Dossier on Vampire

«Unfortunately, my husband is a vampire. But he is just the right man for me – he doesn't drink and he doesn't beat me».

Ludmila Putin about her former husband


During a joint raid conducted by secret police of Liechtenstein, Germany and Austria Rudolf Ritter was arrested in Vaduz, Liechtenstein on May 13, 2000. Rudolf Ritter is the head and the founder of SPAG (St. Petersburg Immobilien und Beteiligungs AG).

Mr. Ritter was charged with a pretty banal «money laundering» and with «ties with the organized crime». Four of his companions (the company's lawyers and business partners) also had to share the privations of the Liechtenstein jail.

Actually, that pretty commonplace police raid had nothing interesting at first glance (after all, there are tons of such arrests made in Europe and in America, and the way the charges were brought up became standard for a certain category of businessmen linked to Eastern European business circles. And if you consider the offshore status of Liechtenstein, the incident could have had all the chances to be added to the lists of provincial police chronicles).

The interest to this particular incident was caused not as much by the very fact of the arrest, as by the SPAG company history and by the company profile (or rather by a certain political component that unexpectedly came up in that case).

The company was founded in 1992 on the initiative of St. Petersburg Mayor's Office, which at the same time was a co-founder of SPAG. The company was registered in Frankfurt, Germany and had its affiliates in St. Petersburg, Russia.

On behalf of St. Petersburg Mayor's Office, the company activities were overseen by the officials responsible for external economic activities (back in those years someone named Vladimir Putin was Mayor's deputy and was in charge of the appropriate profile committee).

Soon after that SPAG activities attracted the attention of Western secret services.
According to a source of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) - Germany's intelligence service, this particular company was used for money-laundering by Latin American drug cartels. The report compiled by the BND in April 1999 pointed out that SPAG was an agent of the Ochoa brothers Columbian drug cartel and of Russian organized crime.

«Russian criminal elements were transferring their funds through Romania-based IRB bank in order to purchase real estate in Russia. Ritter was getting his profits from that as well, since he owned most of the stocks. Real estate was being purchased through that company», - the report of the secret police says.

Virtually simultaneously with all of these events yet another incident took place. The incident was not of much importance at first glance, but it the overall context it was pretty notable.

On May 23, 2000 one of the websites belonging to one company published a brief report saying that some Mr. Putin resigned from his post of the chief consultant at that particular company ... due to his preparations to assume the post of the President of the Russian Federation.

I can assume that may readers already guessed who that particular website belonged to. Although, I would still like to specify that it was the website of SPAG.

In response to the inquiries from the mass media, the President's Administration immediately denied any ties that Putin could ever had with that company which gained so much «popularity».

«President has never worked there as a consultant. He was never getting any salary», - press service of the President's Administration stated.

(By the way, it should be mentioned that the announcement about Putin quitting his job at SPAG stayed on the website for less than a day... and then it surely disappeared without a trace).

But the sudden phone call that Le Monde reporter made to Markus Rese, SPAG chief executive (who replaced Mr. Ritter after he was taken into custody) has somewhat cleared up that situation (tangled up by the efforts of the President's Administration).

Mr. Rese confirmed that for a whole number of years (up until March 2000, i.e. up until he was elected President), Mr. Putin really sat on the company's advisory board since 1992. Moreover, he was an advisor along with another native of St. Petersburg: Herman Gref (who later became minister of economic development and trade).

Although, Mr. Rese made a reservation right away: Putin was not getting paid to hold his position (one must assume that Putin was consulting the offshore «money laundering washer for a drug cartel» exclusively out of respect for Mr. Ritter and for his vigorous and difficult activity).

Although, Western secret police has exposed the firm ties between the «advisory» activities of Russian officials and the corrupting activities of Western financial groups (especially offshore).

One can only be guessing (unfortunately) about what kind of testimony Mr. Ritter gave to the police during an interrogation. But as the practice shows, when this kind of businessmen get caught red-handed, they are more inclined to be open with investigators, rather than sticking to some forms of proud silence during an interrogation.

Hence, it would be logical to assume that the Western secret police has some serious compromising materials on Mr. Putin (you can hardly doubt that German intelligence will not throw in some interesting materials to their Western colleagues, like CIA for an example).

But here some readers may ask a quite legitimate question: and what's next? Why are the Western secret services not unwinding that scandal? Having at least two years of totally «killing» compromising files on Putin, why are they not sharing it with the public?

Let me answer with another question: what for?

It wasn't me who noticed it: a corrupted official is a controllable official.

Let me make a comment on my behalf: controlled by those who have a dossier on him.

Apparently, the «outflow» of information on the SPAG Case is being controlled. And time-wise, it was accurately synchronized with some changes in Russia's political realities.

At the most crucial moment - during the elections campaign and while he was officially assuming the post of the President, they let Putin know who got him on the hook now. And they even let him see that hook.

But why and on what purpose they got him on that kind of fishing gear, though...? Well, Putin would be the one to give the best answer to this question. But for some reason he is silent.

Ah, yeah! I totally forgot!

He is no longer a consultant at SPAG. Now he is the President of the Russian Federation.

(Materials from Le Monde were used during the preparation of this article).

Alexander Uvarov (C)