Frenkel alleged, in the second Open Letter, that the CBR maintains two lists, a Whitelist, and a Blacklist:

• The Whitelist consists of the largest state banks, subsidiaries of foreign banks, and banks who sponsor government officials involved in illegal cash-conversion operations, e.g. semi-legal imports, withdrawal of funds abroad, and tax avoidance schemes.
• The Blacklist consists of all others, being Russia's smaller financial institutions, or not linked to senior government officials.

Those banks on the Blacklist must make "voluntary contributions," which are in reality little more than kickbacks, of between $150,000 and $5m, depending upon the size of the bank, to gain access to the Federal Deposit Insurance system. The money goes to the corrupt bank supervisor, so that he allegedly does not notice the gap between the bank's obligations, and its assets.

The individual releasing the letter to the press blacked out the names of the banks that allegedly paid these kickbacks, but he disclosed that one could readily ascertain the banks' identities by looking at the dates specified.

Are these sensational allegations true, or are they merely an effort by Mr. Frenkel to divert attention from his alleged role in the Kozlov assassination ? We cannot say, but World-Check continues to follow this developing story. If you missed earlier articles*                                                                                ______________________________________________________________________________________________________  * Russian authorities arrest banker behind Kozlov assassination, World-Check 12 January, 2007; Suspect says Russian Central Bank is money laundering; World-Check 22 January, 2007; 2006 Russian banking statistics support Frenkel's allegations, 25 January, 2007.