Rossiyskaya Gazeta: "New measures taken to monitor financial crimes"
Rosfinmonitoring reveals striking financial violations in Moscow
Yesterday Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Yury Chikhanchin, chief of Rosfinmonitoring (the Federal Financial Monitoring Service), who reported that following inspections conducted by his agency this year, about 2,000 criminal cases have been brought before the court.
"We have delivered about 18,000 documents to law-enforcement agencies, of which around 4,000 may lead to criminal proceedings. About 2,000 cases have been based upon our findings," he said. In the course of its investigations, Rosfinmonitoring has been paying particular attention to the energy sector. Chikhanchin quoted one case in which nearly eight billion roubles that were allocated to restoring electric grids were misappropriated by regional authorities.
Out of about 20,000 financial inspections conducted by the agency this year, around half focused on monitoring budget spending. Chikhanchin said that the agency inspected government purchases, particularly in the defence and agro-industrial sectors.
"Following changes in the top management of Rosselkhozbank (the Russian Agricultural Bank), we have adopted a systemic approach not only to this bank, but also to the agro-industrial sector as a whole. Now we are checking on subsidies and compensations together with the Ministry of Agriculture," Chikhanchin specified. He showed the prime minister the documents leading to the arrest of the head of Rosselkhozbank's Krasnodar regional subsidiary, who is charged with embezzlement on an especially large scale. "The sum in question is about six billion roubles. It was a loan. The money has been stolen," Chikhanchin explained.
Chikhanchin said that they are also conducting thorough inspections of the housing and utilities sector. He specified that there are a number of consolidated criminal cases in this sphere – in Murmansk, Moscow, St Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Rosfinmonitoring has other questions for Moscow as well. Chikhanchin told the prime minister that together with law-enforcement agencies, his agency uncovered "systemic problems" in the funding of contracts by the former Moscow City Mayor's Office. This primarily applies to health facilities – departments and clinics. "Contracts are signed with mediators, and then the money goes directly to the city's healthcare state unitary enterprise. Kickbacks of about 1.2 billion roubles are paid, and that's it," he explained. In his opinion, the scheme was made possible as a result of faulty tender procedures.
Chikhanchin said that his agency may toughen control over VIPs and government officials by submitting amendments to legislation in order to counter money laundering. He said that these amendments are linked with new requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international organisation that is drafting measures to combat the problem. "Recently FATF had a meeting. Russia is confidently holding on. There are now 'black lists' with new requirements," Chikhanchin noted.
Moreover, Rosfinmonitoring intends to check on whether Russian companies are involved in recent cases traceable to the United States. It is working together with American agencies in order to establish whether Russian financial institutions were linked with the hackers who have stolen millions of dollars from American banks. "We held a conference together with the Council of Europe on new challenges in money laundering and electronic money. This is a very serious problem today. FATF is concerned over this problem and notes that Russian-speaking hackers, including 11 Russian citizens, were detained recently in the United States. This is a new type of crime and we are cooperating with Americans in this sphere," Chikhanchin told the prime minister.
Addendum
Putin also met with Vasily Yakemenko, head of the Federal Agency on Youth Affairs, who said that his agency has drafted a programme to help the younger generation achieve a healthy lifestyle. Yakemenko said that his agency had to reach three goals to this effect – most importantly to get young people interested in modern fitness programmes and to help them improve their diet. Yakemenko said that many young people do not know what to eat and how. This is why it is essential to help them choose the right diet and stay in great shape.
"The main thing is to have enough money to buy food," the prime minister observed in passing.
The final goal of the agency is to teach young people to monitor their own health. Yakemenko observed that, quite often, they neglect it.
Vitaly Petrov
