FBIS4-41687
"drsov124_a_94020"
FBIS-SOV-94-124
Daily Report
25 Jun 1994
RUSSIA INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
Latvian Government Implicated in Illegal Oil Exports
Latvian Government Implicated in Illegal Oil Exports
PM2706105094 Moscow KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA in Russian 25 Jun
94 p 5
PM2706105094
Moscow KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA
Russian
BFN
[Report by correspondent Karen Markaryan: "Criminal Oil
Pipeline"]
[Text] In the course of the investigation into the case of
Ivan Kharitonov, one of the leaders of Latvia's criminal world,
staffers involved in the struggle against organized crime
uncovered the far from fictitious tentacles of the international
mafia, which moves hundreds of thousands of tonnes of contraband
petroleum products from Russia to the West. According to
Latvian police estimates, Russia has lost as much as half a
billion U.S. dolalrs in this way in the past 18 months.
Latvia's losses resulting from illegal shipments of gasoline
and diesel fuel through its territory are on a scale comparable
to the republic's annual budget.
One of the main intermediaries is the Swedish-Latvian firm
TESS Petroleum. During an investigation of this joint venture,
a criminal business plan was uncovered. The mechanism is
brilliantly simple. For example, the chief of a Kaliningrad
trawler fleet base or the leader of a certain enterprise in that
oblast suddenly rejects petroleum products that are in transit,
using any excuse you like, and asks that the goods be
readdressed to TESS Petroleum in Riga or some other front firm.
Meanwhile a firm in Tallinn belonging to the TESS conglomerate
has already paid for the petroleum products on the
Kaliningraders' behalf. An order then comes down the Lithuanian
Railroad, and the cargo turns around in mid-journey and goes to
Latvia, from where it is most convenient to send the oil onward
to the West by way of well equipped terminals. Naturally, nobody
pays any dues for this devious transit route. And all the time
Kaliningrad Oblast is suffering a constant fuel shortage.
The Latvian police alone do not have the resources for a
detailed analysis of this "black-market bookkeeping." However,
it is now quite clear that the roots should be sought in Moscow,
at the highest government level. It was only from there that
huge deliveries of petroleum products from various regions of
Russia could have been organized and authorized.
The staffers of the Latvian MVD [Ministry of Internal
Affairs] directorate for combating organized crime approached
their Russian colleagues and provided them with copies of bank
documents in which various Russian figures appear. However,
nobody from Moscow has turned up.
"It seems our colleagues are simply afraid to take it on," a
Latvian MVD staffer told me. "We know what a bombshell we have
in our hands. And the criminals know it very well, too. I
would not be surprised if they try to put a stop to the whole
thing at the outset, and they will stop at nothing."