It has all the ingredients of a quality cinematic dark comedy, right down to a high-speed international car chase in which the main character’s escape is foiled only by a seemingly perpetual work zone on the main Tallinn-Riga highway. Sadly, however, this recent scandal—touched off by the arrest of Latvijas Dzelceļš (Latvian Railways, LDz) CEO Ugis Maģonis on corruption charges—is all too real. Maģonis was detained when police discovered (in a detail a filmmaker might have rejected as a tad too cliché) a briefcase containing nearly €500,000 cash in the trunk of his chauffeured Mercedes.
It has all the ingredients of a quality cinematic dark comedy, right down to a high-speed international car chase in which the main character’s escape is foiled only by a seemingly perpetual work zone on the main Tallinn-Riga highway. Sadly, however, this recent scandal—touched off by the arrest of Latvijas Dzelceļš (Latvian Railways, LDz) CEO Ugis Maģonis on corruption charges—is all too real. Maģonis was detained when police discovered (in a detail a filmmaker might have rejected as a tad too cliché) a briefcase containing nearly €500,000 cash in the trunk of his chauffeured Mercedes.
This was not the first time that the flamboyant Maģonis had attracted the attention of Latvia’s anti-corruption bureau: in 2010, he was caught up in a money-laundering probe, while in 2012 allegations were made of a conflict of interest when LDz entered into a logistics contract with a company owned by his common-law wife; however, no formal charges were filed in either instance. Maģonis has also been closely linked with Russian Railways chairman Vladimir Yakunin, who was able to attend his Latvian counterpart’s elaborate 50th birthday bash thrown at Rūndale Palace—also known as the “Latvian Versailles”—thanks to the exemption from the EU sanctions list lobbied for by Latvian politicians. (Yakunin, who resigned shortly after Maģonis’ arrest, is perhaps more infamous in Estonia for having been accused by the Internal Security Police [KaPo] of seeking to transfer €1.5 million to the Center Party to fund its 2010 election campaign.)
Continue reading: Cinema Vérité : Corruption Scandals and Russian Influence in the Baltic (PDF)