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Hi, this is Navalny. I’ve got a great story for
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you. Do you recognize what this is? It’s that very
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estate with the famous fur storage room (a lavishly described coat room),
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belonging to a major friend of Putin’s
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and ally, the former head of
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Russian Railways, Vladimir
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Yakunin. We earn exactly as much
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as the state allows us to earn. Back in the day, we
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covered it in quite
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a lot of detail, filmed it, and showed it to all
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the citizens of the country. It’s such a luxurious
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estate that one of the buildings there
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is officially called the gatekeeper’s house. And
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do you recognize this? This is a photo
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of the London home of Andrei Yakunin, the son
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of Vladimir Yakunin. We found that too and
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showed it to you as well. And this—this is the Four
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Seasons Lion Palace hotel in St. Petersburg,
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which also belongs to Andrei Yakunin.
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Now this—this is the sailing yacht of Yakunin’s son
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called Lady Mariya. And
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there’s Yakunin’s grandson at the helm. And what
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is this? It’s Yakunin’s catamaran worth 20
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million rubles (about $340,000 at the time). Geneva—this is where we found the apartment
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of Yakunin’s younger son, Viktor. And maybe
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some of you will even recognize this:
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this is the offshore company scheme we uncovered,
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belonging to the family
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of railway boss Yakunin. Well, we proved in quite
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some detail that greed is the engine of progress—how this
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family, over many years,
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made money off the railway system at every level—from
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everything in the railway system, from
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supplying things like geogrids
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to selling electronic train tickets. We
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worked on this for several years, wrote hundreds
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of complaints and formal statements against Yakunin,
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and it all ended with him simply being
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quietly removed from office and moving
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to Europe to live there, taking with him those very
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stolen billions. The Putin state brought no claims
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against him at all.
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Well, apparently he shared well enough. So what’s
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my
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my story? The OCCRP (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) published
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a major article about how the Yakunin family
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was laundering its reputation. It turned out they
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hire the most expensive British
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lawyers and PR people in order to better
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hide their foreign assets.
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Guess from whom. From the FSB? No. From
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the Investigative Committee? No. From
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the prosecutor’s office? No. From the tax authorities? No.
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In the terms of reference for the job, it was
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stated that the assets needed to be hidden from—
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take a deep breath here—
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Alexei Navalny and the Anti-Corruption Foundation.
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The Yakunins hired the British
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firm GPW, which provides services in
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the field of corporate intelligence. Andrei
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Yakunin told GPW about the investigations published by
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Alexei Navalny and about
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what Navalny might still publish
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in the future. GPW was tasked with trying
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to find all the other assets of the Yakunin family
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from open sources. This was done in order
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to better hide those assets
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that had not yet been found. As a result
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of this work, additional layers were added
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to the ownership structure—
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companies making it harder to identify
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the real owners. So yes, of course, we’re
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very, very flattered, but damn it, realize
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what is happening in our country: if
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one of the biggest, most blatant
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corrupt officials is hiding his assets not from
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the law enforcement system, but from
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a small nonprofit organization—are
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we really the only ones here
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who care about corruption in this country? Has everyone
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gone insane?
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Am I the only one who actually gives a damn about
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the rules? But apparently that’s how it is. If Vladimir
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Yakunin knows perfectly well that nobody cares
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about his property and that he can settle things
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with everyone there, but with the Anti-Corruption
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Foundation he can’t,
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then all of this is very sad, my friends,
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because it proves to us exactly that
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there is no fight against corruption under
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the Putin regime, and there cannot be one. At
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the very least, the corrupt officials themselves clearly
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know that. But there is good news too: you
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can see how terrified all this riffraff is of us already
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right now. Even though—who are we, really? We
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have no official powers. We can’t
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detain anyone, interrogate anyone, or even
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request documents. Inside
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Russia, we are bound to lose every court case.
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And who am I? Some intelligence general who can
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summon people to my office and dress them down? Of course
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not. I’m just a lawyer—one who, on top of that,
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is constantly being thrown in jail for 15 days at a time. And yet
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they’re afraid of us, not
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the Russian law enforcement system,
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on which we spend trillions every year.
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If we have organized our work now
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so effectively that they fear us so much that it is specifically
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from us, and only from us, that they hide their
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stolen assets, then just imagine
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how we will organize things when I become
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president. We will put all these people
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in the dock. We will bring them before
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an honest court. We will find, seize, and return
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their stolen assets to Russia. We will be able
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to change the state system so that
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there will be much, much less corruption in Russia.
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Join us.
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Take part in our election
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campaign. Become part
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of the anti-corruption movement. Let the crooks
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and thieves be even more afraid, and understand that
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their
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defeat is inevitable. Subscribe to
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our channel—this is where the truth is told.
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By the way, in the British press Yakunin
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confirmed that the famous fur storage room (the lavish coat room)
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does exist and belongs to him.
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him, and yet for many years in every interview
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with the Russian press, he denied it. So
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they turned out to be
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right
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