'Russia Today' Creator Found Dead

[nashvillebrook]

Thought this was interesting. Oligarch fight.


Here's a link to the request made by Senator Roger Wicker that the Dept of Justice look into potential corruption and money laundering by Mikhail Lesin. http://www.wicker.senate.gov/public/_ca ... -lesin.pdf
It's unclear if the FBI ever opened a probe.

Putin Associate Found Dead in DC Hotel
http://abcnews.go.com/International/putin-associate-found-dead-dc-hotel/story?id=35024556

A prominent Russian millionaire with high-level ties to the Kremlin has been found dead inside a Washington hotel, a Russian official and a senior U.S. official told ABC News.

Mikhail Lesin, the former head of media affairs for the Russian government who's been accused of curtailing the country’s press freedoms, had been staying at The DuPont Circle Hotel when he was found Thursday, according to officials.

It's unclear why the long-time adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Washington, but the Metropolitan Police Department is now investigating his death. On Thursday, U.S. authorities notified the Russian embassy in Washington that one of its citizens had died, and Russian officials are now working with American authorities to determine the circumstances of the death, the embassy told ABC News in a statement.

Citing an ongoing investigation, an MPD spokesman would only confirm the department is conducting a “death investigation."

Lesin is credited with creating Russia Today, the English-language news network backed by the Russian government. Now known as RT, the network “provides an alternative perspective on major global events, and acquaints an international audience with the Russian viewpoint,” according to its website.

Lesin “led the Kremlin’s efforts to censor Russia’s independent television outlets,” one U.S. lawmaker charged last year.

In fact, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), called on the Justice Department to launch an investigation into Lesin over allegations of corruption and money laundering.

In a letter to then-Attorney General Eric Holder, Wicker said Lesin had “acquired multi-million dollar assets” in Europe and the United States “during his tenure as a civil servant,” including multiple residences in Los Angeles worth $28 million.

“That a Russian public servant could have amassed the considerable funds required to acquire and maintain these assets in Europe and the United States raises serious questions,” Wicker wrote.

It's unclear if the FBI ever begun a probe.

From 1999 to 2004, Lesin served as Russia’s Minister of Press, Television and Radio, often traveling with Putin on official trips. In 2013, he became head of Gazprom-Media Holding, the state-controlled media giant that describes itself as one of the largest media groups in Russia and Europe. Lesin resigned the next year, reportedly citing family reasons.

This story has been updated to reflect the official name of the hotel.A prominent Russian millionaire with high-level ties to the Kremlin has been found dead inside a Washington hotel, a Russian official and a senior U.S. official told ABC News.

Mikhail Lesin, the former head of media affairs for the Russian government who's been accused of curtailing the country’s press freedoms, had been staying at The DuPont Circle Hotel when he was found Thursday, according to officials.

It's unclear why the long-time adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Washington, but the Metropolitan Police Department is now investigating his death. On Thursday, U.S. authorities notified the Russian embassy in Washington that one of its citizens had died, and Russian officials are now working with American authorities to determine the circumstances of the death, the embassy told ABC News in a statement.

Citing an ongoing investigation, an MPD spokesman would only confirm the department is conducting a “death investigation."

Lesin is credited with creating Russia Today, the English-language news network backed by the Russian government. Now known as RT, the network “provides an alternative perspective on major global events, and acquaints an international audience with the Russian viewpoint,” according to its website.

Lesin “led the Kremlin’s efforts to censor Russia’s independent television outlets,” one U.S. lawmaker charged last year.

In fact, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), called on the Justice Department to launch an investigation into Lesin over allegations of corruption and money laundering.

In a letter to then-Attorney General Eric Holder, Wicker said Lesin had “acquired multi-million dollar assets” in Europe and the United States “during his tenure as a civil servant,” including multiple residences in Los Angeles worth $28 million.

“That a Russian public servant could have amassed the considerable funds required to acquire and maintain these assets in Europe and the United States raises serious questions,” Wicker wrote.

It's unclear if the FBI ever begun a probe.

From 1999 to 2004, Lesin served as Russia’s Minister of Press, Television and Radio, often traveling with Putin on official trips. In 2013, he became head of Gazprom-Media Holding, the state-controlled media giant that describes itself as one of the largest media groups in Russia and Europe. Lesin resigned the next year, reportedly citing family reasons.

This story has been updated to reflect the official name of the hotel.

Controversial Russian media mogul found dead in Washington

http://news.yahoo.com/putin-associate-found-dead-washington-hotel-report-045001851.html

Washington (AFP) - Controversial Russian media mogul Mikhail Lesin, who helped launch the English-language television network RT, has been found dead at a Washington hotel. He was 57.

RT, formerly known as Russia Today, said the former minister of media affairs died of a heart attack.

"Lesin died. It's impossible to believe this," tweeted Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT, which is state funded.

Police in Washington said Lesin was found unresponsive early Thursday downtown, at a location ABC News identified as the Dupont Circle Hotel.

"A ruling on the cause and manner of death is pending further investigation," a statement added on Saturday.

A controversial figure, Lesin had been accused of limiting press freedom in Russia.

In a terse statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the "president highly values the enormous contribution Mikhail Lesin made helping establish Russian media."

US officials notified the Russian Embassy of Lesin's death and authorities from both countries are trying to determine the circumstances in which he died.

Lesin was Russia's minister of press, television and radio between 1999 and 2004, and later served as a Kremlin aide.

In 2013, he became head of Gazprom-Media Holding, the media arm of state energy giant Gazprom, and oversaw the work of Russia's top liberal radio station Echo of Moscow.

Lesin resigned a year later, citing family reasons.

In a recent interview, the former editor of state news agency RIA Novosti, Svetlana Mironyuk, claimed Lesin was one of two people behind her sacking in 2013.

- 'A state man' -

Mironyuk told the Russian edition of Forbes she was let go after she became a student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, with Kremlin officials telling her a media executive of her stature should not study in the United States.

Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi called for a probe into Lesin last year on suspicion of money laundering and corruption.

He allegedly amassed millions of dollars in assets in Europe and the United States while working for the government, including $28 million in real estate in Los Angeles.

"That a Russian public servant could have amassed the considerable funds required to acquire and maintain these assets in Europe and the United States raises serious questions," Wicker wrote.

It was unclear whether the FBI had actually opened an investigation.

In 2014, Lesin told Forbes he found it acceptable that most television channels in Russia were state-controlled.

"I am a state man," he said.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Another globe-trotting Russian Jewish man with a mansion in Los Angeles. Man, I'm glad I was born poor.

Via: http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/lou ... ew/google/

This Beverly Park estate is owned by Mikhail Lesin, who is one of Vladimir Putin's top advisers and the former Kremlin media chief.

In summer 2014, a scandal arose when an otherwise mundane lawsuit revealed that Lesin had secretly purchased three multi-million dollar mansions in Los Angeles (one for himself, one for his son Anton Lessine, and one for his daughter Ekaterina Lesina) at a cost of nearly $30 million. He and his family also purchased at least 8 luxury vehicles, at a cost of more than $1 million, including a $250k Bentley and a $300k Ferrari.

It was also revealed that Lesin had invested tens of millions of dollars through anonymous corporations into the production of Hollywood blockbusters, including the Brad Pitt thriller "The Fury".

Following the emergence of these details, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker called for the Department of Justice to investigate whether Lesin's money was being illegally laundered in the US and/or was generated via government corruption.

The original lawsuit was the result of two former nannies suing Carole Lessine (Lesin's daughter-in-law) over wrongful termination and abuse.

Lesin paid $13.8 million for this mansion in 2011. The house was previously owned by Louise Taper, the historian, and collector of Abraham Lincoln artifacts. She created the Taper collection which was purchased by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum for what is estimated at $20M. The 6-bed, 10-bath, 13,078 sq ft estate was built in 1987.

His biography is deliciously sparse, eh? Here's an interesting 2013 piece...

Via: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog ... a-enforcer

The recent return of Vladimir Putin’s longtime éminence grise, Vladislav Surkov, to the Kremlin was widely discussed in the media. Much less noticed was the appointment of Mikhail Lesin, Putin’s former information minister, as the new head of Gazprom-Media, Russia’s largest—and de facto state-run—media group, which incorporates several broadcast, print, and online outlets. Lesin’s return to a senior position is no less symbolic than that of Surkov—and says a lot about the Kremlin’s plans for Russia’s few remaining uncensored media.

Lesin was a central figure in the early Putin years, spearheading the Kremlin’s effort to silence the country’s independent television—the first step in the consolidation of authoritarian rule. The first target was NTV, at that time Russia’s largest and most popular independent TV channel, whose hard-hitting news broadcasts, talk shows, and satirical programs criticized the government over growing corruption and the war in Chechnya and gave airtime to the opposition. In June 2000, a month after Putin’s inauguration, NTV’s founder and majority shareholder, Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested and placed in Moscow’s infamous Butyrka prison. While he was there, the information minister made an offer: Gusinsky could have his freedom if he agreed to transfer his media holdings to Gazprom, the state-owned energy monopoly. On July 20, 2000, while still under a prosecutorial recognizance, Gusinsky signed a deal to sell his media outlets to Gazprom that included “Annex 6,” which provided for the “termination of the criminal prosecution against Mr Vladimir Aleksandrovich Gusinskiy in connection with the criminal case initiated against him on 13 June 2000, his reclassification as a witness in the said case and suspension of the precautionary measure prohibiting him from leaving [the country].” “Annex 6” was personally signed by Information Minister Mikhail Lesin.

In its 2004 ruling, the European Court of Human Rights found the NTV owner’s arrest to have been politically motivated and in violation of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, emphasizing in particular that “the facts that Gazprom asked the applicant to sign the July agreement when he was in prison, that a State minister [Lesin] endorsed such an agreement with his signature, and that a State investigating officer later implemented that agreement by dropping the charges strongly suggest that the applicant’s prosecution was used to intimidate him.”

In the end, Gusinsky refused to give up NTV (once out of Russia, he annulled the deal as having been signed under duress). The offices of Russia’s largest independent television channel were forcibly taken over by Gazprom-installed security guards in the early hours of April 14, 2001. TV6, a smaller independent channel that sheltered former NTV journalists, was shut down by the authorities in January 2002. The journalists found another short-lived home in TVS, Russia’s last nationwide independent television channel, which was taken off the air in June 2003. By this time, the regime no longer cared for appearances and saw no need to hide behind “legal” decisions of obedient courts: the TVS signal was switched off by a direct order of Information Minister Mikhail Lesin, who cited “viewers’ interests” as the reason for the decision.

After this state campaign against major media outlets, Lesin left the spotlight, only occasionally surfacing in the news—for instance, when he co-founded RT, the Kremlin’s English-language propaganda mouthpiece. His return as the new director general of Gazprom-Media could signal another attack on media pluralism in Russia. A likely target could be Ekho Moskvy radio, which, unlike other Gazprom-Media outlets (including the present pro-Kremlin NTV), continues to maintain an independent editorial line and invite opposition leaders to its studios. Many in the Russian media community took Lesin’s appointment as a grim sign.

Interestingly, Lesin may become one of the first senior Putin regime officials to face consequences for his involvement in human rights abuses. Earlier this year, civil society groups reportedly proposed Lesin’s name for inclusion in the US blacklist under the Magnitsky Act, which provides for visa bans and asset freezes for Russian officials involved in human rights violations. The next update of the US list may come in December. Meanwhile, sources in the European Parliament indicate that Lesin may be placed on a European Union visa blacklist. This would come as bad news to Putin’s media enforcer: according to the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, Lesin owns a 2 million–euro estate in Finland’s Turku Archipelago, purchased through a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. This would indeed be a timely and appropriate message—that helping a dictatorship to muzzle the free media and enjoying the comfort of the Western world are no longer compatible.

[nashvillebrook]

i wonder if the $28 million in US holdings made him less of a "state man," for mother Russia in the eyes of people he did business with back home.

[slimmouse]

The NWO seems to be shaping up nicely, innit?

[PufPuf93]

Interesting person who found an interesting and ambiguous time to die.

I never knew of Lesin until his death.

My favorite (and about only as don't have TV) thing about RT was Abby Martin (in internet clips).

Lots of perhaps interesting angles.

[AlicetheKurious]

[backtoiam]

Alice you are too kind. When you tally up the drug money probably more like 200 billion, but whos counting?



edit, a lot more than that...but whos counting?

[SonicG]

The case of Raul Salinas might shed some light...

They are trying to determine how Mr. Salinas, whose maximum salary as a Mexican government employee was $190,000 a year, was able to stow more than $120 million abroad in Citibank and other banks.
...
"It's like saying I have a Rockefeller in front of me," Ms. Elliott told investigators. "Do I believe the Rockefellers have money? Yes I do."

[backtoiam]

I'm tempted to say, "who cares, this has all been laid bare, everybody knows anyway, and this is why the crazy news is ever more crazy, the ptb is desperate."

I doubt it.

I got proved wrong. A very intelligent friend of mind told me that Iran needed to be nuked pronto, right now, before it is too late. Iran has never contributed one single thing to humanity, ever, never. They are vile mother fuckers that never had any culture.

I consider him to be a weather vane, a bell weather, as to the typical american mind.

Which means, oh well, ................................................................................

the typical american mind is still in a small CNN capsule, which amazes me, but its true............

[82_28]

I had an old customer who was a higher up in some .mil branch (navy? can't remember) and I would always get in "jolly" ol' arguments with him. There was some saying the military higher ups had which I also cannot remember but ended with Iran being the grand prize or something. It's like some kind of inner .mil mantra and quest. He also would always tell me that since I was young, once I got to 40 I would no longer be a liberal. Hasn't worked yet.

Anyhow, this death is sketchy because it just has to be. I personally don't check out too much RT stuff, because it seems weird to have an organization called Russia Times be one of the main leftist voices in American media. But I don't know.

[backtoiam]

82_28 said

it seems weird to have an organization called Russia Times be one of the main leftist voices in American media. But I don't know.

Ditto my man. I have never resolved that for myself either. But, the smell of rotten fish never lingers far from its source.

I have, in this forum on occasion, posited the possibility, that all that we are watching is a grand stage play, in which Russia is a player. I have also, only once, attempted to make note of the fact that Putin wants the SDR to be the global currency, with London of course, at the head of the octopus, which of course, is the financial capital of the world. China is all about that too.

When people say that Russia is making the dominant power structure nervous, I can only laugh.

China is apparently on the ship with this too. Hey? They have a bank too right?

The world is a stage dude. Just like Karl Rove said.

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

60 million Russians died. Russia has already had its ass, i do mean its ASS, handed to it long ago. Anybody that truly believes that Russia is fighting the good the fight will be sorely disappointed in the end. It is a tool, of a big game. I will not be proven wrong about this in the end.

Smoking the Hopium is addictive, but i'm tellin ya, don't smoke it. Follow the money. It don't lie.

There is nobody left to beat. Everybody has been beaten down already. Yes China too, and especially Russia, long ago.

This is the shake out in the future. If you don't believe it, look again, at the cover of The Economist. They already told you.

Right down to the pig flying out of Cameron's dick. Ok? This has been decided already.

Russia, on the global scene, will now slowly become number one.

China will become number two.


United States, is number three, and has served its purposes and is gonna get trashed, some more. (if you don't believe that, look at the armored vehicles, and israeli training of police officers)

This is obvious. I am tempted to say it does not "take a genius" to see this. But hey, none of my friends can see it.

I'm betting most RI folks see this, and we can just all sit, eat popcorn, and watch all the pipes get hooked up. Because that is the deal. They are even rattling Saudia Arabia's pipes and making them nervous, but that was the plan all along. The Saudia better get on their knees, or they will be next.

If I were a Saudi prince I would take my money and scram to Paraguay with the Bush family.

[Wombaticus Rex]

I'm tempted to say, "who cares, this has all been laid bare, everybody knows anyway, and this is why the crazy news is ever more crazy, the ptb is desperate."

There is a lot here that has not been laid bare at all. Lesin is a genuinely murky character and I look forward to seeing this thread evolve.

[82_28]

Oh it was "real men go to Iran" but the rest of his little limerick I still don't remember.

[Freitag]

It could be as simple as having crossed Putin in some way. Putin values loyalty above all else. Litvinenko learned as much.

I recently finished reading Once Upon a Time in Russia: The Rise of the Oligarchs and am currently in the middle of The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin. Neither of which have given me any insight into the specific subject of this thread, but I'm interested in Russia generally and their re-entry into geopolitics has been interesting to watch.

I don't believe in any global conspiracy involving Putin or Russia. I don't think there are shadowy figures pulling Putin's strings.

[tapitsbo]

I think it's obvious that there are significant differences between different power blocs around the world.

That said, it's also clear if you dig a little the Russia and the West have some "oligarchs" in common.

I am fascinated by the place of countries like Turkey, Israel, and even Germany in this overlap, however. It appears to not be as cut and dry as might be supposed from reading partisan rants in comments sections.