Magnitsky vs Kaspersky

When you read about the Magnitsky case you get a pretty good idea of Russian Police and Tax Departments.  The police are not there to prevent or solve crimes, though they sometimes do, they are there to control the people.  As they have been since Tsarist times and were more so in Stalinist times, certainly.  In return, they are allowed to engage in criminal activity, presumably to secure their continued loyalty in spite of poor wages.

The Tax Department is there to control enemies.  Big powerful ones, worth billions, like Khodorkovsky and small fry at the local level as well. The tax laws are so contradictory that everyone is on contravention and selective audits are all it takes to land one in trouble with "the law".  Of course, in Khodorkovsky's case, what they don't find they make up.

I was told it was Peter the Great who came up with the idea of a lowly paid bureaucracy which supplemented its income through corruption however it could. Putin seems to have taken it to new levels.  Whether Medvedev is complicit or powerless is anyone's guess.

The most recent information on the Magnitsky story is here.Russia's Crime of the Century - By Jamison Firestone | Foreign Policy.  It is good reading if you like gruesome crime stories.

I was pleased to read that the police had rescued Yevgeny Kaspersky's son from his kidnappers.  Obviously the kidnappers were amateurs and Kaspersky has some political clout.