How Renaissance Capital Survived while Hermitage Was Stolen

Yulia Latynina’s column in the Moscow Times points out that Renaissance was also put through the wringer with the same FSB/Interior Ministry scam that Hermitage was … but chose to stay quiet in order to stay in business.  Always a Faustian bargain.

What’s more, Klyuyev had a distant relationship with the security service of the Renaissance Capital investment bank, which, as Browder explained, suffered the same type of raid that the Hermitage subsidiaries suffered.

Renaissance did not lodge a formal complaint for understandable reasons. It was obvious that any group capable of making a tax refund using phony structures had ties that are better left unchallenged. Renaissance understood that crossing the siloviki could be very dangerous.

Browder, however, had nothing to lose. He was faced with anoutrageous situation. The firms stolen from him during the raid,regardless of how small or bogus they were, were used to cheat thestate out of 5.4 billion rubles. Browder went public with hisaccusations. What happened after that is incredible: Browder’s lawyerwas put on the most wanted list, and the prosecutor began trying toprove that it was actually Browder who had stolen the 5.4 billionrubles.

For all intents and purposes, Magnitsky was tortured to death toextract testimony against Browder. Magnitsky’s death marks a new stagein Russian history — its has definitely become a Third World country.