Thread: The Top U.S. Investor in Russia, Michael John Calvey, Seized as Putin’s Regime Turns

Calvey was known as a Putin loyalist who would often accuse Western journalists of bias. Now he’s behind bars and facing up to 10 years in prison.


KIEV, Ukraine—Russian authorities have detained an American citizen who runs the country’s largest independent private investment firm in an alarming signal to foreign investors that they are not safe to operate in Russia.


Michael John Calvey’s arrest follows the seizure of fellow U.S. citizen Paul Whelan, who was arrested for spying and faces 20 years in prison. Calvey denied guilt.

Calvey, the founder of Baring Vostok, which says it has committed capital of over $3.7 billion, was arrested along with six of his business partners on Thursday. Western executives operating at the top of the Russian business world are rare, but Calvey was known as a “good American” who was always loyal to Moscow.


Calvey speaks fluent Russian and has often told journalists and friends that he was “emotionally attached” to Russia. He claimed that Western journalists are often biased against Russian authorities, not talking enough about the improvements the country had achieved since the thuggish 1990s.


“We are very much alike, Russian and American people, we share the same feelings, we believe that everything is possible,” in an interview for his good friend Oleg Tinkov, a well-known Russian entrepreneur.


He does, however, serve as a director of the advisory board at the Atlantic Council, an American think tank that has been critical of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

After being taken into custody, the investor is said to be suspected of embezzling $37 million from Russia’s Vostochny Bank. If he is charged, he would be facing up to 10 years in prison.

MORE https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-to...-good-american

Monkey see, Monkey do.

Why not to build the wall better against Russia?

US investor & top partners of Baring Vostok equity fund detained in Moscow on fraud allegations


A Moscow district court has ordered the detention of the founder and senior partner of Baring Vostok private equity, as part of an ongoing inquiry into fraud allegations. Other employees were also taken into custody.

Michael Calvey, a US citizen, was detained in the Russian capital on Friday along with other Baring Vostok associates, Vagan Abgaryan, Philippe Delpal, and Ivan Zyuzin, the firm said in a statement. It said the arrests have nothing to do with the company’s activities but relate to a dispute around Russia’s Vostochny Bank.

Moscow’s Basmanny court is set to consider the next legal motion soon, according to the spokesperson Yunona Tsaryova. Investigators are reportedly seeking the arrest of all the defendants in the case.

Calvey is suspected of embezzling 2.5 billion rubles ($37.5 million) from Vostochny Bank via a fraudulent scheme, according to an investigating officer, as quoted by TASS.

“The investigators established that Calvey knew about the 2.5 billion debt of the First Collection Bureau, controlled by him,” the officer told the court. “However, the suspect arranged sale of shares of the enterprise to Vostochny Express Bank, that is seen as embezzlement.”

The firm, founded by Calvey in 1994, specializes in private equity investments in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.



Published time: 15 Feb, 2019 11:31
Edited time: 15 Feb, 2019 15:31
https://www.rt.com/business/451540-b...ners-detained/

Originally Posted by Neverna

The firm, founded by Calvey in 1994, specializes in private equity investments in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

So he's just another crook like Bill Browder.

Guardians of the Magnitsky Myth
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/2...agnitsky-myth/

The documentary – “The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes” – was produced by filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, who is known as a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin but who in this instance found the West’s widely accepted, anti-Russian Magnitsky storyline to be a lie.

However, instead of welcoming Nekrasov’s discoveries as an important part of the debate over the West’s policies toward Russia, the European Parliament pulled the plug on a premiere in Brussels and – except for a one-time showing at the Newseum in Washington – very few Americans have been allowed to see the documentary.

Instead, we’re fed a steady diet of the frothy myth whipped up by hedge-fund investor William Browder and sold to the U.S. and European governments as the basis for sanctioning Russian officials. For years now, Browder has been given a free hand to spin his dog-ate-my-homework explanation about how some of his firms got involved a $230 million tax fraud in Russia.

Browder insists that some “corrupt” Russian police officers stole his companies’ corporate seals and masterminded a convoluted conspiracy. But why anyone would trust a hedge-fund operator who got rich exploiting Russia’s loose business standards is hard to comprehend.

The answer is that Browder has used his money and political influence to scare off and silence anyone who dares point to the glaring contradictions and logical gaps in his elaborate confection.

So, the hedge-fund guy who renounced his U.S. citizenship in favor of a British passport gets the royal treatment whenever he runs to Congress. His narrative just fits so neatly into the demonization of Russia and the frenzy over stopping “Russian propaganda and disinformation” by whatever means necessary.

Why wouldn't you think you can get away with being a corrupt little bastard in a country run by one?

Originally Posted by SKkin

So he's just another crook like Bill Browder.

Guardians of the Magnitsky Myth

The Magnitsky case
How true is the story on which US sanctions against Russia are based?


Activist Browder in London

With his statements on the death of a whistleblower, Bill Browder brought the Americans against Putin. But his portrayal is full of contradictions. By Benjamin Bidder
22 November 2019

In the northeast of Moscow stands a tombstone of black stone. A photo can be seen on it in the gold frame; it shows a man with a friendly, somewhat uncertain look. Here rests Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky, born 1972 in Odessa, died in November 2009 in Moscow. He perished miserably in the cell of a Moscow prison, under circumstances that have not been fully resolved to this day, ten years later.

There are two versions of what led to Magnitsky's death. The one, well-known version sounds like a thriller. It has been told in thousands of articles, in TV interviews and in hearings before parliamentarians. The man in the cemetery is an upright fighter against a corrupt system that ultimately murders him. The second is more complicated, and there is no hero in it.


Read more
https://www.spiegel.de/plus/russland...0-000167093479

^Not only is there a paywall, but the article is in German.

^Actually, it can be read for free for one month.

Anyway, the Spiegel has been the only one so far to bring some more facts about this not so unimportant affair that has such big impact on the politics and the business. Wondering which side has suffered more because of this?

(and wondering how long will it take when some more facts will come out about other events - clear "highly likely" to some within one hour...)