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PART TWO:

One police investigator working alone for about half a year in 1993-1994 discovered 24 "one-day firms" run by Chechnyans which received credit of a billion rubels in Orel banks. The Russian credit bureau checked out one of the branches of the Orel Sbergbank (savings bank). In their revised report they showed that 90% of the loans were given out to Chechnyans. The head bookkeeper was having an affair with one of the "highlanders", and besides this, received a solid bonus in her pay for the work. Even to an idiot it's clear that loans received in such a manner never are paid off.
Police operatives kept an on eye on one such large debtor by the name of Ruslan Khagiyev. Using a fictitious contract for the purcase of 70 train carloads of grain for the Orel countryside, he received loans for 500 million rubels. The taste of Chechnyan bread was never experienced by Orel residents, and the money also evaporated. A criminal case was opened, but it was not possible to nail Khagiyev. At his questioning he produced documents from Chechnya with the official stampsl of the regional police and agricultural administration. These showed that the grain had been paid for, but before it could be loaded the grain elevator in Khankala was bombed by federal forces.
One of the policemen on the case, Anrey Golubev, went to Khankala. "Official travel there was forbidden," he said. "War was going on. But in order to prove that our hunch was correct, we decided to risk it. I was taken to Khankala with my eyes bound. There it was clear that there was no grain elevator. There was an old barn which could maybe hold 300 kilos of grain, and there had never been any bombing in the region."
Andrey was sure that Khagiyev could not wiggle out of this one, but on returning to Orel a surprise awaited him: the chief investigator for whom Andrey was working had been pulled from the case, and it was placed on the back burner.
As became clear to our correspondent, all cases dealing with avisos and credit were either covered up with "due to absence of any evidence of criminal activity", or transfered from criminal to civil jurisdiction. No one ever went to prison, and the money was never returned to the government. Of the several billion rubels which had gone missing, only 70 million were ever recovered.
Several sources, unconnected to one another, assured us that the Chechnyans had a man in the district law enforcement body. Allegedly, he made sure that none of their compatriots ever went to court. Later he was removed from the service. According to rumors circulating in Orel, the FSB anti-terrorism detachment took an interest in him. Supposedly, the "chekists" eavesdropped on him, and recorded his conversations with Chechnyan field commanders. He had even been called right from the battle theater on field radios.
Horns and hooves
In addition to their financial machinations, the Chechnyans in the Orel region were "famous" for the mass destruction of large livestock. The slaughtered and transported canned beef as fast as they could. Inspectors who were sent to check the locality where for one to two seasons all herds had gone under the knife, recall how audaciously it was all done.
Through agreements with co-op representatives, the immigrants had gotten leases to animal-breeding operations and feedlots. For a nice reward, which allowed these reps to live high on the hog during the dark days of the early 1990s, they closed their eyes while the Chechnyans did whatever they wanted. Local residents noted how the Chechnyans cured and dried beef in enormous quantities, and how in front of their homes stood refrigerator vans. People had no doubts that the trucks were carrying the meat straight to Chechnya.
About 80 families received homes and land shares. With the aid of the co-op representative, the immigrants started farms. Chechnyans became animal technicians and veterinarians, and then the bacchanalia began: hundreds of head went under the knife because of mythological diseases. Besides this, half-ton steers were purchased under the guise of 20-kilo calves. In just such a way a certain Umayev, a farm manager, bought for himself and his relatives 50 head of beef for mere kopecks. The inspectors were never able to find out where this meat ended up.
At the Pavlovskoye co-op, according to residents of the Zalegoshchenskiy region, matters were run by one Arabiyev. He was a respected man among the local powers. He started a farm, received a herd of cattle from the co-op, as well as a flock of sheep, and a home and land.
An operative who worked on the case recalls: "When the investigators and I went to Arabiyev, the locals told us that some suspicious characters were living in his barn. We looked in and it was full of bums! A campstove, mattresses, basins of food right on the floor - like for swine. It turned out that he was catching bums at the train station and putting them to work. People assured us that he was transporting to Chechnya whole train carloads of beef."
Arabiyev was not caught for meat, but for fake avisos, but he was never sent to prison. When the case went to court he escaped to Chechnya. After awhile documentation arrived from there stating that Arabiyev had been killed in a bombing, and the case was closed.
When our corespondents went to Pavlovskoe, the locals told them that rumors about the death of Arabiyev were greatly exaggerated. He had been seen alive and well in 2002, when he came there to visit relatives.
Money for grain
Animal husbandry in the Orel countryside was "killed" for a few years, but the immigrants still had a horse left - the grain market. Police operatives assert that the bread machinations were carried out on a massive scale, but the conditions were especially favorable in the outlying regions - Livenskiy, Novosil'skiy, Zalegoshchenkiy, Verkhovskiy, Znamenskiy, Krasnozorrenskiy. According to police data, in every district center there was a man coordinating the Chechnyans work in buying and transporting grain. One cannot even count the number of cons the Chechnyans used, but here is just one of them:
The Chechnyans would put a "bought" man at the grain elevator, responsible for inspections, and he would lower the price of the farmer's grain. Allegedly it would be for low gluten, or high humidily. And while the farmer was standing there, wondering what to do with his harvest, along came an "agent" who would offer to buy the grain for cash - and at an even higher price than the elevator was offering, though still less than the true value. A majority agreed. Then the "agent" would sell this grain to that very same elevator, at the normal price. The profit from a ton would be from 100 to 300 rubels. With 20 "KaMaZ" trucks, nine thousand could be made.
Police estimate that almost 70 percent of all grain in the Orel countryside was subject to such a con. In an off the record conversation, here is what a Livenskiy regional police operative said about how the local Chechnyans made money:
"It's an old con, but why think up a new one when it all still works? Those on the bottom are intimidated, those on top are paid off. Lately, only one thing has changed - now its young, audacious Chechnyans doing it. They probably had gone through the war, and before them is a concrete assignment - how to make big money. Not long ago we intercepted a call from Chechnya. A certain 'Arbi' demanded that one of the "new guys" give him a report on how much he'd collected and when he could transfer it. By the tone of the conversation we understood that he wasn't pleased, apparantly he'd counted on a lot more."

TO BE CONTINUED