Dead Billionaire Had Enemies in Russia
(WatchDogReport.org) – “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action,” — Ian Fleming, creator of 007 James Bond. This comes to mind as yet another Russian powerbroker has lost their life this year under somewhat mysterious circumstances.
Helicopter Crash
Fifty-three-year-old Vyacheslav Taran was the sole passenger aboard an Airbus H130 helicopter traveling from Lausanne, Switzerland, to his home in Monaco when it went down in the French town of Villefranche-sur-Mer. Born in Vladivostok, Russia, Taran was a co-founder of the international currency trading group Forex Club, as well as its online trading platform Libertex. Prior to his death, he was living in the Mediterranean country with his wife Olga and three children.
According to a statement from Mrs. Taran, the Ukrainian news website UNIAN.net had alleged her husband was a spy working for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (formerly the KGB) and that he was laundering money for his homeland’s elites. She has emphatically denied any truth to those charges and says he was a man who focused on his business and charitable organizations.
However, that doesn’t mean Taran didn’t have enemies back home. In 2018, the Bank of Russia canceled his company’s license to trade for allegedly violating the country’s securities laws.
Not the First
An article published by CNN on September 23 noted how, from late January until it was published, at least 10 influential Russians died by suicide or unexplained accident. Six of the deceased belonged to Russia’s two largest energy companies. Two of the dead executives were employed by Lukoil, and it is surely just coincidental the company issued a press release on March 3 expressing “its deepest concerns about the tragic events in Ukraine.”
Ivan Pechorin, 39, was the director of Russia’s Far East and Arctic Development Corporation, which is seen as an important source of oil and gas and, therefore, income, because of sanctions the West levied on the country after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February. After attending a conference in September headed by the country’s leader in Vladivostok, he reportedly fell overboard while sailing just off the coast.
If Fleming is correct that three related events are indicative of intentional actions, what would one call it when it starts to total in double digits?
What’s your opinion? Do you think this is a coincidence, or does it reek of enemy action by the former KGB agent who is now the president of Russia?
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