Russian fighter against money laundering killed
The murder of Russia’s first deputy central bank chief Andrei Kozlov, a top banker fighting against money-laundering, reflects the world of crime in Russian business. However more seldom than in the 1990s, contract killings of businessmen and bankers still regularly occur in Russia.
Just after Andrei Kozlov, 41, had finished playing soccer with his colleagues, two assassins pumped him full of bullets outside the Moscow sports arena. This happened in the evening on September 13. The killers escaped in the darkness, leaving their guns behind, which is the signature of a contract killing. Nobody could describe the men, and there were no surveillance cameras in the area.
Not regaining consciousness, on September 14, 2006, Kozlov died in the hospital.
The murder could be ordered by the financiers unhappy with Kozlov’s intention to clean up the system.
Kozlov was a top figure in Russia’s banking sector, responsible for banking supervision. He had withdrawn the licenses of many banks and had overseen a scheme to free the banking system from criminality and money laundering.
Earlier in September, Kozlov proposed barring bank owners involved in money laundering from doing banking business forever. This measure could end a popular practice of simply reregistering and continuing business under a new name after being deprived of banking license.