LETTER FROM MOSCOW
The anecdote tells a little about the spirit of the times in Moscow and the concerns of many Russians. We are in mid-March, and international sanctions after international sanctions, the ruble is collapsing. The measures taken by the Russian authorities to limit the fall of the currency are drastic: banks are prohibited from selling foreign currencies to citizens.
Unless you are a fervent patriot, there is cause for concern. And that is precisely what Hassan Khaloukhaev does. The man, an executive in a Moscow bank, keeps a significant part of his savings in rubles and cash. There is urgency: some invest in real estate, others buy technological goods. Anything rather than keeping scraps of paper that could turn out to be worthless overnight.
Khaloukhaiev is looking for dollars. Friends recommend him a broker clandestine by the name of Vadim Prokhorov, with whom an appointment is made on Novoslobodskaya Street. The financier brings a sports bag containing 32 million rubles (372,000 euros at the current rate, returned today to almost usual levels), his savings and those of his family.
The intermediary takes Khaloukhaev to a nearby bank branch (whose name is not revealed). An agent shows up, takes the sports bag ” at the register “, where tickets must be checked and counted. Khaloukhaiev waits, waits… until he understands that neither the money nor the two men who put themselves at his service will return.
The “journalist” Alex Werner
Thanks to the ubiquitous CCTV in Moscow, the police quickly trace the “broker Vadim Prokhorov”. The man was arrested at his home, then brought before a judge in the Tverskaya district, who placed him in pre-trial detention for two months. At the end of this period, he should be tried for “swindle of particular importance”, a charge which can earn him up to ten years in prison… if however his powerful protectors do not get him out of trouble, as they do. have always done.
Because the interest of this news item lies also and above all in the identity of the crook. The false Vadim Prokhorov is not unknown, neither to Russian justice, nor to readers of the World. Since the beginning of his criminal career, in the Saint Petersburg of the 1990s, he has been used to changing identities: Artur Denisoultanov (his real name), Artur Kourmakaïev, Artur Krinari, Dakar, Goofy… and, briefly, Alex Werner, reporter for Worldnewspaper domiciled at “80bd Auguste Blangui 75013 PERIS FRANCE”.
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