Standart News

An oligarch is akin to an octopus who is prepared to spread all his tentacles not to lose a 5-billion dollar catch. The Kremlin's pet boy Oleg Deripaska spares neither money nor efforts to achieve his goal. His well-structured organization of generously paid "hirelings" had been given orders to discredit Michael Chernoy at all costs. However, the plot cracked after the arrest of private eyes Rafi Pridan and Aviv Mor, who were caught wiretapping on Chernoy.

The Standart launched a large-scale journalistic enquiry that revealed and described in detail the conspiracy hatched by Deripaska, whose people have been trying to bribe into the plot politicians and journalists for over half a year. The aim was a black PR campaign against Chernoy. Two people are pulling the strings in this puppet show - Alexey Drobashenko and Pyotr Sergeev. The first one is a crony of Deripaska. The two of them have been working hand in hand for years holding different posts in Sibirski Aluminii and Bazov Element. Currently, Drobashenko is the director general of the Eurasian Group.

As far as the second figure is concerned, all we know is that he is employed in one of the special services of Russia. The man who executes their orders is Avigdor Eskin.

The objective is to expatriate Chernoy from Israel and deprive him of the right to enter England. The reason is the lawsuit Chernoy brought against the oligarch in London. The suit is about the share of Chernoy in the aluminum giant RusAl, which Deripaska had usurped and refused to pay. Currently, the 20-percent share is estimated at over five billion USD.

The noose around the necks of the Deriapaska's hirelings contracted to smear Chernoy has tightened. After the arrest of Avigdor Eskin and private detectives, Rafi Pridan and Aviv Mor, who were wiretapping Chernoy illegally, one more administration official of the ruling Kadima party was kicked out. His name is David Edelman. MIGnews agency broke the news. Edelman was fired after The Standart brought to light correspondence between the plotters. In the e-mails to Eskin, Edelman proposes a three-stage plan for defaming Chernoy and Vice PM of Israel Avigdor Lieberman. "Our task is to involve MC (Mikhail Chernoy, ed.'s note) in some dirty business," Eskin explains in a letter to Drobashenko. It was July 11, 2007. The same letter explains that the task about smearing Chernoy was 100% completed. "Today the leading news portal NFC published the information that Lieberman's lawyer was questioned. The papers in question were discovered by the MP Nudelman and submitted to the case via Edelman and Eterman. The main thing is mentioning MC in line with the case. The article mentions him a several times in line with the transfer of half a million for Lieberman and other machinations," Eskin delighted. The think-tank of the campaign against Chernoy aims two things. Firstly, to make the politicians and society in Israel believe that the businessman is dangerous for the country. The easiest way to do so is to link him with the Russian mafia. Secondly, to create a huge black aura of a "big corruption factor" around the businessman. Both motifs are extremely sensitive for Israel as it leads a fierce battle both against corruption and the mafia immigration. From the letters of the plotters who work directly for Oleg Deripaska, it emerges that they are head over heels in machinations. They are sure their emails cannot be cracked, they even dare mention the exact sums they use or intend to for bribing politicians, journalists and public figures in Israel. Their mafia methods, though, led to the arrests of Eskin and his detectives. In their dirty dealings the plotters tried to involve, successfully or not, their acquaintances from Russia, linked in different ways with Jewish movements.

"We have a candidate to sign the letter (against Chernoy, ed.'s note) and for the role of a human rights activist. This is Max Feizen," Eskin reported to Drobashenko. Like most people attracted to cooperate in the smearing campaign, he provides short bio notes : "He (Feizen) is a doctor by education. Since the beginning of the 1980s he has been actively participating in Jewish and human rights movement in Leningrad. In the beginning of the 1990s he left for Israel but soon returned to St Petersburg where he became one of the leaders of the Jewish community. He is one of the first who started providing Internet services. Now he spends a lot of time in Israel." Eskin contacts via mail a lot of unusual persons, one of whom is an Andrey Lenski. In Eskin's words, he has several minuses - he is neither suitable for BAGATS "due to his extreme views", nor good enough to communicate with the press; besides, he wants too much. But, on the other hand, he is capable enough to be the pioneer, who would beat a path for the others. And again, in his letter, Eskin makes a demonstration of how exactly a journalist can be bought. "I'd like to emphasize that in Israel the practice of showing the article before its has been released, does not exist. Be it an interview. The readiness to show the interview - this is out of question when a bonus has been negotiated." Eskin even dictates to Andrey what he is supposed to say in the interview. "He must say that he has heard from Borovik that Chernoy's money has been paid for broadcasts such as ads for Liberman." However, he himself is a serious factor for corruption in Israel. To provide his services, Lenski is by no means ashamed to ask Eskin pay. "My current financial situation (I am short of money because of my father-in-law's death and the consequent expenses of 10 000 shekels) forces me to ask for big bonuses - 1 500 dollars for scrawling my signature on the lawyers' inquiry, 1 500 monthly for my work on the Poodle-website plus and all my other activities related to this project." The accomplices are afraid of a possible flop, and there could be only one - their dirty plans to be exposed to the public (which was what actually happened). This could lead to only two outcomes. The first - to disclose the author, Oleg Deripaska and then to turn out that he has been paying for the campaign against Chernoy in vain. The second - to be placed under inquiry and to be thrown behind bars for their illegal actions in Israel. The accomplices are constantly warning each other not to speak about "such things"(whatever they are writing in their emails) in telephone conversations. A person called M. writes to Eskin: "This email must not be cited. It must be deleted after read." It must have been, but Eskin did not. And it is an interesting email, indeed. It contains two pages minutely describing the campaign against Chernoy as well as pieces of advice how to mar the businessman's image better. Apart from the campaign in the mass media there is a warning reading: "You are playing games with the Jewish press, and I have already suffered at its hands once in 1997. It digs deep, and does not enjoy being taken for a fool. Everything must be carefully prepared. There is no room for flops. Because a flop is far worse that a badly-tailored campaign."

By Isadore Levy
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem, Israel ---- November 20, 2007 ..... On November 5, Israel police announced that they had arrested two private investigators in Israel, Rafi Pridan and Aviv Mor, on suspicion of illegally wiretapping several people in an effort to gather information about Israel Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman and businessman Michael Chernoy (Mikhail Chernoy, Michael Cherney).

The police also arrested right-wing extremist Avigdor Eskin on suspicion of serving as a liaison between the private eyes and their employer. Israel Police believe the employer is Oleg Deripaska, the richest oligarch in Russia (his fortune is estimated at $22 billion), a business rival of Michael Chernoy who has been waging a public smear campaign against him. A police source told the Israel News Agency that dozens of pages of material found at the suspects' homes and offices indicated that Chernoy was the target of their "operation", a part of the material relates to his ties with Lieberman.

A source from Lieberman's political party, Israel Beiteinu said: "There is a very clear public relations campaign against Lieberman, and we are supposing that at least a large part of the millions came from overseas and not from Israel."

The police investigation began two weeks ago in response to a complaint from Lieberman, who said that private information about himself and Chernoy (Cherney) had recently appeared online and other places, and he suspected that it had been obtained by illegitimate means from people who knew both men. It was Lieberman who suggested Chernoy's business rival - Oleg Deripaska - as the possible culprit.

Other prominent Israel businessmen mentioned in the documents include Arcadi Gaydamak and David Appel.

Israel newspaper Maariv reports that the eavesdropping was apparently done to hurt Cherney, to secure compromising evidence against him, and to compel Israel's Ministry of the Interior to revoke Chernoy's Israel citizenship.

Eskin is suspected of being in contact with different persons employed by companies owned by Deripaska in Russia and England. They provided Eskin with the funds to carry out professional, defamatory PR campaigns against Chernoy in Israel and UK, which included bribing news reporters and publishing libelous journalistic "investigations", producing and distributing fliers and posters, besmirching Chernoy, and also organizing a lobby against Chernoy among various MKs in Israel Knesset and MPs in British Parliament.

It is suspected that Eskin was successful in recruiting Russia speaking aides and advisers to a number of Israel MKs, especially in the ruling Kadima party, and members of the Israel cabinet to lobby their bosses against Chernoy.

At a hearing in the Petah Tikva, Israel Magistrate's Court, police said that there could be additional wiretaps that they do not yet know about, possibly including some overseas. All the wiretaps discovered so far are in Israel.

Israel newspaper Haaretz reports that the confiscated materials, which include Internet downloads, press clippings and reports from agents who tailed Cherney and other people, detail Chernoy's businesses, his holding companies worldwide, his ties to other businessmen from the former Soviet Union, and his personal and business disputes. They also include information about a highly defamatory book on him written by a Russia journalist Andrei Kalitin, which is due out in Russia soon. Russian media has reported that this "black book on Chernoy" was also commissioned by people close to Oleg Deripaska.

Media reports from Russia state that this covert, illegal operation, code-named "Compatriots", has embarrassed Russia Secret Services. The leaders of Russian Foreign Intelligence (SVR) are worried that a further Israel investigation might reveal a major amateur operation of spying and political sabotage, ordered by a number of Moscow oligarchs, which would cast a shadow over Russian special services.

The Russia news outlet Stringer reported that a number of Moscow - based oligarchs (some of them former business partners of Vladimir Gusinsky, Leonid Nevzlin, and Michael Cherney) indeed formed an alliance to neutralize these businessmen who settled in Israel. The alliance's objective is to curry favor with the Kremlin and advance their own business interests: to protect themselves from the former partners' lawsuits, to get tax breaks from the government, et cetera. At the first stage the Russian special services granted tacit approval of this "operation", since the first two targeted oligarchs are the Kremlin's political foes, and the third one is at least not a friend. In order to make sure that the campaign did not look like an obvious vendetta against ex-partners and to get extra points for "patriotism" from the Kremlin, Moscow oligarchs' special services turned it into an unofficial branch of Compatriots program. Its purpose is to establish Russia political influence over the Russian-speaking communities within the diaspora in order to control or discredit their political and business leaders who refuse to toe Moscow's line. In Israel among the former are Scharansky and Lieberman; among the latter, Gusinsky, Nevzlin, and Cherney.

Quoting Russian sources, the Moscow - based Delovaya.com (business Internet paper) posted dozens of e-mails revealing how exactly the associates of Deripaska had hatched a plot against Cherney. The Bulgarian newspaper The Standard made these documents available in English.

Oleg Deripaska denied personal involvement in the plot, but the revealed documents clearly show that all the links of the arrested Israel plotters lead back to Alexei Drobashenko, a close associate of Oleg Deripaska, former head of the foreign-relations department of the Deripaska-owned "Sibirsky Alluminum" (SibAl).

This is not the first time that Oleg Deripaska, the owner of RusAl aluminum giant, is being accused of ordering international espionage, computer hacking, wiretapping and subversion against his rivals or former partners. In 2006 a London High Court claim was brought by Ansol Company and its consultants, Ashton Investments. Deripaska's RusAl and Ansol were formerly partners in a joint venture to supply alumina to TadAZ, a smelter in Tajikistan. Ashton alleged that in January 2006 it discovered its computer had been hacked. That "netspionage" was traced back to IP addresses registered to Rusal.

Deripaska denied the allegations, but the British court found the computer forensic evidence convincing and Deriapska hurried to settle with Ansol out of court.

US authorities have long blocked the entry visa of RusAl owner Oleg Deripaska, The Wall Street Journal reports. Russia's billionaire had been unable to get the US visa due to suspected links to the international criminal community and attempting to control strategic businesses in the United States.

Prior to 2001, Cherney was engaged in charity work in Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, Bulgaria, the US - wherever he did business. He made valuable contributions into Jewish philanthropy in Russia. Following the Dolphinarium terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, the Cherney Fund became the helping hand for all its victims.

The Cherney Fund renders help mostly to the new arrivals, victims of catastrophes and terrorist acts that continue to bleed Israel, as well as to the low-income victims of terror in other countries. Another equally important task assumed by the Cherney Foundation is the media effort in the war against terrorism. Shortly after the Dolphinarium attack, the Foundation published a book called Dolphinarium: Terror Targets the Young.