In the very centre of Moscow an owner of a large cosmetics retail network Arbat Prestige Vladimir Nekrasov and a consultant of a firm called Evergate Ltd. Sergei Shnaider were detained on suspicion in tax evasion. Businessmen were arrested on January 23 by a group of about 50 SOBR commandos. In the flat of Sergei Shnaider the police found a formal note on tax audit of Arbat Prestige Ltd.

Moscow court approved the arrest. In the courtroom Vladimir Nekrasov answered questions of journalists. Being asked, who could be interested in his arrest, he stated indignantly: “Haven’t you read Schwarzman? Redistribution of profitable business is in progress”.

A man with seven faces

The personality is extremely interesting and, probably, it can reveal real reasons of the criminal case. This businessman is Ukranian-born, his true name is Semen Mogilevich. He is a qualified economist; was twice judged in Russia. He is wanted by special services of many countries that consider him a world-famous criminal. Interpol has been searching for him since 2003.

Mogilevich has multitude names and citizenships; there are aver 15 passports in his collection, including Russian, Israeli, Greek, Hungarian and Croatian. In criminal circles he is know also as Seva, Senya, Shimon, Brainy Papa, Don Banker, Don Simeon, Man with seven faces. According to law enforcement bodies he had five surnames: Telesh, Saiman, Polagnyuk, Suvorov, and his present official surname is Shnaider.

FBI and Scotland-Yard accuse Mogilevich of organizing a criminal community, drugs, weapons and radioactive material smuggling, swindle, money laundering, and stock fraud. CIA accuses him of attempted murder of an American journalist Robert Fridman who has exposed a fraud from former USSR in his publications. He is deprived of the right of entry in the Great Britain for life.

In the 90s Mogilevich lived alternatingly in Europe and in the Northern America and laundered money from Russia. In 1998-1999 $10 bln passed through his account in the Bank of New York. USA and Israel suspect that this money has gone for financing of weapon and drugs transportation. An investigation made by the order of National Institute of Justice says that Mogilevich controls a network of prostitutes in night clubs of Budapest and Prague.

Mogilevich and gas

Recently not weapon and prostitutes are Mogilevich’s main occupation. In the early 2000s he settled down in Moscow and set to gas business. He had luck. Mass media wrote that a person wanted all over the world had friends at court in Russian capital and, probably, owned a share in Gazprom.

There is information concerning his participation in establishment of s firm Eural Trans Gas registered in Hungary; it delivers Turkmen gas in Ukraine. In 2004 ETG was excluded from the gas scheme. It was replaced by Swiss RosUkrEnergo, which became in 2006 an exclusive supplier of Russian and Central Asian gas in Ukraine. 
 
50% of RosUkrEnergo belong to Gazprom; other are hold by Raiffeisen bank (Austria), which is not its owner, but only represents shareholders, whose names are also known, that are little known in wide circles Ukrainian businessmen Dmitry Firtash (90%) and Ivan Fursin (10%).

In 2005, head of the Security Service of Ukraine Alexander Turchinov announced that he had indirect evidences that in realty Semen Mogilevich controlled RosUkrEnergo. Soon the US Department of Justice and FBI brisked up the investigation of the activities of RUE. Investigators were interested in possible relations of Mogilevich with Cyprus company Highrock Holdings, belonged to Firtash.

Now RosUkrEnergo is, probably, on the threshold of liquidation. Ukrainian authorities told a lot about non-transparency of the scheme of gas supply through RUE. Premier minister of Ukraine Yulia Timoshenko promised to exclude this intermediary. The head of the Gazprom board of directors and RF future president Dmitry Medvedev also declared recently about direct selling. According to him, this will ‘simplify the relations’.

Thus, we have a reinvasion of the gas market relating to the coming surrender of power? Some analytics have already connected this arrest with pre-election clan showdown in Kremlin and have associated it with arrests of a famous businessman Kumarin, of Lieutenant-General Alexander Bulbov, a department head in the Federal Service for Control Over the Trafficking of Narcotics and of Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak.