Scandal of day
POOR...VANIN!
Not long ago a scandal with political implication broke out in Russia - two serious organizations grappled with each other: General Office of Public Prosecutor and State Customs Committee (ราส). We remind you that this scandal, to which much attention was given in the mass media, was just a commonplace criminal case based on materials of the State Customs Committee - a case of smuggling furniture by the companies "Grand" and "Tri Kita". S. Zuev addressed the General Prosecutor with the charge that State Customs Committee officers extorted money from him.
It's necessary to point out that in contrast to the high-ranked officers of the General Office of Public Prosecutor, the chairman of the State Customs Committee took an active position in this scandal. In his public appearances he angrily denied all accusations that had been addressed at his organization and made a statement that the State Customs Committee had always worked within the bounds of the law and that this story was nothing but a political order.
The person of Michail Vanin is ambiguous. At first sight he is a real professional at his job, who has managed to organize the work of the Russian customs organization. But, as well-informed people say, Vanin has always worked in the interests of the Yeltsin family, with the help of whom he got this position. Under Vanin's patronage, his trusted people (among them some high-ranking customs officers) devised a lot of different "black" and "gray" illegal schemes of custom clearance that guaranteed huge sums of money. Vanin let his subordinates fill their pockets on the condition that the larger part of the sum would go into the common pot, from which a part of this sum, to be more precise, several million dollars, would go into the Family accounts monthly (!).
This scheme worked effectively and everybody was satisfied but then the wind began to change.
Our sources in the President's Administration affirmed that Michail Vanin began to have doubts on the necessity of giving such sums of money to the Family, which was losing its power so quickly, when such action wasn't really necessary.
The Family couldn't stand such an outrageous turn of events and decided to show Vanin who the real master was.
The sources mentioned above say that in spite of all his confident speeches in the mass media, Michail Vanin was really terrified. He began to understand what threatened him. The summons to a cross-examination affected him more than anything else, he was totally confused. Soon after that he was invited to the Kremlin by the powerful head of the New Family - Alexander Voloshin, the chief of the President's Administration.
During the meeting Voloshin, smiling kindly, asked Vanin about his mood, appetite, sleep. Vanin was depressed and kept silent.
Voloshin laughed and said that there was a way out and that it's useful to have such a lesson, that it's no use for them to get rid of such a professional and if Vanin had realized all his faults then he could return to the Family.
Vanin, encouraged by Voloshin's words, vowed him fidelity and left the Kremlin as a totally different person. The most important thing was that he understood the necessity to share his profits the same way as it was done before. Ustinov's pressure on Vanin eased and the State Customs Committee took a deep breath of relief. The only thing wrong was that he had to part with a sum of money which was much more significant than it used to be. Greediness was his problem.
And there was one more problem. It was not only money that was being demanded, but now information as well. Whom he had given money to, how much and in whose interests he was lobbying. This meant that a new bomb, charged with compromising materials about the close entourages of Yeltsin, Putin, Kasyanov, some high-ranking state officials and a whole bunch of oligarchs, is being prepared. If this bomb blows up - nobody will be safe.
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