From the New York Times:
The filing is a new twist on Mr. Browder's case, which began almost four years ago. His lawyers say the wire transfers will show a fraud larger than previously disclosed -- remarkable even by the standards of Russia.
In its sweep and scale, the case has echoes of the Bank of New York money-laundering scandal in the late 1990s, though this time there are no allegations that American banks other than the subsidiary of a Russian investment company were involved.
Mr. Browder was expelled from Russia in a politically tinged visa refusal in 2005, and relocated his business, Hermitage Capital Management, to London. Later, he said subsidiary companies he had formed in Russia to invest in Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, were used by others to acquire a fraudulent tax refund of $230 million.
Now, the filing by Mr. Ashcroft, whose law firm is based in Kansas City, Mo., suggests that companies other than his own were also used in a similar fraud. The court papers contend that at least another $100 million that foreign investors in Gazprom had paid to Russian authorities in taxes up to 2006 were later stolen in schemes involving fraudulent refunds.
Mr. Ashcroft's filing says that Hermitage was subjected to "a series of events that might seem unlikely to befall an influential global investment firm."
"Certain Russian officials and private citizens entered into a conspiracy to reregister to themselves three investment companies owned by the Hermitage Fund," the filing says, with the goal to "apply for and receive fraudulent tax refunds of over $230 million from the Russian Treasury, and finally, to funnel these proceeds through bank accounts in Russia and the United States."
You're missing the most interesting feature of this suit, which is the attack on the vaunted Renaissance Capital firm as a stooge of the Kremlin. Over at LR we've long castigated the Moscow Times for publishing so-called "op-ed" material from RC which is in fact nothing but pro-Kremlin propaganda which helps to line RC's pockets by duping foolish investors to put money into the Russian market while simultanously giving free PR to the Kremlin.
What goes around comes around!
Yes, those poor investors foolish enough to believe them have enjoyed the best performance of any financial market on earth. The dogs bark - the caravan passes!