Cannabis Fun Club in Russia

© "Top Secret", August 2000

Vladimir Ivanidze

In the last issue of "Top Secret" we already mentioned a secret report by the German intelligence service BND, in which a group of Liechtenstein lawyers was suspected by the Austrian prosecutor's office of laundering money for the drug mafia and Russian organized crime. In fact, the German secret services prepared two reports, and one of them, dated April 1999, ended up in the hands of journalists, and even then it was abridged and with the names and companies' names redacted. And this was precisely the most interesting thing. However, the French newspaper Le Monde had the full text of the report.

It mentioned the company SPAG as one of the companies of the ill-fated Liechtenstein lawyer Rudolf Ritter (more about him in the last issue). It is unlikely that anyone could have guessed that SPAG would turn out to be one of the key companies in the real estate market in St. Petersburg.

So, SPAG. According to official information from the Frankfurt Chamber of Commerce and Industry, St. Petersburg Immobilien und Beteiligungen Aktiengesellshaft (SPAG) was established on August 4, 1992. Among the company's founders (who themselves paid for all the shares) were lawyer Rudolf Ritter himself, the Committee for the Management of State Property of St. Petersburg, Bank St. Petersburg, and the German-Russian joint venture Inform-Future. It was then that Rudolf Ritter became vice-chairman of the company's supervisory board. And it was in this company that, until May 7, 2000, the day of his inauguration, Russian President Vladimir Putin was listed as an "adviser without a salary."

How does a commercial lawyer from Liechtenstein, who, according to the BND, worked for the Ochoa clan of Colombian drug lords, ended up in the same harness with the leaders of St. Petersburg, and now the country? This is a very important question that requires clarification.

From a formal point of view, the appearance of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin among the company's advisers can be explained. He headed the Committee for External Relations of the St. Petersburg Administration, and the founding documents of any joint venture quite officially passed through his hands. Later, this practice changed, and other institutions were already engaged in the registration of joint ventures, although under Putin's control. "Dark spots" in the clean biography of the current Russian president apparently appeared precisely during this period.

In 1992, Pyotr Aven, now commonly referred to as an oligarch from the Alfa Group, while serving as Russia's Minister of Foreign Economic Relations, issued an order transferring the functions of the MVES representative for St. Petersburg to Vladimir Putin. Perhaps this appointment saved Putin from possible involvement in a serious investigation into the issuance of export licenses for very large volumes of oil products, non-ferrous metals, and other important goods by the committee he headed. The committee had no right to do so, and most of the companies with which it had concluded contracts for the import of food products to St. Petersburg turned out to be shell companies. This story was investigated by Marina Salye, then a deputy of the St. Petersburg Council, and her colleagues. The "Salye Commission," as this group is commonly called, did a good job, and its report could be considered exemplary, if you didn't think about the fact that it was thrown into a garbage dump. The amounts of "losses" for undelivered food products, even by my very modest estimates, turned out to be fantastic - tens of millions of dollars. In his “pre-election” book, compiled from interviews with him, Putin himself admitted that most of the companies turned out to be fake, but it was impossible to find traces of them.

In fact, many of the owners of the "secret" companies were quite accessible. And some even turned out to be his neighbors at the dacha.
The most interesting document of our investigation is the first license for the export of 150 thousand tons of oil products, signed personally by Vladimir Putan.

The right to export was then given to Grigory Miroshnik, the head of a concern with the mysterious name of Interkommerts-Formula-7. By the time the contract with Putin was signed - for the supply of food in exchange for oil - this lucky gentleman had already managed to "cheat" the Western Group of Forces for 18 million German marks. According to law enforcement agencies, he also participated in the famous fraud with the "Harvest-90" checks. The Prosecutor General's Office has been trying unsuccessfully to this day to get Miroshnik out of Greece, where he had his own problems with the local authorities. He fled to Greece from the United States - from persecution by the FBI. And this was not his first escape. In 1993, when the Prosecutor General's Office was supposed to come for him, he fled Russia on the plane of former Vice President Alexander Rutskoy, who was heading to Spain. So he has been running for many years now.

However, besides Miroshnik, the current president of Russia had to meet with many other interesting characters...

While SPAG, a company founded in 1992 with the participation of a lawyer from Liechtenstein, was starting its activities, other "investors" were looking for ways to enter the Russian market. And very strange things were happening. Intelligence agencies in various countries suddenly discovered that large channels for delivering cocaine to Europe were operating through Russia. The drug traffickers were very active: the batches detained in Europe amounted to hundreds of kilograms. But there was no evidence of the existence of the Russian channel until a container with a load of Colombian stew was detained near Vyborg in February 1993. The weight of the cocaine hidden in the cans was 1,092 kilograms.

Surprisingly, this story was soon forgotten. Its participants were arrested - citizens of Israel, Russia and Columbia, but the organizers of the delivery were not harmed. Moreover, it was in 1993-1994, after the seizure of a ton of cocaine, that they created a whole network of companies in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Including joint ventures with the Committee for External Relations of the St. Petersburg City Hall, which was headed at the time by Vladimir Putin.

We are talking about the Belgian company DTI and its founder Oscar Donat. The book by the Belgian journalist Alain Lallemand "Organization" provides information according to which Donat was arrested in Israel as a suspect in the Vyborg cocaine case (he was soon released due to lack of evidence). His company DTI was supposed to transport Colombian "canned goods" to Pmiandia. Donat's partner, who represents an entire family, was Yuval Shemesh, one of the arrested and subsequently convicted organizers of the supply of cocaine to Europe. Donat and Shemesh's company JT Communications Services created one of the largest paging companies in St. Petersburg, and then in Moscow. But there are more serious things. The DTI company created one of the largest customs terminals, while its main partners were the Security Association of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, as well as the Special Department of the St. Petersburg Naval Base. At least, that's what the city tax office database says.

When Lev Savenkov, Sobchak's deputy mayor, was arrested in 1993 for attempting to smuggle rare earth metals, no one paid attention to the fact that he worked as the general director of the Alisa Trading House. Or rather, they did, but did not attach any importance to it. Meanwhile, the Alisa Trading House was one of Oscar Donat's first enterprises in St. Petersburg. In an early interview, Donat said that he was very closely connected to Anatoly Sobchak. However, the nature of this connection is not very clear to me.

After the media hype surrounding the seizure of a drug shipment in Vyborg, the cocaine lay in a warehouse in St. Petersburg for over two years, although according to international rules, the city's FSB Directorate should have destroyed it. In 1996, one of the directorate's leaders told the press that an agreement had been reached with the UN and the cocaine would be "sent for processing" in Moscow. There is another strange circumstance in this story. The cocaine should not have been detained in Vyborg. It was a joint operation of European intelligence services. It was called "Acapulco", and the delivery was controlled. This means that the shipment should have reached at least Germany and the drug channel participants were tracked along the entire route. The cocaine would have been destroyed in Germany. Everything turned out differently. The Russian side was notified of the delivery, and an ordinary policeman (or a customs officer, it remains unclear) suddenly and completely by chance guessed that the cans contained cocaine. A funny story.

On July 13, 1994, the Committee for External Relations of the St. Petersburg City Hall registered the closed joint-stock company Znamenskaya. Its director is Vladimir Smirnov, and among the initial founders are the company Inform-Fu-ture, headed by the same Smirnov, SPAG and another very interesting company registered on the island of Jersey, VS Real Estate Investments Ltd. (VS is perhaps Vladimir Smirnov?).

Smirnov is a person who is very close to Putin (he even created the St. Petersburg Currency Exchange with him in 1992) and who headed until recently both the St. Petersburg Fuel Company and Znamenskaya and many other companies. Perhaps he has not yet sold his shares in these companies. The fact is that in May 2000, Smirnov came to Moscow to work in the Presidential Property Management Department, where he was supposedly supposed to deal with "real estate issues." Now he is an employee of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation.

But let's go back a few years. On February 3, 1994, the leadership of the Committee for Land Resources and Land Management of St. Petersburg distributed the text of the order "On Approval of the Instructions for the Registration of Documents Confirming the Right to Land Use." A rather boring document. But as an example, it provides the text of the certificate "on the right to land of permanent (unlimited) use," which was issued to TOO Inform-Future on January 17 of the same year. The total area of ​​the plot was 1,287 square meters. The certificate was issued on the basis of an order by the Mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, which he signed on October 21, 1992. Clause 2 of this order states: "To provide the joint Russian-German enterprise Inform-Future with a land plot of 1.2 hectares on Constitution Square in block 15 west of Varshavskaya Street for the construction of a hotel and business center for a period of 50 years." TOO Inform-Future, created by two offshore companies and the company SPAG, a month after its registration with the Committee for External Relations of the City Hall receives a huge chunk of property for 50 years. It is interesting that Sobchak's order mentions the joint venture Inform-Future, in which the municipal enterprise TPO housing services of the City Hall of St. Petersburg once had a share. "Once" because TOO In-form-Future is already being registered with the tax inspectorate - at a different address - which has only three founders: the company E.S. experts Limited from the Isle of Man, the already mentioned company VS Real Estate Investments Ltd. from the island of Jersey and SPAG itself from Frankfurt am Main. In both the first and the second company with the same name "In-form-Future" the general director was Smirnov. Let the reader draw his own conclusions.

The events around Znamenskaya developed in approximately the same way. Again, less than a month after the registration of Znamenskaya, the leadership of the St. Petersburg mayor's office transferred an entire block in the city center to it for the creation of a "business center." The amount of compensation to the city for the resettlement of people living in these houses amounted to 1,500 million rubles. But a year and a half later, another resolution on the same issue still included Sobchak's request (there is no other way to put it) to pay the same amount. Incidentally, at the beginning of this year, the mayor of St. Petersburg Yakovlev signed another resolution, where he asked the management of Znamenskaya CJSC to pay a debt of 1.5 billion old rubles. This means that Smirnov never paid for the resettlement.

Meanwhile, the SPAG management already at the beginning of 1996 officially reports in the commercial register that it owns large real estate properties in St. Petersburg. A representative of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Frankfurt adds a remark in the official publication that the property rights in St. Petersburg remain unclear. It turns out interesting.

In his interviews with the press in 1995-1996, Smirnov claims that the reconstruction of business centers is being carried out exclusively with funds received from the sale of shares of the holding's St. Petersburg companies on the stock exchange in Frankfurt am Main. In other words, the work is being carried out not with credit funds, but by selling issued shares. Some publications citing Smirnov even named the price - 140 marks per share. These statements are not supported by anything. If you look at how SPAG shares were sold in Germany, their value has been steadily declining with rare exceptions, and the price of 140 marks is an exaggeration of the average price several times. On the other hand, SPAG shares appeared on German stock exchanges only in 1997. What money was Smirnov talking about then? Where did the funds for the construction come from?

In June 1999, four shareholders of Znamenskaya, not named in the prospectus, elected Vladimir Barsukov, previously known as Kumarin, to the board of directors at their meeting. At the same time, a decision was made on a pledge agreement with SPAG as an addendum to the investment contract of 1997.

If the information of Russian law enforcement agencies (first half of the nineties) and the media about Vladimir Barsukov-Kumarin is true, that he headed the criminal "Tambovskaya" group, then BND had serious grounds to talk about SPAG's connections with Russian crime. And if we agree with the arguments of the BND report, then it is quite possible that SPAG's money, going to St. Petersburg as investments, is the same "dirty money". And in exchange for "German investments", Znamenskaya CJSC transfers almost all of its property in St. Petersburg - objects in the historical center of the city.

It would be good to understand why the St. Petersburg authorities took such an active part in the fate of Vladimir Smirnov's companies. After all, in 1992, Sobchak even wrote a touching letter to the SPAG company with the words: "...we support you politically and administratively." It was noticeable. SPAG even posted a mention of this letter on its official website.

We can talk for a long time about another company where Smirnov became the head - the Petersburg Fuel Company. It is a monopolist in the retail market of petroleum products in St. Petersburg. And the decree of the city government on the creation of a network of petrol stations of the Petersburg Fuel Company was signed personally by Vladimir Putin. Suffice it to say that the deputy chairman of the board of directors of PTK, according to the latest prospectus submitted to the Federal Securities Commission, is Vladimir Barsukov.

Many in St. Petersburg probably already know that this man was previously called Vladimir Kumarin and in many publications, with or without reference to law enforcement agencies, he was called the leader of the "Tambov" group. Here is an excerpt from an article in the Kommersant newspaper on October 25, 1995: "According to the RUOP, the "Tambov" criminal group has about three hundred active members. At present, it occupies a leading position in St. Petersburg. It is mainly engaged in extortion, kidnapping, robbery and armed robbery. Strict discipline and absolute subordination to the leaders reign in the criminal community. The brain center of the "Tambovites" is Vladimir Kumarin. He is called the founder of the group."

Recently Barsukov-Kumarin gave an interview to the newspaper Kommersant-Daily regarding his complete non-involvement in the high-profile murder of his competitor in St. Petersburg, the head of the Baltic Financial and Industrial Group, Pavel Kapysh. He spoke quite convincingly, explaining that the so-called "criminal groups" have long been irrelevant, since they have gone into big business.

He appears on the board of directors of Znamenskaya CJSC in 1999. And if we compare with previous prospectuses, he actually replaces Rudolf Ritter, who was also one of the directors at Znamenskaya CJSC. That's the kind of continuity.

Starting my investigation, I sent a list of questions to Vladimir Smirnov. I also asked him about his relationship with Vladimir Putan. And a few days later, an article by Smirnov himself appeared in the newspaper St. Petersburg Vedomosti with completely ugly accusations against me and my family members. But the main thing is that the article was answers to my questions. In a certain context, of course. And when asked about his relationship with Pugany, Vladimir Smirnov answered this way: “I met Vladimir Vladimirovich Putany in 1991 in Frankfurt am Main, where the issue of attracting the first private Western investments to our city was being decided...”

Listing the projects in which he participated together with Pugan, Smirnov quite rightly notes: “Nine years have passed since then, and in all these years I have never experienced disappointment in either the business, professional, or human qualities of Vladimir Vladimirovich. ..”

Unfortunately, I was upset by one quality. Promiscuity.

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