Anton Sopranov

15 September 2006



Russian Central Banker Whacked by Mob

Andrei Kozlov was a member of the First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. He led the fight against money-laundering in Russia and revoked the licenses of over 40 banks for misbehavior. That annoyed a great many, and Wednesday night, someone had him rubbed out just like the mafiosky they are. Now, Comrade President Putin’s government has its credibility on the line, and the question now is, just who runs Russia?

Since the Soviet Union went out of business, a great many fortunes have been made. As Honore de Balzac said, “Behind every great fortune is a crime,” and in post-Soviet Russia, a new kind of communism was in place: from each according to his greed and to each according to his agility. In a land where there was no property law (communism had abolished it), it was a massive case of finders keepers. Billions that theoretically belonged to the Soviet people in common became the personal property of Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov because he said so and had some people with guns back him up.

Theft is an effective way of privatizing property, although not as effective in the long run as others. The problem is once everything that hasn’t been nailed down is gone, the easy money has been made. Property rights start to matter, but no one wants the provenance looked into very deeply. Naturally, there are still shady deals going on as the local Corleone families try to expand or go legitimate. That’s where Mr. Kozlov fell afoul of the mob.

Every Russian owes Mr. Kozlov a huge debt of gratitude because he was the one who introduced deposit insurance following the collapse of the ruble in the 1990s. Had it existed then, the little guy in Russia would have lost nothing. Better late than never. By closing down the shadier banks, he was raising the caliber of savings institutions throughout the nation (a nation, incidentally, that deserves better than it got in the last few centuries). But not everyone wanted that.

Vladislav Reznik, chairman of the State Duma’s financial committee (the national legislature's banking watchdog), said, “They assassinated Kozlov because he withdrew bank licenses. It is horrible that these attacks still happen in Russia. The government must find the killers.” Imagine what the US government would do if a governor of the Federal Reserve were rubbed out by the Genovese crime family.

So long as the mob and the ex-KGB gangsters could operate in the shadows, they were safe. Now, they have stepped into the sunlight. Will Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation, prevail over Vladimir Putin, former member of the KGB? A great deal depends on the answer.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.


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