So there you go—and you were complaining that nothing was happening in the Transneft case. *As Marker has learned, on December 3, a year-old case against lawyer Alexei Navalny was transferred from the Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate for the Volga Federal District to the local office of the Investigative Committee. According to investigators, while serving as an adviser to the governor of Kirov Region, Navalny “through deception and abuse of trust” forced former Kirovles state enterprise director Vyacheslav Opalev to sign an unfavorable timber supply contract that caused the company losses of 1.3 million rubles. *//////////// About a week after my post about Transneft and the billions siphoned off, people with official IDs started showing up around some of my clients—and in general around people with whom I’d once had financial dealings. They were looking for something juicy. That worried me a little, because I don’t want my clients being harassed because of me. What kind of lawyer causes more problems than he solves? But it turned out to be much simpler. The Transneft police hacks couldn’t think of anything better than to revive a story from a year and a half ago. The whole thing was apparently invented and orchestrated by VTB-connected police officers. At the very least, planted articles on the subject appeared right before the VTB shareholders’ meeting, at the height of the fight over the "drilling rigs case". Very briefly (the part of the story I know firsthand): In Kirov Region there was (and still is) a state enterprise called Kirovles. It was effectively a monopoly when it came to control over timber resources. Despite that privileged position, the outfit was in very bad shape then (and still is): colossal debts, wage arrears, and so on. The company’s director was an absolute crook named Opalev.
He had set up some completely absurd timber sales schemes through 36 different branches, and nobody really understood what was being sold, where, or for how much. I started leaning on this crook over centralizing and making sales transparent. Sometimes he agreed, sometimes he resisted. In the end, I got him fired and secured a decision to conduct a full audit of the company by one of the Big Four firms, so that no one could question the audit’s credibility. We even held a tender and selected the auditor. At the same time—and this is the part I only know in fragments—VTB sent the first batch of corrupt cops after me, and Opalev threw himself into their arms, filing a statement claiming that out of the company’s 240 million rubles in debt, 1.3 million had arisen because I had forced him to centralize sales. The whole story was ridiculous and went nowhere. No one ever questioned me about it. I wouldn’t even have known any of this was happening if not for the articles published on the day of the VTB meeting. Then, to my surprise, the crook Opalev was reinstated, and the audit was never carried out, despite decisions to do so having been made at every level of the Kirov regional authorities. I remember being deeply struck by that, and it was in fact the main reason I lost interest in “improving life in one particular region” and left Kirov. In other words, this whole story happened ages ago, and the last time I was even in Kirov was a year ago. And now look at this. Two weeks after the start of the Transneft campaign, it turns out I supposedly caused a million rubles’ worth of damage. What can I say about this? First. I’ll be happy to publish all the materials in this case. That will be useful both for people who want to understand it in more detail and for those interested in how criminal cases are fabricated. Second. As I understand it, the main idea is to keep me from returning to Russia by scaring me with a fabricated case. The fact that the information was leaked to the media supports that. I don’t think they’ll actually try to open a case on these grounds—the whole thing is just too obviously stitched together. And third. My dear crooks! It was obvious you’d try to pull something like this, and I was ready for it. I’m not afraid, and I’m coming back to you, my little corruptionists. The Transneft case (like the cases involving VTB, Gazprom, and all the rest) will continue, even if tomorrow you open a case accusing me of stealing the Golden Fleece, the Amber Room, and President Medvedev’s iPad. Mwah.