CORRUPTION:

Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov, conducting multiple investigations of the tycoons, the Central Bank and the Kremlin itself, spent over ten hours in meetings in Moscow with Swiss prosecutor Carla del Ponte. She reportedly gave him evidence of “dubious financial operations” believed to involve the laundering of money for prominent Russians through the accounts of Mabetex, a Swiss construction firm with Russian capital. Mabetex has received hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for restoration work in the Kremlin, apparently through the Kremlin’s “household affairs” directorate, an off-budget agency which reports to the president’s chief of staff. It is widely believed that Skuratov’s investigation reaches members of the Yeltsin family, including the president’s daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko.