Russia’s chief banking supervisor, who led the fight against money laundering and financial crime, died today after being shot in an apparent contract hit.
Andrei Kozlov, 41, the first deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank, died in hospital early this morning after being shot several times as he left a football match at the stadium of Spartak Moscow football club last night.
Kozlov fell to the ground bleeding from the head and stomach after two gunmen opened fire, witnesses said. He died after emergency surgery for bullet wounds to his chest and stomach. His driver was also killed in the attack.
Alexander Zhukov, Russia’s Vice Premier, said that the murder was probably related to Kozlov’s vigorous campaign against the money laundering rampant in the dense and complex world of Russian banking.
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If so, his assassination is the highest profile contract killing in the six-year presidency of Vladimir Putin, who has been determined to restore peace and stability to Russian business after the turbulence and lawlessness of the Nineties.
The investigation into the shooting has already been taken over by the Russian Prosecutor General, Yury Chaika, according to the federal prosecutor’s office. “The investigation is developing various versions of the crime, including one connected with Andrei Kozlov’s professional activity,” read a statement.
Kozlov joined what was then the Soviet Central Bank at the age of 24, and since becoming deputy chairman in 2002 had made hundreds of enemies closing down banks for illegal activities. His office had already stripped 44 financial institutions of their banking licences this year and just last week he called for harsher penalties against bankers found guilty of money laundering.
“He was at the cutting edge of the battle against financial crime. He was a very brave and honest man and through his activity he repeatedly encroached on the interests of unprincipled financiers,” said Alexi Kudrin, Russia’s Finance Minister, in a statement.
Kozlov’s death drew a stream of condolences as the day’s business began in Moscow this morning. Mikhail Fradkov, the Russian Prime Minister, offered his sympathy to the official’s wife and three children and asked the Russian Cabinet to stand for a moment of silence, which was broadcast on state television.
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Anatoly Chubais, a former deputy prime minister who how runs Russia’s electricity monopoly and was himself the victim of an assassination attempt last year, called Kozlov “an unquestionably honest, principled and absolutely noncommercial person”.
“His killing is an impudent challenge to all Russian authorities,” said Mr Chubais. The chairman of the financial committee of Moscow’s State Duma also demanded that Kozlov’s killers be brought to justice.
But Russia’s financial markets, accustomed to periodic shocks, reacted calmly: the RTS stock index rose by 1.4 percent while shares in the state-run Sberbank, Russia’s largest savings bank, gained 2 per cent in early trading.
Kozlov’s lasting legacy is likely to be an insurance scheme for banking deposits that he introduced in 1998 to restore the faith of ordinary Russians who were afraid to use banks in the uncertain financial climate that followed the collapse of communism. But the scheme also made him enemies because dozens of banks were deemed unfit to take part.
Contract killings of businessmen occur regularly in Russia, although are much less common than in the mid-1990s. Assassination attempts on government officials are rare, particularly under the presidency of Putin, who has filled many positions with former KGB staff.
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The last conspicuous assassination to take place in Russia was the murder of Valentin Tsvetkov, the governor of the far eastern region of Magadan, in October 2002. The last time a senior banking official was targeted by gunmen was in 1997, when shots were fired through a window at Sergei Dubinin, then the head of the Central Bank.
High profile Russian killings:
1995 - Gunmen kill Vladislav Listyev, a popular news talk show host. The attack is blamed on opponents of a proposed advertising ban
1998 - Galina Starovoitova, a leading human rights campaigner, is shot dead in her apartment block St Petersburg
2002 - Valentin Tsvetkov, governor of Magadan, is shot dead on a shopping street in Moscow after campaigning against criminals in Russia’s Pacific gold and oil industries
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2004 - Paul Klebnikov, an American citizen and editor of Forbes’s Russian magazine who had written extensively on corruption, is murdered
2005 - Alexander Slesarev, a corrupt former banker blamed for causing a banking crisis, is shot in his car with his wife and daughter.