RUSSIA:A Russian banker has been arrested on suspicion of masterminding the murder of the country's deputy central bank governor.
In a rare success for Russia's prosecutors, they claim to have arrested not just the gunmen who carried out the contract killing, but also the powerful business figure who ordered it.
Shortly before the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the death of Andrei Kozlov in September shocked Moscow society, which presumed that the spate of murders and other atrocities associated with the first years of lawless capitalism in the 1990s had come to an end.
Mr Kozlov, a 41-year-old father of three, was killed as he left a sports complex in the city's suburbs, where he had been playing indoor soccer with work colleagues.
Highly regarded internationally, Mr Kozlov had been leading a crusade against money laundering and was trying to clean up Russia's fragmented banking industry at the time of his murder.
Although the name of the chief suspect was not revealed by prosecutors, he was named by Russian media last night as Alexei Frankel (41), who it is believed has links to a bank that was shut down by Mr Kozlov. Officially, the prosecutor general's office would only describe the then unidentified suspect as the chief of a "large commercial structure".
More than 1,000 banks operate in Russia, many of them "pocket" operations, with most transactions linked closely to just one or two wealthy owners.
Police had already arrested six people in connection with the killing, including two Ukrainians who allegedly carried out the murder, although they claimed they did not know who had hired them.
The death of Mr Kozlov was followed a month later by the shooting of Ms Politkovskaya in the stairwell of her apartment building in central Moscow.
Although there have been allegations of a Kremlin role in both her death and that of the former Russian KGB colonel, Alexander Litvinenko, no such link has been suggested to the banker's death.
Mr Kozlov had already intervened two years ago to ensure that the Russian Central Bank could take control of one small bank, Sodbiznebank. It was accused of laundering ransom obtained through kidnappings.
It was rumoured after his death that Mr Kozlov was preparing to launch a much larger operation to shut down about 40 banks that he believed were operating outside the law.
Mr Frankel has taken legal action against Russian magazines for reports on his past activities.
While Russian police claim a high detection rate for street crime, most organised killings remain unsolved, such as the death just over two years ago of Paul Klebnikov, the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine. It is believed he may also have been targeted by wealthy Russians for publishing a rich list.