Oligarch Boris Berezovsky to Be Arrested

The Office of the Prosecutor General charged Berezovsky with stealing cars

Oligarch Boris Berezovsky is experiencing hard times these days. The party he founded, Liberal Russia, ousted Berezovsky for keeping company with communists. The party believes that rubbing elbows with communists is equal to treason for a democrat.

Boris Berezovsky yelled a bit to create a scary image and then plunged in the leftist (communist) movement of Russian politics. However, Russia still remembers Mr. Boris Berezovsky. Both the powers-that-be (the players in Russian politics) and the people’s servants (the Russian Office of the Prosecutor General) still have their eye on him. The Office of the Prosecutor General charged Boris Berezovsky with swindling in large quantities. The same charges were brought against Berezovsky’s two companions: Badri Patarkatsishvili and Yuly Dubov (former managers of the Russian car factory LogoVAZ).

Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Vladimir Kolesnikov stated that the charges were brought within the scope of the criminal case concerning the stealing of cars from LogoVAZ car factory. Kolesnikov said that the question pertaining to the arrests of the above-mentioned businessmen will soon be decided.

According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, the managers of the company LogoVAZ (the largest dealer of the company AvtoVAZ) stole 2,033 cars. All of these cars, the cost of which is estimated to be 60 million rubles (two million dollars), were stolen during the period of 1994-1995. The profit that was received from those activities was used to purchase houses in the Moscow region (seven million rubles). The houses became the property of LogoVAZ deputy Director General Alexander Krasnenker and of a LogoVAZ employee, Magomed Ismailov.

One of the cottages is owned by LogoVAZ. As Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov stated, the house was meant for Boris Berezovsky, who had a number of them abroad already. Furthermore, more than five million rubles were spent on an office building in St. Petersburg.

Another million rubles was used to buy a country house for former Soviet official Nikolay Tikhonov. Kolesnikov stated that Berezovsky’s daughter is currently living there. The spending also included buying stocks of various mass media outlets. The swindlers paid more than nine million rubles for ORT stocks (the largest television and radio network of Russia). Almost 1.5 million rubles were spent on TV 6 stocks, and three million rubles more were used for buying the stocks of Ogonyok magazine.

Vladimir Kolesnikov stated that the question pertaining to punishment (taking the above-mentioned businessmen into custody) will be decided within a week. “The preliminary investigation is taking all measures to arrest these people and seize their property. Their property is going to be returned to those from whom it was stolen,” – Vladimir Kolesnikov said.

Dmitry Chirkin PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov