US prosecutors have filed charges against 49 Russian diplomats, including some of the most senior figures in the New York mission. They and their families are accused of feigning poverty, while spending “tens of thousands” on luxury clothes and holidays.
“Diplomacy should be about extending hands, not picking pockets in the host country,” said Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, who led an 18-month investigation, at a televised press conference.
According to the indictment, the diplomats are suspected of
engaging in “general patterns of misrepresentations”,
including grossly underreporting their incomes, and falsely
claiming their children have US citizenship to receive free
healthcare.
The indictment alleges that since 2004, out of 63 births, 58 were
performed for free, using the Medicaid provision.
Normally, families have to report a monthly income of below
$3,000 to be eligible, but the investigators claim that some of
the diplomats earned in excess of $5,000 a month per person. The
total sum of the aid ran into tens of thousands of dollars for
many of the accused.
In a tidbit included as if to purposely draw media attention, the
charge sheet lists some of the expenses of the couples receiving
Medicaid. These include luxury watches, jewellery from Tiffany’s,
Jimmy Choo shoes, and “robotic cleaning devices.” The
indictment also points out discrepancies between the US bank
accounts of Russian diplomats, and their stated incomes on
Medicaid application forms.
Russia’s New York consulate initially expressed “deep
reservations” about the validity of the charges to RIA news
agency, then later withdrew its comments, saying it needs a
chance to study the accusations.
The foreign ministry in Moscow declared itself “miffed”
as to why the indictment was made public “without
consultation through diplomatic channels." “We have a lot of
claims to American diplomats in Moscow, but we are not making
them public,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov
said.
The US State Department was aware of the lawsuit, according to Bharara, and voiced no objections to unsealing the indictment.
The indictment lists senior officials – including the current
first and second secretary of the New York mission – but most of
those involved have already been rotated out of the United
States. The remaining consulate staff possess diplomatic
immunity, and the US would have to ask Russia to lift it if any
arrests were to be made.
The US State Department has already released a statement
declaring that the incident will not affect its relationship with
Russia, but it is almost inevitable that it will intensify the
persistent friction between Moscow and Washington.
The figure of Preet Bharara is likely to prove particularly
incendiary.
Bharara is currently banned from entering Russia for “human
rights violations” – for previous involvement in the lawsuit
against Viktor Bout, who has been convicted in the US for arms
smuggling.
The ban was a response to the Magnitsky Act passed by Congress a
year ago – which placed entry restrictions on officials involved
in the case of Russian lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, who worked for a
British investment fund and died in prison while under
investigation for tax fraud.