Alexander Zaslavsky and Ilya Zaslavsky, two brothers, both dual U.S.-Russian citizens, have found themselves arrested this week, prisoners of the Russian government under charges of “corporate oil espionage,” and at the center of what might be the next forced partial nationalization of an oil company, pawns in the deepening UK-Russia diplomatic spat, or both or neither. What seems clear is that no one believes the government’s straight story on this case, further eroding the credibility of the procuracy (not that there was too much left beforehand).

Perhaps the first sign that triggered widespread speculation and conspiracy theories was the fact that Russia’s normally subservient and docile television media was allowed by the Kremlin to play up the arrests as a lead story. In such a tightly controlled and censored media market, whenever a story like this makes it to TV, it is meant to send a message – much like the arrest of the gas mobster Semyon Mogilevich or even the neat and tidy trial of Alexi Frenkel for the murder of central banker Andrei Kozlov. There is certainly far too little information available about the brothers and the state’s plans to take over TNK-BP to jump to conclusions, but it is understandable why so many are floating their own theories.