Corrupt as week old road kill. Authoritarian states are a pox on humanity.

Just the beginning. Plenty more to come. Democracy is threatened world wide due to dirty money and it's not drug cartels that I'm talking about. But today is story about a girl used by her government to show the world how superior Russia is.

This week we feature the hijinks of the Russian Olympic team's directors use of trimetazidine to turn a fifteen year old girl into a superstar athlete in order to "win the dems" at this year's winter Olympics. A fifteen year old girl. She's not responsible, her team is. Was she put at risk for health issues later on? Doesn't sound like it. What it is, is a confirmation that the Russian government and its agencies have no limit below which they will go.

Teen skater's doping test draws global wrath against Russia

Teen skater's doping test draws global wrath against Russia

Russian skating prodigy Kamila Valieva's failed drug test prior to her dazzling Winter Games team gold threw the 15-year-old's Olympic future into doubt and reawakened global anger over Moscow's doping history on Friday.

www.reuters.com

"Hold your head up, you're a Russian," government spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged her. "Go proudly and beat everyone."

The teenager became the first woman to land a quadruple jump at the Olympics on Monday, winning a team figure skating gold with the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).

However, the International Testing Agency (ITA) said she had tested positive for banned heart drug Trimetazidine in a urine sample collected by Russian authorities back on Dec. 25 - though confirmation of that only came this week.

Russian athletes are already competing in Beijing as the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) - without their national flag and anthem - due to past sanctions for state-sponsored doping.

The latest controversy blew up after a testing lab in Sweden reported on Tuesday that Valieva's sample had been positive - the day after she wowed the world at the Capital Indoor Stadium.

There is plenty of grist for this mill. For example, what do Trump, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroeder have in common?

answer: They all are on the take from Russian Oligarchs and dictators under Russian control.

Everything in the Russian system is corrupt. They shouldn’t be allowed to send athletes to compete.

I don’t understand why it’s taking this long to disqualify her.

Do Not Upset The Russians!

After Sochi, they should have been banned from international competition

smokinrav said:

Do Not Upset The Russians!

After Sochi, they should have been banned from international competition

Click to expand...

Russians cheating. An Olympic tradition since 1896.

The road kill continues to rot.


German ex-leader Schroeder nominated as director at Gazprom

BERLIN (AP) — Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom said Friday that German ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has been nominated to join its board of directors, a move that comes as the former leader has faced criticism for accusing Ukraine of “saber-rattling” during its standoff with Russia.

Schroeder, who led Germany from 1998 to 2005, developed a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was chancellor. The 77-year-old already chairs the shareholders’ committee of Nord Stream AG and heads the board of directors of Nord Stream 2, a new pipeline opposed by the U.S., Ukraine and some other German allies that has been built to bring Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea but isn’t yet in service.

Gazprom listed Schroeder among 11 nominees for its board of directors, to be voted on at its annual general meeting in St. Petersburg on June 30.

Schroeder’s involvement with the gas pipeline and stalwart defense of Russia have long drawn mixed reviews in Germany, even in his own center-left Social Democratic Party, which heads Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ new governing coalition. Under Scholz, Germany is pushing for diplomatic solutions to the current crisis but has refused to send weapons to Ukraine, annoying some allies.

In a podcast last week, Schroeder said he doesn’t think the Russian leadership has any interest in a military intervention in Ukraine.

“I very much hope that they finally stop the saber-rattling in Ukraine because what I hear there, also in the way of finger-pointing at Germany because of the sensible refusal to send weapons, sometimes takes the cake,” Schroeder said.

What the hell, man? Seven-years the PM of Germany. He's been involved with the gas pipeline project for years now. And now, he's going to be on the board of Gazprom. This isn't about his skill in engineering is it?

What, one might ask is Gazprom?

Gazprom is yet another corrupt carcass stinkin' the highway.

SPECIAL REPORT-Putin's allies channelled billions to Ukraine oligarch


MOSCOW/KIEV, Nov 26 (Reuters) - In Russia, powerful friends helped him make a fortune. In the United States, officials want him extradited and put behind bars. In Austria, where he is currently free on bail of $155 million, authorities have yet to decide what to do with him.

He is Dmitry Firtash, a former fireman and soldier. In little more than a decade, the Ukrainian went from obscurity to wealth and renown, largely by buying gas from Russia and selling it in his home country. His success was built on remarkable sweetheart deals brokered by associates of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, at immense cost to Russian taxpayers, a Reuters investigation shows.

Russian government records reviewed for this article reveal for the first time the terms of recent deals between Firtash and Russia’s Gazprom, a giant gas company majority owned by the state.

According to Russian customs documents detailing the trades, Gazprom sold more than 20 billion cubic metres of gas well below market prices to Firtash over the past four years - about four times more than the Russian government has publicly acknowledged. The price Firtash paid was so low, Reuters calculates, that companies he controlled made more than $3 billion on the arrangement.

Over the same time period, other documents show, bankers close to Putin granted Firtash credit lines of up to $11 billion. That credit helped Firtash, who backed pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich’s successful 2010 bid to become Ukraine’s president, to buy a dominant position in the country’s chemical and fertiliser industry and expand his influence.

The Firtash story is more than one man’s grab for riches. It demonstrates how Putin uses Russian state assets to create streams of cash for political allies, and how he exported this model to Ukraine in an attempt to dominate his neighbour, which he sees as vital to Russia’s strategic interests. With the help of Firtash, Yanukovich won power and went on to rule Ukraine for four years. The relationship had great geopolitical value for Putin: Yanukovich ended up steering the nation of more than 44 million away from the West’s orbit and towards Moscow’s until he was overthrown in February.

“Firtash has always been an intermediary,” said Viktor Chumak, chairman of the anti-corruption committee in the previous Ukrainian parliament. “He is a political person representing Russia’s interests in Ukraine.”

A spokesman for Putin rejected claims that Firtash acted on behalf of Russia. “Firtash is an independent businessman and he pursues his own interests, I don’t believe he represents anyone else’s interests,” said Dmitry Peskov.

The findings are the latest in a Reuters examination of how elites favoured by the Kremlin profit from the state in the Putin era. In the wild years after the fall of the Soviet Union, state assets were seized or bought cheaply by the well connected. Today, resources and cash flows from public enterprises are diverted to private individuals with links to Putin, whether in Russia or abroad.

Then again, Gazprom has its own bank. It too is dirty as a two year old playing with mud.

Gazprombank Switzerland sanctioned over money laundering concerns

On February 1, 2018, Switzerland’s financial regulator, FINMA, banned Gazprombank Switzerland from taking on new private clients in response to its lack of appropriate anti-money laundering measures. FINMA’s investigation was triggered by the 2016 Panama Papers: leaked documents on elites’ use of offshore corporations. Gazprombank Switzerland – a subsidiary of a Kremlin-controlled bank – “was in serious breach of its anti-money laundering due diligence requirements” between 2006 and 2016, according to FINMA. FINMA found Gazprombank Switzerland’s risk categorization, record-keeping, and reporting inadequate.


Lulz. A bank in Switzerland has to go beyond the pale to get sanctioned.

I'll get to how Trump fits into this mess. Just setting up the context.

CunningCanuk said:

Everything in the Russian system is corrupt. They shouldn’t be allowed to send athletes to compete.

I don’t understand why it’s taking this long to disqualify her.

Click to expand...

I am not sure if this is the case still or not, but heard something yesterday on the news about it being that she is so young there is something about the legality of releasing her medical information.

I've run pants through the wash that had money in a pocket which technically makes me a money launderer

CunningCanuk said:

Russians cheating. An Olympic tradition since 1896.

Click to expand...

Olympics is corrupt as fuck, I remember when Roy Jones jr took a points loss on some Korean who was utter shite.

Proving once again Americans are even better at cheating! How often do we get caught? Lance Armstrong won 6 Tour De Frances and was never caught, he was ratted out eventually but 6 titles! How many others haven’t been caught, we’ll never know.

Fuck the Olympics!!!

They is no greater waste of money, resources or carbon than stroking the collective egos of the world. Unabashed decadence at the expense and displacement of poor people to build entire villages just to let them rot into the ground, so the privileged can show off.

hanimmal said:

I am not sure if this is the case still or not, but heard something yesterday on the news about it being that she is so young there is something about the legality of releasing her medical information.

Click to expand...

She is a competitor caught with a banned substance and should be disqualified from competing just like any other competitor caught with a banned substance.

No gold medal for you Svetlana, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.

zeddd said:

Olympics is corrupt as fuck, I remember when Roy Jones jr took a points loss on some Korean who was utter shite.

Click to expand...

I remember that fight. Total bullshit. Even the South Korean fighter was shocked.

BurtMaklin said:

Fuck the Olympics!!!

They is no greater waste of money, resources or carbon than stroking the collective egos of the world. Unabashed decadence at the expense and displacement of poor people to build entire villages just to let them rot into the ground, so the privileged can show off.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/

Abandoned Olympic Venues Around the Globe

Revisit the derelict venues of Olympics past.

abcnews.go.com

Click to expand...

I agree with you on this point.

Sir Napsalot said:

I've run pants through the wash that had money in a pocket which technically makes me a money launderer

Click to expand...

That is a quote from one of the dictators I intend to get to in this therad.

BurtMaklin said:

Fuck the Olympics!!!

They is no greater waste of money, resources or carbon than stroking the collective egos of the world. Unabashed decadence at the expense and displacement of poor people to build entire villages just to let them rot into the ground, so the privileged can show off.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/

Abandoned Olympic Venues Around the Globe

Revisit the derelict venues of Olympics past.

abcnews.go.com

Click to expand...

gee Burt, are you OK? Or maybe there is something wrong with me. Because this once, we agree.

The Olympic committee, especially the creepy Olympic skating committee that chooses judges who appear to have a thing for anorexic underage girls is as corrupt as week old roadkill.

No need to reply, you are on ignore but I checked your post in this thread because other people were agreeing with you and I wanted to know if they meant it or their account was hacked.

Olympics, yeah they are corrupt and the Russian Olympic comittee is as corrupt as any of them. And I'm glad to see people riffing on that here. But that's not my intent with this therad.

This article contains a some of the iron in the axe that I'm grinding.

The FinCEN Files Show Suspicious Activities of Kazakhstan’s Former Oligarchs
Hundreds of millions of dollars of suspicious origin have transited in and out of Kazakhstan with the help of U.S. banks, an investigation of thousands of leaked documents reveals.
LinK: Article from The Diplomat read with a skeptical eye, the content is all true but there is stink in it


A wide range of “usual suspects” popped up on the news reels as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and BuzzFeed News unveiled the collated data of the so-called FinCEN Files, which showed how U.S. banks served as intermediaries for thousands of suspicious international transactions over an 18-year period. Inevitably, Kazakhstan’s former oligarchs were part of the scandal.

In 1990, the U.S. Treasury Department created an agency, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in an effort to combat domestic and international money laundering, as the U.S. banking system had become the main catalyst of global financial transactions.

The documents leaked to investigative journalists show that while the FinCEN collected millions of suspicious activity reports (SARs) — in which banks or brokers flagged transactions potentially liable for money laundering, terrorist financing, or other financial crimes — the agency had no power to stop the transactions.

A BuzzFeed summary of the findings, for example, highlights the role played by Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, American Express, and others in processing “millions of dollars in transactions for the family of Viktor Khrapunov […] even after Interpol issued a Red Notice for his arrest.” Once close to Kazakhstan’s former ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev, Viktor Khrapunov served as the mayor of Almaty. After falling out with Nazarbayev and allegedly defrauding the city through opaque public tenders, Khrapunov fled to Switzerland.

There are three issues contained in this report. Two are true and honest -- for one, Viktor Khrapunov is up to his eyeballs in dirty money. It's impossible to BE a political leader in Kazakhstan without it. He's used Swiss, UK and US banks to move money to tune of hundreds of millions of dollars out of Kazakhstan, washed it through multiple transactions and invested it in real estate deals, much of which ended up in the US. US banks are not only complicit in this but make big profits from it and that's the second true and valid point. I don't have a link but a Financial Times reporter claims about half of all the world's dirty money pass through US banks who in turn help clean it up "for a fee".

The third and sneakily corrupt issue in this report is, Viktor Khrapunov (see a bio below) is on the run from Kazakhstan's vile, treacherous and deadly government. They have plenty of charges posted against him but the real reason he is on their kill list is because he was party to a reform movement in Kazakhstan in opposition to then dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Another person who had to flee for his life was a man who owned one of the largest banks in Kasakhstan, Mukhtar Ablyazov . Nazarbayev had demanded full control of Mukhtar's bank and he refused to do so. Then the reform movement started and Nazarbayev crushed it. Many died, a few got out alive, including these two. They managed to sneak money out of that corrupt state, money that is the source of the funds discussed in this article.

What is wrong with reporting on Viktor's dirty money? I'll get to that. First more background information from Buzzfeed News:

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, is the agency within the Treasury Department charged with combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. It collects millions of these suspicious activity reports, known as SARs. It makes them available to US law enforcement agencies and other nations’ financial intelligence operations. It even compiles a report called “Kleptocracy Weekly” that summarizes the dealings of foreign leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.

What it does not do is force the banks to shut the money laundering down.

The FinCEN Files investigation shows that even after they were prosecuted or fined for financial misconduct, banks such as JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of New York Mellon continued to move money for suspected criminals.

if the database is a powerful asset to law enforcement investigations, to privacy advocates, it is a nightmare of overreach.

Congress created the current SAR program in 1992 making banks the frontline in the fight against money laundering. But Michael German, a former FBI special agent who is a national security and privacy expert, said that after 9/11, "the SAR program became more about mass surveillance than identifying discrete transactions to disrupt money launderers.”

The Buzzfeed article goes on to say, and this is the corruption and shitty propaganda embedded in that article from The Diplomat, "know the Asia Pacific":

Today, he said, "the data is used like the data from other mass surveillance programs. Find someone you want to get for whatever reason then sift through the vast troves of data collected to find anything you can hang them with."

So there it is. I'm connecting dots and have no proof, so "you decide". Banks in the US are swimming with blood money, money stolen from people who were swindled, menaced or killed. Money that was stolen its people by dictators and oligarchs. But the instrument that could be used to prosecute both the bankers and the kleptocrats is toothless. As long as the bank reports suspicious activity, their hands are clean as far as the law goes. The people who benefit from the law are the kleptocrats and their crime gang. They are using FinCen reports to find and go after the people on their hit lists.

Dang, I need to go take a shower. Reading this shit makes me feel dirty.

Trump is involved here too. I'll get to him later. But here is one tidbit from the Buzzfeed report:

In the rare instances when the US government does crack down on banks, it often relies on sweetheart deals called deferred prosecution agreements, which include fines but no high-level arrests. The Trump administration has made it even harder to hold executives personally accountable, under guidance by former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein that warned government agencies against “piling on.” Rosenstein did not respond to requests for comment, but after this article was published, he wrote to say that his policies sought to “encourage prosecutors to pursue charges against the people responsible for corporate wrongdoing.”

Bold font was added for emphasis

Fogdog said:

Olympics, yeah they are corrupt and the Russian Olympic comittee is as corrupt as any of them. And I'm glad to see people riffing on that here. But that's not my intent with this therad.

Click to expand...

I was killing time, waiting patiently for this post that you teased us was forthcoming.