The Times
May 13, 1993, Thursday
The land the mafia stole
Andrew Jennings
Murder, revolution and missing millions ... the astonishing story of Chechenia
The Royal Mint has extricated itself from a contract signed earlier this year to make gold and silver coins for a govern-ment dominated by gangsters. The deal, made in February with Chechenia, a tiny republic in the northern foothills of the Caucasus mountains which has declared independence from Russia, was formally approved by the Foreign Office.
The contract with the Mint was negotiated by Ruslan Utsyev only days before he and his brother Nasabek were shot dead in their Marylebone penthouse. Two men have been charged with murder.
The murders have been linked to more killings in their homeland in the past few weeks. Investigators in the Chechen capital, Grozny, claim that they are linked to the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars, the proceeds of the sale of oil, the country's only asset. After nearly four centuries of repelling Russian attempts to subjugate them, the Chechens de-clared independence a month after the failed coup of August 1991. The appearance was of a nation tasting freedom for the first time. As a businessman claimed to me in Grozny: ''We firmly believed they would become the 'Kuwait of the Caucasus'.''
Eighteen months later the majority of Chechnia's million citizens are poverty-stricken. The country is on the brink of massive bloodletting.
After the August coup, leaders of many of the Chechen gangs in Moscow returned south to their homeland bringing with them their own fighters and weapons.
These ''volunteers'' who helped oust the old guard were fighting not for liberation but for the imposition of an even more corrupt regime.
One of the most impressive contributors to Chechnia's cautious press is historian and political analyst Timur Musaev. He claims: ''The new Mafia financed the movement which overthrew the old regime. They used the slogans of democ-racy to overthrow the old mob. It was in their interest to force change so they could take power.''
Critics allege that mafia groups have taken control of the council of ministers, the police and the oil ministry. Oil pro-duction has been increased and exported, some to Russia but much of it, for the first time, to the West.
Who has taken the oil and the money is no secret. One minister is alleged to have banked at least $11 million. One of the government advisers who traded in oil was the London murder victim Ruslan Utsyev.
The Chechen parliament has set up a commission to find the money. One of its members, Vakha Arsanov, told me: ''There has been theft on a grand scale.''
The investigators were being helped by an official in the oil ministry, Gennady Sanko. Two weeks after the London killings, Sanko was gunned down on his way to work. Arsanov says: ''He gave us some information about the stolen oil, he promised to give us some very serious information very soon but unfortunately he didn't have time.''
Chechnia's leader is former Soviet air force general, president Dzhokhar Dudaev. It is impossible to tell whether he is implicated in his mafia government or oblivious to their crimes. His answers to straightforward questions are bizarre.
On the missing oil money he says: ''Nothing has gone anywhere. It's all working in the interests of the state. How is a government secret. You could say it's vanished but in nature nothing disappears.''
The streets around his presidential palace are lined with new Mercedes, BMWs and Cadillacs. One day I spotted a Rolls-Royce and a Ferrari Testarossa. Everybody in Chechnia knows that these cars are bought with the proceeds of huge frauds on Moscow banks.
The president claims: ''These prestige cars show we are making economic progress, they show the wealth of our nation. It says something that our lads, our Chechen people, have learnt how to function creatively under the new conditions.'' In a bid to gain British recognition for his regime, he came to London in October last year. He lunched at the Commons, with Mr Den Dover, the Tory MP for Chorley, who was seeking to arrange contracts for British companies in exchange for oil and Chechnia's London lawyer, Mr Gerrard Neale, the former Tory MP for North Cornwall. That afternoon Dudaev was received at the DTI. The Foreign Office sent an official.
In the last three weeks the Chechen people, outraged at the theft of their wealth, have begun daily mass demonstrations in Grozny. In response Dudaev has sacked the parliament ending the oil enquiry dismissed his government, ordered a curfew and now rules by decree.
The latest murder came 24 hours after we left Chechnia. We had been helped by a local journalist, Dimitri Krikoriants, who had exposed much of the scandal. Late at night he was machine gunned at his front door.
Andrew Jennings
The author reported The Theft of a Nation for ITV's Storyline, tonight.
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