Posted on 02/21/2019 11:48:46 AM PST by tlozo
Western powers are preparing new sanctions against Russia for its aggression against Ukraine in the sea of Azov, but maybe they don’t need to bother: Russia is good enough at hurting itself.
Russia’s arrest last week of the American founder of Baring Vostok, an investment fund focused on Russia, should spook the last few investors who remained tempted by the economic and financial promise of a resource-rich country despite its permanent disregard for the rule of law.
Michael Calvey, an American citizen who created Baring Vostok 25 years ago in the heat of Russia’s abrupt turn towards a supposed market economy, was arrested last week on accusations his fund defrauded Vostochny, a bank the fund owns, out of some $38 million. Calvey denies all allegations made by two of the bank’s minority investors, which are currently being examined by a London court.
Calvey’s visibility, and the precedent created by his arrest, gives foreign investors good reason to head for the exit. Never before had a prominent U.S. citizen been arrested under the usual revenge-and-shakedown system Russia has fostered to handle business disputes. And few could ever imagine it would happen to Calvey and Baring Vostok.
The American’s arrest could even deter the last investors bold or inventive enough to circumvent the many rounds of western economic sanctions slapped on Russia after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, the country’s military operations in Eastern Ukraine, or last year’s Salisbury nerve gas attacks by two Russian intelligence agents.
... the FSB, the Russian security service heir to the KGB who investigated the complaint against Calvey in the remarkable space of three short days, may have been a bit too eager to clamp down on an American businessman.
(Excerpt) Read more at barrons.com ...
You can take a man out of the KGB, but you can’t take the KGB out of the man. The fact that Russia is being run by people from the former Soviet security services would be a lot like postwar Germany being run by Gestapo officers. Except former Soviet government officials are a lot nuttier on economic issues.
Well said, Sir.
Good point. There was a window of opportunity during the mid 90s to have closer ties but the old Soviet guard shut that down.
Putin is going off the deep end...and will not end well for him.
I cannot imagine what it would be like to live in a society where the intelligence services made the rules and chose who got prosecuted. /s
Those poor Ruskis.
Yes and this has always been my issue with Russia. They have playing at this nonsense for some time. They put up lands for “fair” bids for metals mining projects, and it just happens a friend of Putin gets it.
The article is a little confusing. Who is investigating the actual case? England? Russia? Both? Are they cooperating?
The charges are that this guy and some others had bad times and took some $500 million loan in bank and used stocks of fake company as a collateral and also forged documents which said the stocks worth $500 million. Then they defaulted on loan and left the bank with collateral.
In fact Calvey has an excellent reputation in Russian business circles as a honest and principled man so it came as a surprise to many.
UK has a civil suit and Russia a criminal investigation. The bank filed a lawsuit in UK and also did statement for law enforcement in Russia.
Actually people of Russia live much better today then in 90th. May be this fact works in favor of Putin? Also Putin wasn’t the internal security. He served in the intelligence abroad.
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