Raiders set eyes on 200 defense industries – secret services

Raiders set eyes on 200 defense industries – secret services

10.04.2008, 13.19

MOSCOW, April 10 (Itar-Tass) -- According to Russian secret services, raiders have set eyes on 200 defense industries, the Public Chamber’s member, chief of the anti-raider activity committee, Pavel Astakhov told the Chamber on Thursday during public hearings on the issue.

“Having developed the sense of impunity, raiders set their eyes on such state-owned enterprises as the research and industrial enterprise Bazalt (the manufacturer of the world’s best grenade launchers), Defense Ministry facilities in the Volga River area (the Volga health building center, the palace of sports of the Russian Air Force, the country-side recreation park in Samara and over 200 other municipally-owned facilities) river ports, defense complex plants EnergoPUL and Reflektor in Saratov and a plant in St. Petersburg manufacturing components for the Igla portable rocket launchers, Astakhov said.

He interpreted this as a threat to national security and attempts to undermine the basics of statehood.

“The re-distribution of major companies and real estate in the capital is practically over, so raiders have begun to looking for targets elsewhere. Within the range of their attention are now medium businesses. The main events are unfolding in regions. Raiders move to cities with populations over one million to hunt for real estate, to rural areas, for land, and to industrialized regions, for profitable enterprises,” Astakhov said in his report during the public hearings. “Organized crime groups have been quick to realize that raider attacks are an extremely profitable and relatively safe way of making fortunes. The one who spends several hundred thousand dollars on a raider attack can lay hands on assets dozens or even hundreds of millions of dollars worth. And the risk of being brought to justice has been minimal so far.”

The anti-raider activity committee chief said that “according to unofficial statistics unfriendly takeovers in Russia these days number tens of thousands every year.”

“Against this background of raider attacks the number of cases investigated by the Interior Ministry and its divisions look unconsoling. Over the past three years raider seizures have totaled tens of thousands, but court trials have led to a tiny 100 convictions,” Astakhov said in his report. “Small wonder that in a situation like this raiders feel impunity and keep harming the Russian economy.”