I get a lot of amusing letters from the police. Someday I’ll put together an excellent collection of them on the theme: how cops twist and turn to avoid doing their jobs. But the Moscow Main Directorate of Internal Affairs’ Tax Crimes Department is simply setting records. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Pure genius. Rosneft’s management considers it inadvisable to provide the documents, and the Moscow Main Directorate of Internal Affairs can’t do anything about it. So the investigation is being closed. Let’s imagine a company... mmmm... for example... Yukos (the former Russian oil company dismantled in a politically charged case): Operatives show up and ask for some documents. Something like: you have tax violations. And the head of Yukos’s security service says: we consider it inadvisable to provide documents. Please close the door on your way out. And you’ve already scuffed up the oak parquet enough as it is. And our operatives, heads hanging, trudge away empty-handed. Let’s say Yukos is too political an example. Then let it be the Ozero dacha cooperative (a well-known group linked to Putin’s inner circle) or LLC Romashka. Can anyone imagine Romashka’s director telling the cops to get lost and refusing to provide documents needed to verify a crime report? Looking at the businesspeople who, with miserable expressions, haul endless boxes of papers into this Tax Crimes Department of the Moscow Main Directorate of Internal Affairs, that seems highly unlikely to me. Over any trivial nonsense, they seize people’s computers and servers, cut open and gut safes, conduct searches and document seizures. But here, would you look at that. A lack of ability. Take note: the first post on this subject was on October 29, 2008. That’s when I reported that I had filed the complaint. This farce has been dragging on for a year and a half. And all we have to show for the inquiry so far is: “Navalny’s statement was taken, and a request was sent to customs.” A year and a half of “work.” They can’t even obtain the text of the contract. Oh yes. Cutting the number of deputy ministers and the other measures of Medvedev’s “reform” will surely do wonders for this system.