191/Russia-Cancels-Austrian-Gun-Order-Over-Inflated-Price-.html
http://lenta.ru/news/2013/10/23/glock/
http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/navalny/1184632-echo/
http://navalny.livejournal.com/870130.html

$3M Embezzled During Renovation of Moscow Theaters

According to preliminary police estimates, more than 100 million rubles ($3.1 million) were embezzled during renovation works in Moscow’s Bolshoi and Maly theaters, the Interior Ministry’s Moscow department said on Wednesday. “According to preliminary estimates, the federal budget lost more than 100 million rubles,” the department said in a statement. “At the moment, four people are named as suspects in the case.” The Interior Ministry said on June 13 that an investigation was under way into a suspected embezzlement of 90 million rubles (nearly $2.8 million) allocated for remodeling work at Moscow’s famous Bolshoi Theater. It was not immediately clear whether this money was part of the sum announced on Wednesday. The Bolshoi reconstruction project, which lasted from 2005 to 2011, was marred by repeated delays and fraud allegations. Russian prosecutors opened a probe in 2009 into the suspected embezzlement of millions of dollars during the renovation. The theater’s extensive reconstruction cost an estimated 35.4 billion rubles ($1.2 billion), according to the Russian Audit Chamber.

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131003/183915786/Over-3M-Embezzled-During-Renovation-of-Moscow-Theaters.html

Top Official Flees Russia Amid Corruption Scandal

A senior Russian official suspected of involvement in a corruption scandal has been sacked, the federal land registration agency confirmed Monday, amid media reports that the man had already fled the country. Sergei Sapelnikov, former deputy head of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadaster and Cartography (Rosreestr), which maintains the country’s real estate registry, was fired on September 26, almost three weeks after having reportedly fled to Ukraine or the United States, according to a report by the Izvestia daily. Sapelnikov’s dismissal is a new development in the corruption scandal at Roseestr, where checks by Federal Security Service officers and Russia’s Audit Chamber in July found financial irregularities amounting to 23.9 billion rubles ($735 million). Investigators suspect that some 2.5 billion rubles ($75 million) was misappropriated during the implementation of the agency’s ambitious project to unify Russian real estate and cadastral databases, a process supervised by Sapelnikov.

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130930/183864117/Top-Official-Sacked-Reportedly-Flees-Russia-Amid-Corruption-Scandal.html

Protective Order Issued Over US Properties Allegedly Linked To Russian Tax Fraud

A US federal court Wednesday issued a protective order over property implicated in a lawsuit alleging fowl play by a Russian criminal enterprise linked to the Hermitage Capital Fund. The protective order issued Wednesday applies to all in personam defendants, including numerous Prevezon entities, and two other companies – Ferencoi Investments, Ltd. and Kolevins, Ltd. – as well as any attorneys or other such representatives acting on their behalves. Prevezon Holdings belongs to Denis Kantsyv, the son of former Moscow Region Transport Minister Petr Kantsyv, an attorney for Denis Kantsyv confirmed to RAPSI Wednesday. Prosecutors allege that certain Manhattan properties were purchased with money fraudulently acquired through a Russian tax scheme unveiled by Hermitage Capital auditor Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow pre-trial detention center in 2009. Denis Katsyv's attorney stressed, however, that neither her client nor any of his relatives are linked with the Magnitsky case specifically or the Hermitage Fund in general. Magnitsky was arrested on November 24, 2008, on suspicion of having masterminded large-scale corporate tax evasion. He died while in pretrial detention on November 16, 2009, after spending a year behind bars. The case was closed after his death, only to be reopened later. Under Russian law, a person can be prosecuted after death. On July 11 Magnitsky was found guilty of tax evasion. On Dec. 6, 2012, the US Senate approved the Magnitsky Act, to severe criticism from the Russian State Duma, stipulating visa sanctions for Russians who are believed by US authorities to have been involved in human rights violations. The Magnitsky List, which was published in part on April 12, includes the names of 18 Russian officials who are barred from travelling to the United States.

Putin Distrusts Navalny

Moscow mayoral candidate and opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption campaign may stem from a drive for popular support rather than a genuine concern for the public interest, President Vladimir Putin claimed Wednesday. He cited Navalny’s recent conviction for embezzlement as a mark against the authenticity of his anti-corruption platform. “If a person talks about a fight against corruption, he himself must be, above all, spotlessly clean,” he said in an interview with the Associated Press and Russia's state TV network Channel 1. “I unfortunately have suspicions that this is just a way to score points rather than a genuine desire to solve problems.” Navalny, who has based his opposition activism and election campaign for Moscow mayor on a vociferous anti-corruption platform, was found guilty of embezzlement in mid-July and sentenced to five years in prison. Many observers and his supporters claimed the trial was a politically motivated attempt to stop his anti-corruption drive.

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130904/183159835/Navalny-Anti-Corruption-Campaign-May-Not-be-Genuine---Putin.html

Russian Court Orders Opposition Lawmaker to Pay Back $83,000 to Skolkovo

A Moscow District Court ordered a State Duma lawmaker Tuesday to pay 2.728 million rubles ($82,776) to the Skolkovo Foundation, Russia's high-tech development center, over payments allegedly improperly made to him by one of its officials. Skolkovo had claimed 9 million rubles ($273,088) from deputy Ilya Ponomaryov, who Russian investigators claim was illegally paid from Skolkovo funds by the center’s senior vice president Alexei Beltyukov between February 2011 and February 2012 for a series of lectures and research projects. An investigation was launched into Beltyukov's actions to analyze the academic value of the lectures Ponomaryov was contracted to provide. Spokesman Vladimir Markin said previously the Investigative Committee planned to launch criminal proceedings against Ponomaryov as part of the Skolkovo Foundation's lawsuit and would be requesting he be stripped of his parliamentary immunity.

http://en.ria.ru/crime/20130827/182987920/Court-Orders-Opposition-Lawmaker-to-Pay-Back-83000-to-Skolkovo-.html

Russian Officials Now Prohibited From Having Foreign Bank Accounts

Senior Russian officials, including lawmakers, judges and the heads of state corporations, as well as their spouses and underage children, are no longer allowed to keep their money in foreign bank accounts or financial instruments abroad as of Monday. The legislation, initiated by the Kremlin to “nationalize elites” and deter corruption, originally envisioned a ban on owning any assets abroad, but the bill was softened in parliament to allow ownership of foreign real estate. The law came into force in early May, but officials were given three months to get rid of the respective assets or resign. The only penalty for incompliance is relinquishing one’s post.

http://en.ria.ru/politics/20130819/182850233/Russian-Officials-Now-Prohibited-From-Having-Foreign-Bank-Accounts.html

Navalny Wants Acting Moscow Mayor Checked for Corruption

Mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny has asked the Investigative Committee to check whether his main rival in the Sept. 8 election, acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, and his elder daughter Anna are involved in corruption, he wrote in his LiveJournal blog Tuesday. Navalny posted copies of documents showing that Anna Sobyanina owns a high-end apartment with an estimated value of $3.5 million in downtown St. Petersburg and Forus Group, which supplies luxury furniture to government agencies. The news comes days after City Hall confirmed that Sobyanin's younger daughter, Olga, owns an apartment with an estimated value of $5.3 million in Moscow. Navalny has accused Sobyanin of illegally privatizing the apartment. "It is an amazing coincidence," Navalny said in his blog. "The talented daughter of government official Sobyanin has skilfully supplied furniture to places where her father Sergei Sobyanin held official positions."

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/navalny-wants-sobyanin-his-elder-daughter-checked-for-corruption/484535.html
http://navalny.livejournal.com/836448.html