Yesterday, I finished reading 'Red Notice' by Bill Browder. The book is sub-titled 'A true story of high finance, murder, and one man's fight for justice.' The book outlines the author's experiences with running a hedge fund business in Russia from 1996 until the time he was debarred from entering Russia in 2005-2006. The book starts with how the Russian authorities sold shares in State Owned Enterprises at a 99% discount through a mechanism that was supposedly designed to let the common man partake of ownership in these companies, but in truth, was rigged to enable a few favoured people to buy up huge stakes. These people became the Russian oligarchs.
It does not end there. The oligarchs then teamed up with the mafia and corrupt elements in the police force to then rig up another plan to loot the Russian tax payers. The modus operandi was for the police to raid the offices of law firms under false warrants and confiscate company documents and seals of the law-firms and their client companies. With the original documents and the seals, the ownership of these companies would be transferred to the mafia. The oligarchs would then 'buy' judicial decrees against these companies that caused their profits for prior years to be adjusted downwards. The mafia owners would promptly file for a tax refund, which was processed within days and the refund paid out to the current owners - the mafia and the oligarchs. You can watch the YouTube videos here and here.
We often complain about how corrupt the Indian system is and how our politicians have amassed wealth beyond their declared sources of income. It is the fearless courage and perseverance of people like Anna Hazare that have prevented our politicians from doing to India what the Russian oligarchs have done to their country. For all our faults, we have a free press and an independent judicial system.
We might do well to learn to appreciate what we do have.
To be continued...
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