Please take part in our new, fun, and socially useful project: a nationwide map of crooks. We timed its launch to today’s meeting of the Open Government (a Russian public advisory body), which will be considering our initiative to combat illicit enrichment.
The idea is simple. We took a map and marked every property that, in our view, gives rise to well-founded suspicions of illicit enrichment. Beyond that, it is also a very useful encyclopedia for Russian citizens about how the “servants of the people” live in a country where 16% of homes have no heating, and 34% have no hot water.
For example, someone living on a pension of 11,000 rubles a month (the average pension in Russia, roughly $120) can go in and see where the head of Russia’s Pension Fund has a seven-room apartment measuring 335 square meters.
Right now, about 50 properties have been added to the map, and we need your help to keep developing it. In your region, you know perfectly well who the main crook is, where he lives, and where his dacha (country house) is. So you add that information, we verify it, and everyone can see it on the map. Important: we are interested only in officials who can genuinely be suspected of illicit enrichment. In that sense, our project is not simply a database of where Russian officials live, and we are not out to disclose the personal data of the “bosses” just for the sake of it. But if there are real grounds to suspect illicit enrichment, then we believe this information is a matter of public interest and should be publicly accessible.
Unfortunately, I’m writing this post from a special detention center as well, without even being able to see our map myself (ACF staff are adding the screenshots and links to the post), and I have no way to actively promote the project. But it does need publicity, because it relies on crowdsourcing. So if you find the idea interesting, please help spread the word.