Yury Skuratov
Юрий Скуратов
Skuratov in 1997
Prosecutor General of Russia
In office
24 October 1995 – 2 February 1999
PresidentBoris Yeltsin
Prime MinisterViktor Chernomyrdin
Preceded byAleksey Ilyushenko
Succeeded byVladimir Ustinov
Personal details
Born
Yury Ilyich Skuratov

(1952-07-03) 3 July 1952
Ulan-Ude, Buryat ASSR, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Alma materUral State Law University

Yury Ilyich Skuratov (Russian: Ю́рий Ильи́ч Скура́тов; born 3 July 1952) is a Russian jurist and politician.

Skuratov was born in Ulan-Ude. From 1995 until 1999, he was Prosecutor General of Russia. In February 1999, he disclosed the existence of FIMACO.[1][2]

Notable investigations

Supported with an audit of the financial and economic activities of the office of the Prosecutor General of Russia which was investigated by Nikolai Yemelyanov (Russian: Николай Емельянов),[lower-alpha 1] Skuratov spearheaded a corruption investigation into the former acting Prosecutor General of Russia Alexey Ilyushenko (Russian: Алексей Николаевич Ильюшенко; b. 23 September 1957, Anzhero-Sudzhensk, Kemerovo Oblast, Soviet Union) and his friend Pyotr Yanchev (Russian: Петр Янчев).[6][7][8][9][10][lower-alpha 2] Ilyushenko was forced to resign on 8 October 1995 because of a 97 volume indictment on him involving the theft of 25 million tons of Russian oil, which was worth 2.7 billion rubles, from the Balkar Trading company (Russian: СП "Балкар-Трейдинг") which was formed in Balashikha, was one of the largest Russian oil traders in the early to mid 1990s and was in competition with Boris Berezovsky's interests. BAM-Credit (Russian: банк «БАМ-кредит»), which had Balkar Trading accounts, was the dominant financier of gold mining in the Irkutsk and Magadan regions. Because of a Swiss criminal investigation, the Geneva investigator S. Esposito froze the Swiss accounts of Balkar Trading's Swiss branch known as "Balcar Trading Sari", which was a 28 June 1994 established shell company owned by both his wife Tatiana Vladimirovna Ilyushenko (Russian: Татьяна Владимировна Ильюшенко), who was also an attorney for the Balkar Bank (Russian: "Балкар-банка"), and Pyotr Golovinov (Russian: Петр Головинов; b. 1968 or 1969) who was Yanchev's right-hand man and organized the movement of the foreign assets of Balkar Trading, BAM-Credit, and the Russian House of Selenga (RDS) (Russian: АОЗТ «Русский Дом Селенга» (РДС)) to the Swiss firm "Balcar Trading Sari". On 1 November 1996, the Geneva Prosecutor indictments upheld the frozen Swiss accounts and Ilyushenko was detained in a pre trial jail for the next two years. However, on 11 May 2001, these charges on Alexey Ilyushenko and his friend Pyotr Yanchev (Russian: Петр Янчев), who was the head of Balkar Trading, were dropped by Vladimir Ustinov.[13][14][15][16][17][lower-alpha 3]

In the late 1990s, Skuratov and Carla Del Ponte with Filipe Turover providing evidence investigated Russian corruption involving high ranking Russian officials.[19][20][21] Earlier, both Italian and German Tax officials had started investigations into corrupt Russian officials. Felipe Turover Chudínov, a senior intelligence officer with the foreign-intelligence directorate of the KGB, alleged that $15 billion of IMF funds had been funneled through Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Caribbean countries as black cash or obschak to support Kremlin friendly operations and companies.[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]

Scandal and dismissal

In April 1999, then FSB Chief Vladimir Putin and Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin held a televised press conference in which they discussed a video that both Mikhail Shvydkoy and Mikhail Lesin agreed to release and that had aired nationwide on 17 March on the state-controlled RTR channel which showed a naked man very similar to Skuratov, in bed with two young women.[30][31] This video was released after he had been investigating numerous corrupt officials including Alexander Mamut and both Pavel Borodin and Vladimir Putin and had begun looking into charges of corruption by President Boris Yeltsin and his associates: the video was said to serve as kompromat.[32][33] Skuratov's dismissal occurred just days before a second search of the owner of Mabetex the Albanian businessman Behgjet Pacolli linked interests during an ongoing money laundering investigation which had begun in 1992 in Bern involving Pacolli and Yakutiya (Russian: Якутия) officials involved in gold and diamonds especially the Mayor of Yakutsk Pavel Pavlovich Borodin who was Putin's architect for the transfer of the Presidential Property Management Department assets to LLCs, JSCs, and Joint Ventures during early 1997.[34][35][36][37][38]

In early 2000, Filipe Turover sent messages from his Swiss residence to Moscow prosecutors "I'm ready to talk about Putin. Always your Turover." The Russian prosecutor Ruslan Tamaev (Russian: Руслан Тамаев) headed the Russian investigations into Mabetex which ended when his half brothers Hasan and Hussein were charged with illegal possession of drugs and weapons and he was subsequently removed from investigations. A few months later the charges against his half brothers were dropped.[39]

In April 2000, Skuratov was fired as chief prosecutor after serving a suspension for accusing top officials of corruption.[40][41]

2000 presidential campaign

In 2000, Skuratov ran in the Russian presidential elections.

Skuratov's campaign largely ran advertisements intended to remediate the damage inflicted to his reputation by the video which had been released in 1999.[42] These ads portrayed him as a decent family man and a faithful husband who had been the victim of "lies" and "fabrications".[42]

In the limited coverage he was allotted, Russian media treated him as a sideshow rather than as a serious contender for the presidency.[42]

Notes

  1. ↑ A key prospective witness in improper financial affairs was Lyubov Tarasova (Russian: Любовь Тарасова) who was a senior auditor for the Central Bank of Russia and worked for the "Unicom" (Russian: "Юникон") auditing firm which had been established on 20 August 1991 and was responsible for "checking the correctness of the documentation and the essence of business transactions that are in doubt" (Russian: "проверка правильности документального оформления и сущности хозяйственных операций, вызывающих сомнение"), but was stabbed to death in her apartment in Moscow on 15–16 October 1997.[3][4][5]
  2. ↑ The charges that Alexey Ilyushenko had against Yelena Masyuk were dropped in August 1995 amid the corruption scandal about Ilyushenko.[11][12]
  3. ↑ From July 2002 to 3 September 2002, Ilya Naumovich Gavrilov (Russian: Гаврилов Илья Наумович; b. Turkmenistan), a former employee of Balkar Trading from 1992 to 1996 and former member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Bank (Russian: Федеральный депозитный банк) which had been owned by Balkar Trading, and Arslan Kakaev (Russian: Арслан Какаев; b. 1982 or 1983), who headed the international operations department of the Central Bank of Turkmenistan and was the only clerk at the Central Bank of Turkmenistan who knew the codes for SWIFT electronic transfers, were involved in a scheme to acquire $41.5 million from the Central Bank of Turkmenistan and place the funds in accounts associated with Michigan Ltd. ($1.25 million) registered in Britain, Perouette Ltd ($4.22 million) and Formex Corporation ($5.22 million) both registered in the Seychelles, Telford International Holding ($9.01 million) registered in the United States and Swan Citi Bancorp Llc ($20 million) registered in Moscow at various banks including Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, and most of the money went to banks in Riga at Parex Bank ($10 million from Telford International Holding) and Lateco Bank Riga ($10 million from Formex Corporation) which both Gavrilov and a Mrs. Niyazova (Russian: госпожа Ниязова) accessed these funds.[18]

References

  1. ↑ Follow The Money – The Latest Kremlin Scandal Involves Billions Of Dollars Moving Offshore—Plus Sex And Videotape. Newsweek.
  2. ↑ Powell, Bill (28 March 1999). "Follow the Money". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 4 March 2014. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  3. ↑ "Arthur Christy. Inkombank lawyer former US Attorney: US lawyers hired as spin doctors for Russian mob". US-Russia Press Club. 30 April 1999. Archived from the original on 1 July 2007. Retrieved 19 May 2021 – via russianlaw.org.
  4. ↑ "Убили аудитора: Убит хранитель тайн Центробанка" [The auditor was killed: Keeper of secrets of the Central Bank killed]. Kommersant (in Russian). 18 October 1997. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  5. ↑ "били аудитора: Кого проверяла Любовь Тарасова" [The auditor was killed: Whom Lyubov Tarasova checked]. Kommersant (in Russian). 18 October 1997. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  6. ↑ КАРЫШЕВ, ВАЛЕРИЙ. ЗАПИСКИ "БАНДИТСКОГО АДВОКАТА": Закулисная жизнь братвы глазами "защитника мафии". See Глава восьмая: ДЕЛА ФЭЭСБЭШНЫЕ (Chapter 8) sections ДЕЛО ЯНИЧЕВА - ИЛЬЮШЕНКО, Я "НАЕЗЖАЮ", and МЕНЯ ПОДСТАВИЛИ?!
  7. ↑ Galaxy (1998)
  8. ↑ Galaxy
  9. ↑ Galaxy: publications
  10. ↑ Galaxy: svit
  11. ↑ "Attacks on the Press". Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). 1995. Archived from the original on 31 January 2002. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  12. ↑ Hockstader, Lee (27 May 1997). "Journalists Become Chechnya's Latest Victims". The Washington Post. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  13. ↑ Ильюшенко Алексей Николаевич: бывший и.о. Генпрокурора РФ
  14. ↑ Алексей Николаевич Ильюшенко
  15. ↑ Отчеты о проделанной работе
  16. ↑ Неприкасаемые: Что скрывает некоторые люди в синих мундирах
  17. ↑ Прайс от Прейса или «Русский дом селенга» по-английски
  18. ↑ "Сладкая парочка" - Гаврилов, Ниязова. Или куда уплыли 20 млн. Центробанка Туркмении: В сентябре из франкфуртского Дойче-банка с резервного счета Центробанка Туркмении исчезли 41,5 млн. долларов. Мы знаем судьбу половины этой суммы.
  19. ↑ Yablokova, Oksana (29 December 1999). "Skuratov: 'Turover List' Is Real". The Moscow Times. Archived from the original on 23 February 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  20. ↑ Elsässer, Jürgen (December 2002). "Interview by Jürgen Elsässer with Felipe Turover on Carla Del Ponte". Konkret. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  21. ↑ Овчинников, О. (Ovchinnikov, O.) (8 November 2000). "ЦБ - центральный Банд ..." [Central Bank - Central Gang ...]. Compromat.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 10 April 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  22. ↑ Belton 2020, pp. 91–5.
  23. ↑ "Un español, clave en el escándalo de corrupción que salpica al Kremlin: Estados Unidos pide al FMI que suspenda sus préstamos a Rusia" [A Spaniard, key to the corruption scandal that dots the Kremlin: U.S. calls on IMF to suspend its loans to Russia]. El Pais (in Spanish). 28 August 1999. Archived from the original on 15 August 2014. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  24. ↑ Fernandez, Rodrigo (28 August 1999). "Felipe Turover, un aventurero en el Kremlin: Retrato del español cuyas revelaciones sobre el desvío de fondos implican al entorno de Yeltsin" [Felipe Turover, an adventurer in the Kremlin: Portrait of the Spaniard whose revelations about the diversion of funds involve Yeltsin's surroundings]. El Pais (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 4 July 2019. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  25. ↑ Fernandez, Rodrigo (4 September 1999). "Un banquero suizo, hombre clave en la trama internacional de la corrupción rusa: Bruce Rappaport, embajador de Antigua en Moscú, en el punto de mira de la justicia" [A Swiss banker, key man in the international plot of Russian corruption: Bruce Rappaport, Antigua's ambassador to Moscow, in the spotlight of justice]. El Pais (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 15 August 2014. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  26. ↑ "The Enigmatic Mr. Turover & Mabetex Case". Intelligence Online. 2 March 2000. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  27. ↑ Higgins, Andrew (20 September 1999). "Swiss Shop Might Carry Clues To Russia Money-Laundering Case". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 11 December 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  28. ↑ "Felipe Turover". Intelligence Online. 8 March 2001. Archived from the original on 22 August 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  29. ↑ Блеф Archived as Компромат на Путина еще "не вброшен", но отпор клеветнику Туроверу уже дан
  30. ↑ Качкаева, Анна (Kachkaeva, Anna) (11 July 1999). "Михаил Лесин" [Mikhail Lesin]. Радио Свобода (in Russian). Retrieved 20 August 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  31. ↑ Litvinenko, Alexander (5 July 2006). "The Kremlin Pedophile". Chechenpress. Archived from the original on 11 December 2008. Retrieved 14 December 2008.
  32. ↑ Hodge, Nathan; Grove, Thomas (11 January 2017). "Trump Dossier Spotlights Russian History of 'Kompromat'". The Wall Street Journal. Moscow. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  33. ↑ Bohlen, Celestine; Banerjee, Neela (13 October 1999). "Little-Known Power Broker Emerges in Kremlin Scandals". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  34. ↑ Иванидзе, Владимир (Ivanidze, Vladimir) (7 May 2000). "Якутский дом в Лугано. Российские корни "Мабетекса"" [Yakut house in Lugano. Russian roots of "Mabetex"]. «Соверше́нно секре́тно» (in Russian). Retrieved 10 April 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  35. ↑ Степовой, Сергей (Stepovoy, Sergey) (13 October 2000). "Мерседес за 20 копеек. Таланты Павла Бородина. Паша-"Мерседес"" [Mercedes for 20 kopecks. Pavel Borodin's talents. Pasha- "Mercedes"]. «Стрингер» ("Stringer") (in Russian). Retrieved 10 April 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  36. ↑ Бонини, Карло (Bonini, Carlo); Малагутти, Витторио (Malagutti, Vittorio) (12 September 2000). "Коррупция: обвинения против клана Ельцина" [Corruption: accusations against the Yeltsin clan]. Corriere della Sera (in Russian). Archived from the original on 9 April 2001. Retrieved 10 April 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Alt URL
  37. ↑ "Международное поручение Дево (Документ) "Кремлингейт": закрыть нельзя расследовать. В чем швейцарцы подозревают бывших высокопоставленных чиновников кремлевской администрации" [Devo's international mission (Document) "Kremlingate": you can't investigate it. What the Swiss suspect of former high-ranking officials of the Kremlin administration]. «Сегодня» ("Today") (in Russian). 12 September 2000. Archived from the original on 25 February 2001. Retrieved 10 April 2021. Alt URL
  38. ↑ Лурье, Олег. ПАККОЛИ ПОТРАТИЛ НА ВЗЯТКИ: 15 МИЛЛИОНОВ ШВЕЙЦАРСКИХ ФРАНКОВ
  39. ↑ "Почему должно было развалиться дело "Мабетекса"" [Why the Mabetex case had to fall apart]. Arguments and Facts website (in Russian). 27 April 2000. Archived from the original on 31 July 2018. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  40. ↑ "Yeltsin attacks fraud crusader". the Guardian. 3 April 1999. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
  41. ↑ Cullison, Alan (20 April 2000). "Russia's Parliament Dismisses Chief Prosecutor Yuri Skuratov". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
  42. 1 2 3 "RUSSIAN ELECTION WATCH No. 9, April 2000". www.belfercenter.org. Harvard University (John F. Kennedy School of Government). April 2000. Retrieved 4 November 2018.

Books

  • Скуратов, Юрий Ильич (Skuratov, Yury Ilyich) (2013). Кремлёвские подряды: Последнее дело прокурора [Kremlin contracts. The last case of the Attorney General] (in Russian). Moscow: ООО «Издательство Алгоритм» (Algorithm Publishing House). ISBN 978-5-4438-0301-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Belton, Catherine (23 June 2020). Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux. ISBN 978-0374238711.
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