The Kremlin has moved in for the kill at fallen oil firm YUKOS with a new money-laundering probe aimed at its imprisoned founder, while an international scramble intensifies for what is left of the company's assets.
Raids this week at the Amsterdam and Moscow offices of YUKOS as part of an investigation into an alleged scheme to launder $7 billion signalled an escalation in Russia's attack against YUKOS, which it has already crushed with a $27 billion back-tax claim, legal experts said.
"One would think they would just give up at this point," said Jamie Firestone, a lawyer at the Moscow office of US law firm Firestone Duncan.
"Most of us would just wish this thing to end as soon as possible, but it looks like the Russians are going for the maximum damage for everyone involved," he told Reuters.
The raids contrast starkly with the market-friendly way Russia has announced plans for gas producer Gazprom to buy No 5 oil firm Sibneft, which investors cheered as the dawn of a less aggressive Kremlin approach to business.
In May when Mikhail Khodorkovsky, YUKOS's founder and former CEO, was convicted of fraud and tax evasion, a prosecution spokesman promised that new charges would soon be brought against him, which would accuse him of other crimes.
On Wednesday, YUKOS's Dutch unit YUKOS Finance B.V. was raided in Amsterdam, and in Moscow at least five offices including banks linked to the company were raided in a probe into an alleged scheme to spirit $7 billion out of Russia.
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