Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-whistleblower-assassinated-after-uncovering-dollar200-billion-dirty-money-scandal

by krn • 7 years ago

244 66 7 years ago

thomasll2• 7 years ago

Uncover the theft of hundreds of thousands will get you a bonus.

Uncover the theft of millions will get you a big promotion.

Uncover the theft of billions by corrupt state actors and international crime syndicates is only ever going to get you dead.

Perhaps I have a different mindset, but if I had been looking into this, I think I would have stopped digging as soon as I got a hint of how deep this rabbit hole actually was. Risk vs Reward.

bilekas2• 7 years ago

But with this mentality corruption will just go unchallenged.

Its a huge risk, but the rewards for removing such a big chunk of corruption is huge. So I guess you're right, it is more of a mindset thing.

krageon2• 7 years ago

reward

This person is dead. We can thus deduce the reward is death. While that is a big reward, it's not one most people want.

wayoutthere2• 7 years ago

It's no different than a peasant (or even a lesser lord) challenging a king in the feudal era. You spoke out against the king, you lost your head.

Billionaires are our kings. Jeff Bezos' wealth is 3 times the GDP of North Kora, which has a standing army of over a million people. They are more wealthy than a number of independent states. Do you think he couldn't fund and equip 100,000 mercenaries if his monopoly were threatened? When a peasant threatens his power, he doesn't even need to do that: a single assassin is enough. Replace Bezos (who I doubt would order a hit but you never know) with a Russian oligarch (who absolutely would order a hit) and you have your explanation.

mola5• 7 years ago

This is why humanity invented the Hero. We recognize that irrational selflessness can be extremely beneficial for society. The more heroes we have, the less corrupt the system, the stakes of corruption would be lower and the price of heroism should decrease, thus society at large and these selfless heros will probably benefit together.

mola5• 7 years ago

So we could call this guy stupid, or hail him as a hero. In which society would you like you and your children to live in, the one where heroes are acknowledged or the one they are dismissed as dumb and irrational?

Mind you, calling someone a hero cost you next to nothing in utility so I think the choice is a no brainier.

adrr• 7 years ago

There is significant and maybe a majority of people who have flexible morality. CA-50 re-elected a congressmen who was under indicted for corruption and theft of campaign funds. A CIA whistleblower is in hiding and career military officer in under protection for reporting or testifying about corruption at the white house. Hero only exists if a significant majority of society has capability to distinguish right from wrong. Otherwise it will get rolled up into partisan politics and tribalism.

friendlybus3• 7 years ago

Heroes are characterized by extreme competence at something. Some people dedicate that to doing good because they believe it to be valuable for it's own sake.

Selflessness just gets you walked over. Being good is both an individual positive for the hero and a collective gain for the people.

Asooka• 7 years ago

Хорошо сказал, товарищ.

HashThis• 7 years ago

People don't buy $200 billion worth of drugs. To get that much, the nation state and oligarchs need to be rigging the economy and stealing with massive crony capitalism.

squarefoot2• 7 years ago

"I think I would have stopped digging as soon as I got a hint of how deep this rabbit hole actually was"

Or maybe find a way of making the news public under anonimity, which brings us to the importance of being able/allowed to do so when necessary.

magduf4• 7 years ago

Maybe. The problem with a lot of stuff like that is that it's really hard to release information anonymously. The nature of the information is such that not many people would have had access to it, so for the assassins, the number of suspects is very low, and it's not that hard for them to figure out who did it.

jessaustin4• 7 years ago

Oh Wikileaks, why would you publish more material that harms the leaders of the Russian state? It's as if you don't even care that you're contradicting the constant media accounts of your pro-Russian bias. Corporate-media stenographers have families to feed!

andreigheorghe3• 7 years ago

According to a telegram that remained buried until now in the cache of 250,000 diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks in 2010

care to try that argument again, taking into account how time works?

jessaustin4• 7 years ago

That's the point; WL have never had any bias. They just publish genuine documents. They don't care whose ox is gored. The ridiculous conspiracy theorizing on display for the last three years says nothing about WL and everything about USA.

alexro4• 7 years ago

Is anyone able to explain how they have jumped from this

"Andrei Kozlov was gunned down in 2006, weeks after trying to shutter the world’s biggest money-laundering scam"

to this

"—one reportedly used by Putin’s family and the FSB." ?

krn3• 7 years ago

https://www.occrp.org/en/laundromat/the-russian-laundromat-e...

alexro4• 7 years ago

Your source is jumping big between the facts too

mensetmanusman2• 7 years ago

The U.S. is not blameless in supporting money laundering through real estate:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-kle...

tclancy• 7 years ago

How is that relevant here and not just meaningless whataboutism?

chance_state• 7 years ago

Is there a name for the phenomenon (eg. Poe's Law) where people leave comments on random world politics topics that basically consist of "but America..."?

You can count on it on every single negative geopolitical story on most sites. Sad to see it on HN.

mensetmanusman2• 7 years ago

The point is to say that there are things Americans can do to help this situation. Holding politicians accountable to corruption going on in our backyard can help. Being aware that corruption in the U.S. has effects all around the world is all...

sunstone• 7 years ago

Putin has a habit of reaching out and touching people that annoy him.

Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

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