Putin’s nephew has uncovered corruption at Russian Railways. Simply a magnificent story by Ivan Golunov from Slon. Putin really does have a nephew — Roman Putin, who heads a consulting firm with the understated name Putin Consulting.
Here he is (in the jacket) at the strategic military exercises “Center-2011.” And this very nephew has published a report describing corruption schemes involving Russian Railways and Yakunin: Putin describes a practice that has taken shape within the Russian Railways system. According to him, a company that wins a tender from this state monopoly then assigns the work to subcontractors, keeping for itself — for “intermediary services” — sometimes up to a quarter of the total contract value. In turn, the subcontractors are forced to carry out the contract with minimal profit margins and cut costs wherever they can, causing the quality of the work to decline dramatically. ... Roman Putin claims that this company “takes at least 35% from every contract (25% officially + a kickback), and then starts making life hell for the subcontractor, who has to pay taxes, pay kickbacks, and build the project while advancing its own funds.” And after construction is completed, the general contractor tries to reduce the price of the already completed facilities. Subcontractors are forced to use illegal migrant labor and keep off-the-books accounts, but despite all these tricks, their profit is only 5%. What especially outrages Putin is that the owner of Transyuzhstroy is the Cypriot company Apelsino Holdings, while its real owners are hidden behind a chain of offshore entities. It’s astonishing to read this, really. Every time you see “Putin claims,” your brain refuses to read it as anything other than “the Anti-Corruption Foundation claims.” And yet, it really is Putin making these claims. By the way, the Anti-Corruption Foundation also gets a mention in the piece: In February 2014, Alexei Navalny devoted one of his investigations to the company Transyuzhstroy. According to Putin, Navalny’s work “deserves respect, but I do not share his political views. That is why working together is impossible,” he told Slon. We really did mention the crooks from Transyuzhstroy in our project about corruption in preparations for the Olympics. In short, give it a read — it’s interesting. Let’s see how the Yakunin mafia responds to this. So far, its response does not look especially respectful: For now, the management company Transyuzhstoy remains calm: “Well, let him write, as long as daddy doesn’t know,” the company said before hanging up. http://slon.ru/russia/chto_zhe_teper_budet_roman_putin_obnaruzhil_korruptsiyu_u_podryadchikov_rzhd-1077845.xhtml