FBIS4-45333
"jptdd025__l94085"
JPRS-TDD-94-025-L
JPRS
Narcotics
26 May 1994
CENTRAL EURASIA
RUSSIA
Economic Counterintelligence Chief Comments on Corruption,
Economic Counterintelligence Chief Comments on Corruption,
Growth of Drug Trade
PM3105150594 Moscow ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA in Russian 26 May 94
First Edition pp 1, 2
PM3105150594
Moscow ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA
Russian
BFN
[Interview with Vladimir Tsekhanov, chief of the Federal
Counterintelligence Service's Economic Counterintelligence
Directorate, by Vladimir Klimov "only in ROSSIYSKAYA GAZETA";
date and place not given: "The Country Is Being Sold Off.
Wholesale and Retail. Directorate Chief Vladimir Tsekhanov
Reflects on the Struggle on the Economic Front"]
[Excerpts] [Klimov] What is the main sphere of questions
that the Economic Counterintelligence Directorate is working on?
[Tsekhanov] The might, stability, and prosperity of a state
are determined by the condition of its economy. But at the same
time this is a state's tenderest, most sensitive spot. It is no
accident that the developed countries' special services are
shifting the center of gravity in their activity to the economic
sphere.
The Economic Counterintelligence Directorate, which was the
result of the amalgamation of two Russian Security Ministry
directorates (the directorate for combating contraband and
corruption and, partly, the economic security directorate),
endeavors to organize the protection of vitally important
spheres most at risk from external and internal threats.
These are above all priority state programs, including
privatization, investment projects with federal status and
foreign investors, the credit and finance sphere, foreign
economic activity, and the sphere of the circulation of precious
stones and metals. Such forms of economic crime as the
smuggling of strategic raw materials and centrally allocated
resources, the illegal arms trade, banking crimes--including the
laundering of huge sums obtained through criminal
means--represent a serious threat. International narcotics
syndicates are making a beeline for Russia. The theft and
resale of cultural assets and unlawful enterprise in the sphere
of culture are becoming profitable business. The expansion of
organized crime and its capital in the Russian economy has taken
on threatening proportions. Such trends are directly connected
with the growth of corruption in the organs of power and
administration and the law-enforcement system. [passage omitted]
[Klimov] One area of the directorate's activity is
corruption in the higher echelons of power. It is already known
that instances of the criminal abuse of power have been
uncovered. Is it possible for you to speak about this?
[Tsekhanov] Corruption in the state service system is
reaching epidemic proportions, discrediting the economic reforms
and exerting a destructive influence on our way of life, our
sense of justice, legality, and the social protection of our
citizens.
In St. Petersburg criminal proceedings have been instituted
against L. Savenkov, the city's deputy mayor, for organized
smuggling. In Moscow V. Danilenko, the first deputy prefect of
Moscow's Western Administrative District, has been charged with
corruption.
In Pskov Oblast A. Kabanov, deputy chairman of the Oblast
Committee for the Management of State Property, has been
detained for organizing the illicit export of metals and import
of arms. Unfortunately there are many such examples.
It is extremely difficult for the law-enforcement organs to
investigate and stamp out corruption among leading officials.
All the advantages of office and influence and connections in
the top-ranking executive echelons are brought into play in
order to oppose our work. Often the mass media are exploited to
distort the nature of events or exert pressure on the
law-enforcement organs investigating cases of corruption.
Sometimes curbing corruption among judges, public
prosecutors, and deputies is seriously hampered by the
excessively inflated guarantees of immunity of these officials.
[passage omitted]
[Klimov] How extensively has economic crime affected the
law-enforcement organs?
[Tsekhanov] For the militia it is most difficult of all.
Organized crime today possesses huge financial and material
resources, is excellently technically equipped, and has great
experience of opposition to the state. Not everyone can
withstand such pressure. There are cases of betrayal of
official interests, official abuses, mergers with criminal
structures, illegal participation in entrepreneurial activity,
and assistance in getting criminal proceedings dropped in return
for bribes. For example, one month ago the illegal activity of
an extensive criminal community with the participation of
officers of the central apparatus of the MVD [Ministry of
Internal Affairs], the Moscow Oblast and City Internal Affairs
Main Directorates, and other militia subdepartments was
uncovered. Orders from professional criminal groupings of the
Moscow region to drop charges against their members under
investigation for muggings, robbery, smuggling, and illegal
possession of arms, and also to change preventive restrictions
and reduce sentences imposed by the courts, were carried out in
return for huge bribes. Criminal proceedings have been
instituted, and the case has been referred to the Russian
General Prosecutor's Office.
In 1993 alone, according to the records of the former
Russian
Federation Security Ministry, criminal proceedings were
instituted against 39 officers of MVD organs, one Prosecutor's
Office employee, and one court official, and more than 1,000
employees of the internal affairs organs were disciplined for
various abuses of public office. In the first quarter of 1994,
according to federal counterintelligence records, criminal
charges have been brought in nine cases against 14 MVD officers.
There are four cases against officials of the Public
Prosecutor's Office.
There is information on extortion of bribes by individual
officials of the tax police for reducing punitive sanctions.
Some of these officials have links with criminal structures and
carry out their orders, passing to them official information and
helping individual entrepreneurs to tax exemptions, receiving
huge sums in return. There are cases of threats and
psychological pressure against taxpayers and cases of forcing
them to give bribes.
[Klimov] The narcotics trade is growing drastically in
Russia. What is being done to oppose it?
[Tsekhanov] According to official estimates the turnover of
narcotics reached the level of $150 million in our country last
year. More than half of the narcotics in illegal circulation in
Russia originate from outside its borders. They come mainly
from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, and the Central
Asian states.
In recent times contraband deliveries of narcotics from
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran have grown markedly. Cocaine
from South America and the United States and other narcotics,
new to this country, are increasingly appearing in Russia. On
the other hand the smuggling of narcotics from Russia to
Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, Austria, and Greece is on the
increase.
The international narcotics business has manifestly
intensified its interest in Russia. This is to be explained by
the peculiarities of Russia's geographic position on the
crossroads of transport routes and the huge, though as yet
[un]exploited, market in the demand for narcotics. There is
reason to believe that, in addition to the traditional Balkan
and Caucasus routes, a new international drugs route is being
established from Southwest, South, and Southeast Asia to the CIS
countries and West Europe.
One means of increasing effectiveness in the battle against
the illegal circulation of narcotics is cooperation with the
special services of a number of countries of the world. Of
course, collaboration within the CIS receives priority
attention. [passage omitted]
[Klimov] What danger awaits us from the commercialization of
the entire country?
[Tsekhanov] A "flight" of the ruble, whereby foreign
currency actively penetrates the sphere of circulation and the
ruble is squeezed out of internal circulation. The second
calamity is a leak of capital from Russia. This question can be
resolved only by combining administrative measures with the
creation of an attractive investment climate. Plus legislative
support.
And there is one further highly complex problem--the
concentration of huge sums of money in the hands of individuals
and organizations having direct links with the criminal world.
There is an ongoing process of laundering "dirty" money, both
from Russia and abroad, and the active assimilation of private
funds into the Russian economy through the establishment of
control over commercial banking structures.
Many confidence tricksters and fraudsters, both Russian and
foreign, have now appeared in the Russian market. The
successfully thwarted losses which could have been inflicted by
these dishonest people are frequently measured in tens of
billions of rubles. Major financial fraud cannot fail to affect
the condition of the state credit and monetary system.
[Klimov] Vladimir Stepanovich, what prevents even more
effective work by your directorate?
[Tsekhanov] Dissatisfaction with the level of social
protection and the uncertainty of the status of a state Federal
Counterintelligence Service employee, the unending process of
reorganization--all this substantially reduces our level of
efficiency and drives away professional cadres. Many trained
officers have gone into the tax police, where the level of
monetary support is far higher than in our directorate, and into
other state structures. Commercial firms happily take on our
boys, sometimes offering pay several times in excess of what
they were previously earning. Former state security employees
are valued for their high efficiency, professionalism, and
ability to perform the most diverse tasks, and, of course, for
their honesty and reliability.