BORODIN….

Pavel Borodin, the former head of the Kremlin’s multibillion-dollar property office, is still in custody in New York, where immigration authorities picked him up on a Swiss warrant in January. The Swiss, who seek his extradition for trial on money laundering charges, may be relying in significant measure on the testimony of Felipe Turover, once an employee of the Moscow branch of Switzerland’s Banco del Gottardo. Two years ago, Turover tipped Russia’s Prosecutor General Yury Skuratov to secret Swiss accounts held by high Russian officials, and to kickbacks paid into those accounts by Swiss construction companies that the property office had retained with exorbitant, single-bidder contracts. Skuratov investigated these allegations, for which he was suspended by President Boris Yeltsin and fired by President Putin. His successors closed the case and brought unrelated charges (rent fraud, theft, influence-peddling) against Turover. Turover, who holds Spanish and Israeli citizenship, is still at large. Russian authorities have now internationalized the Turover warrant, asking the world’s police for the same cooperation they gave Swiss authorities in their search for Pavel Borodin.