About $4.8 billion of IMF funds are alleged to have gone amiss during
the implosion of the Russian financial markets in August 1998. They
were supposed to prop up the banking system (especially SBS-Agro) and
the ailing and sharply devalued ruble. Instead, they ended up in the
bank accounts of obscure corporations - and, then, incredibly, vanished
into thin air.
The person in charge of the funds in 1998 was none other than Mikhail
Kasyanov, Russia's current Prime Minister - at the time, Deputy
Minister of Finance for External Debt. His signature on all foreign
exchange transactions - even those handled by the central bank - was
mandatory. In July 2000, he was flatly accused by the Italian daily, La
Reppublica, of authorizing the diversion of the disputed funds.
Following public charges made by US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin as
early as March 1999, both Russian and American media delved deeply over
the years into the affair. Communist Duma Deputy Viktor Ilyukhin jumped
on the bandwagon citing an obscure "trustworthy foreign source" to
substantiate his indictment of Kremlin cronies and oligarchs contained
in an open letter to the Prosecutor General, Yuri Skuratov.
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