Financial speculation behind smear campaign
During the last two years "Odnako" has been following a smear campaign carried out by the Spanish mass media against Vladimir Kokorev, a Russian entrepreneur residing in Spain. In one of its latest issues ("Odnako" March 19, 2012), we set out a theory that the continuous press attacks on Kokorev are simply a part of a larger media campaign aimed at the President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, most likely developed within the framework of a major financial speculation.
For those unaware - The Republic of Equatorial Guinea, while one of the smallest and most discrete African countries, is also one of the largest worldwide exporters of oil - with most of its oil being acquired by US corporations. Therefore, any sign of political unrest in Guinea is likely to have an immediate impact on Wall Street.
Since the last publication, the author of this article has been contacted by several individuals linked to George Soros' Fund Management, as well as Spanish legal and journalist circles (for obvious reasons, they prefer to remain anonymous), who have admitted that the so-called "fight" for a greater transparency on economic relations with Equatorial Guinea is all part of an orchestrated financial gamble.
According to these sources, the pair of Spanish journalists - Antonio Rubio and Jose Maria Irujo who have literally pulled "the Kokorev case" out of the thin air, are mere pawns in a much bigger political game - which, by any criteria, they have played quite badly.
How to expose a dictator and earn a little money in the process
Apparently, the campaign against Equatorial Guinea began following several meetings between Antonio Garrigues - a renowned Spanish lawyer with political aspirations and head of one of the largest Spanish law firms - and the American magnate George Soros. It is interesting to note that George Soros has never shied away from allegations of making fortunes as a result of political unrests - in fact, he is quite proud of it and considers an unstable political situation to be decisive for money-making in financial speculations. Antonio Garrigues, on the other hand, is notoriously involved in a number of political anti-Guinean movements. His nephew is often quoted as the person who introduced the English mercenary Simon Mann, Guinean opposition leader Severo Moto and a the Libanese entrepreneur Ely Calil - alleged organizers of the now infamous 2004 failed military coup in Equatorial Guinea - to each other; while Garrigues himself negotiated the political, legal and media back-up of the coup in Spain.
Several months after those meetings, Soros Fund Management made a transfer of several hundred thousand Euros to the account of Manuel Olle-Sese, another Spanish lawyer and a self-proclaimed human rights activist. Allegedly, the funds were to be destined by Manuel Olle to uncover any discrediting evidence concerning President Obiang or anyone related to the Government of Equatorial Guinea. Manuel Olle was somewhat famous in Spain at that time for his attempts to prosecute several former Latin American dictators along with his friendly relationship with famous Spanish judge, Baltazar Garzon. Although Manuel Olle did not succeed in any of his cases, the Spanish press was overwhelmingly favorable to him and there was no reason to suspect that the pro-human rights lawyer would employ the funds received from Soros Fund for any other purpose other than the exposure of an "African dictator".
Manuel Olle's Black List
Manuel Olle indeed took the money, but did not do much else. He searched the Spanish real estate registry for any names that sounded African, and ticked all the purchases made on certain dates which matched the dates of bank transfers received from Riggs Bank by Kalunga Company (at that time, owned by Vladimir Kokorev). As Manuel Olle accounted for his activities to his employers and wrote his reports, it all looked perfectly clear - Kalunga was using these transfers to buy apartments for President Obiang's relatives. Mission accomplished. There was one tiny detail that helped Olle give veracity to his list - thanks to the oil boom, there was a large number of Guineans who invested into Spanish real estate at that time, so he did not have any problem finding the appropriate names to match the dates. The other, more significant omission, was that nobody from "Olle's List" had ever received any money from Kalunga Company, nor had Kalunga been in any way related to real estate acquisitions (this is a fact proven in courts - Kalunga was managing the shipping of goods, ship-building and maintenance, which were services agreed in contracts between Kalunga and the government of Equatorial Guinea). Manuel Olle never bothered to report any of this to his employers - and, more likely, he himself did not even know anything about Kalunga besides the publicly available information, which he used to account for his "job".
Ironically, that just happened to be exactly what the human rights activist actually did with the money he received from the Soros Fund to finance his investigation - Olle invested the money in acquisition of real estate in Madrid.
