07 June 2004 03:41
Ex-Arms Exporter Wanted in Italy
A former director of the state arms export agency is wanted in Italy on charges of money laundering in an
investigation that raises a new ghost in the multimillion-dollar state corruption scandals that haunted the late
1990s.
The Trento Finance Police issued an arrest warrant for former Rosvooruzheniye chief Yevgeny Ananyev on Thursday,
Andrea Bergamo, chief of the Finance Police in the northern Italian city, said Friday.
Ananyev, his girlfriend Olga Beltsova and his financial consultant Giulio Rizzi tried to launder millions of dollars
through provincial Italian banks, he said.
The money came from a $117 million deal in which Ananyev oversaw the sale of three MiG-29 fighter jets to Peru via
Belarus in 1998, Bergamo said. Ananyev and his Peruvian partner, then-National Intelligence Service chief Vladimiro
Montesinos Torres, diverted $18 million of that amount, he said.
"Everybody got a piece of the pie," Bergamo said by telephone from Trento, adding that Ananyev got $7.5
million.
A Peruvian court convicted Montesinos Torres of corruption and drug trafficking in 2002 and sentenced him to nine
years in prison.
The investigation into Ananyev, dubbed Matryoshka by the Italians, started in 2001 after Peru asked Swiss authorities
to check and freeze the bank accounts of individuals close to Montesinos Torres.
Ananyev's money was first deposited in an account belonging to Beltsova at a bank in Lugano, Switzerland, from
which it was to be surreptitiously transferred in smaller amounts to various banks in Italy, Bergamo said.
Some of the money was sent to a bank account held by Beltsova in the Milan suburb of Arese, where she now lives,
Bergamo said. The money was then forwarded to her account in a bank in the Trentino Alto Adige region.
But the Arese bank reported the transfer to the Italian Exchange Office. Under Italian law, transactions of more than
$12,500 must be reported to the Italian Exchange Office.
The transfer in question totaled $650,000, Bergamo said.
He said that Rizzi, the consultant, has been detained and that Beltsova, who has a baby, is under house arrest.
In accordance with Italy's strict money laundering laws, police have confiscated two cars and a villa belonging
to Ananyev and Beltsova, he said.
The Trento Finance Police believe that Ananyev has fled to Russia. "If we had found him, we would have detained
him," Bergamo said.
If tried and convicted, Ananyev faces four to 12 years in prison, he said.
Ananyev, 56, has a reputation for being a charismatic leader with an entrepreneurial flair.
But his stint at Rosvooruzheniye, from August 1997 to November 1998, was mired in scandal. Under his leadership,
already sliding revenues fell from $3.6 billion in 1996 to $2.6 billion in 1997 and $2.3 billion in 1998.
In 1998, the presidential administration's control department, then headed by Vladimir Putin, carried out a
thorough audit of Rosvooruzheniye. The findings remain classified.
The media, however, reported at the time that numerous financial violations had been uncovered, including a budget of
about $100,000 per month for Ananyev's personal bodyguards and a $500,000 renovation of Ananyev's office.
During Ananyev's tenure, the country's arms-selling business was under Economics Minister Yakov Urinson, now
the deputy chairman of Unified Energy Systems.
Ananyev, a graduate of Moscow Engineering and Construction Institute and the Finance Academy, served from 1993 to
1997 as chairman of MAPO-Bank, then an offshoot of what is now the MiG Corporation. He was an economic adviser to
MiG's general director in 1992, and before that served in the Foreign Intelligence Service.
After leaving Rosvooruzheniye, Ananyev worked for a short time as an adviser to Sergei Chemezov, the head of another
arms exporting agency, Promexport. Chemezov was recently appointed head of Rosoboronexport, which now oversees virtually
all arms exports.
Ananyev was very opaque in his dealings as director of Rosvooruzheniye, so the Italian charges are not surprising,
said Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. "In a lucrative industry like
arms exports, there were always a lot of opportunities for abuse in President Boris Yeltsin's era," he
said.
Pukhov said the investigation could deal a blow to MiG's reputation and jeopardize contracts that are currently
under negotiation.
He said the timing of the announcement of the arrest warrant was interesting, as Peru may be negotiating a
substantial defense deal with Russia. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak, who helps oversee arms trade, visited Lima
in April and signed a military and technical cooperation agreement.
MiG, whose image was tarnished in several financial scandals in the 1990s, is in confirmed talks with Algeria for
what would be its biggest post-Soviet deal, the sale of 49 MiG-29 jets for about $1.5 billion. Unlike most defense
companies, MiG has a license to sell independently of Rosoboronexport. Last year, it earned some $190 million but
remains heavily in debt, primarily to the Finance Ministry.
Rosoboronexport reported revenues of $5.4 billion for 2003, the fourth consecutive year that it has set a new
post-Soviet record in revenues.
MiG was unavailable for comment Friday, and Rosoboronexport spokesman Alexander Smelyakov stressed that "Ananyev
at the moment has no relation whatsoever to Rosoboronexport."
Russian law enforcement officials also were tight-lipped Friday.
"The Italian police have not involved Interpol and did not turn to Russian law enforcement agencies for help in
the search for Ananyev," the deputy head of Interpol's Russian bureau, Alexei Abramov, told Interfax.
The Trento Finance Police said investigators would probably ask Moscow for documents to assist them in their
probe.
Beltsova, 37, said she has done nothing wrong and that she is not under house arrest. She also denied that any
property had been confiscated, Izvestia reported Saturday.
Asked whether she personally knew Ananyev or Rizzo, she told the newspaper, "You are asking personal questions.
I will not answer them."
She did say, however, that Ananyev is now in Russia.
But Ananyev could be hiding just about anywhere, said a defense industry official who spoke on condition of
anonymity. "He could be anywhere in the world. After holding this senior position, he has connections in many
countries," the official said.
The official said that since he left Rosvooruzheniye, Ananyev has dabbled in a number of businesses, including
pharmaceuticals. "He is able to pick up any business that comes his way," the official said.
Beltsova's name has surfaced before in a money-laundering investigation, Izvestia reported. It was on a list of
15 names forwarded to the Prosecutor General's Office in 2000 as part of a Swiss money laundering investigation
into alleged kickbacks paid for Kremlin renovations, Izvestia said. At the top of the list was Pavel Borodin, the former
head of the presidential property department.
Swiss investigators found that a Liechtenstein-registered firm owned by Beltsova received $2.7 million from Swiss
firm Mercata Trading, which repaired the Grand Kremlin Palace, Izvestia said.
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[The Moscow Times] |
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