Criminal proceeds and cooperation with other countries

to pattern – копировать

the Commonwealth of Independent States – Содружество Независимых Государств (СНГ)

to seize – захватывать

seizure – захват, конфискация

Russia has laws that allow for the confiscation of proceeds of drug trafficking, drug money laundering, and other offenses. Provisions also exist which enable asset identification and for tracing, freezing, and seizing of these criminal proceeds. As long as a case of this nature is opened and goes to trial, legal provisions are available for seizure of criminally derived assets connected to the predicate offense. Russian laws also permit banking authorities and offshore banking authorities to share account transaction information and other information with law enforcement authorities. The Russian government may share account transaction and other customer information with foreign law enforcement authorities.

Russia has signed and ratified the 1988 Vienna Convention. Russia became a member of the Council of Europe in 1996. Russia’s proposed anti-money laundering law is patterned after provisions in the Strasbourg Convention. As the continuing state of the former Soviet Union, Russia recognizes all treaties and international conventions signed by the Soviet Union. This includes Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) signed with current and former socialist countries and members of the Commonwealth of the Independent States which have not abrogated these agreements.

Intergovernmental agreements which may be applicable to money laundering offenses have been signed with Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Finland, Sweden, and the United States. Russia has intergovernmental agreement proposals with Germany, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, and Hungary. Some of these intergovernmental agreements may be applicable for civil offenses only, and, when applicable for criminal purposes, the information exchanged is for operational purposes only.

Under provisions in the proposed anti-money laundering legislation, banks and businesses will be required to report any non-cash transaction – under which monetary instruments fall – to the tax authorities.

Текст 9. НАРКОБИЗНЕС И ЗАКОН

DRUG WARS AND LAW (Asia and Panama)

ramification – разветвление, ответвление

estimate – оценка, смета, наметка (т.же оценивать)

inaccuracy – неточность

flow – поток

A usual crime is not too hard to live with for a state. The drugs presented a new problem: something had endangered America’s economic base. Where was all this drug money going? Could it be used to alter balances of power? That was instruction got by the special services like Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Economical Affairs (CIA and DEA):

“The office of intelligence is involved in an on-going project designed to identify the magnitude and specific ramifications of the international flow of drug related currency. Estimates by various agencies reflect that dollars leaving the U.S. from illicit drug profits and payments may well be a significant unmeasured portion of this country’s gross national product and creates serious inacuraces in U.S. data on international currency flow (balance of payments). More and more frequently DEA is being asked to provide information in this subject area and to date, information in our possession has been extremely limited.”

DEA offices in from Songhkla, Thailand, to Lahore, Pakistan, were ordered “to conduct a study and submit results” within six weeks. The CIA sent similar instructions to its stations. But no one waited for foreign-based agents to check in. Hardly two weeks after the cable went out, a senior agent from DEA’s office of strategic intelligence was on his way around the world, conducting the first inclusive intelligence operation (it was code-named Operation Cashflow) ever directed at the multibillion dollar profits of the international narcotics industry.

 

Текст 10. НАРКОБИЗНЕС И ЗАКОН

DRUG WARS AND LAW (Colombia)

grip – хватка, сжатие

humiliating – унизительный

retreat – отступление

resignation – отставка

keen – сильно желающий чего-либо

gringo – (презр.) гринго, иностранец, особ. американец или англичанин (в Лат. Америке)

Colombia drugs police lately had another reminder of the narcotic trade‘s tight grip on the country. On November 9^th, American officials discovered nearly half a tonne of cocaine and several kilograms of heroine on a Colombian Air Force plane in Florida. It is not the first time drugs have been found on air-force aircraft: two years ago, a stash of heroine was discovered on the plane that was about to take off to New York. On that occasion, officers denied the existence of a drug-trafficking ring within the air force. This time they are beating a humiliating retreat. The drug seizure forced the immediate resignation of the air-force chief and six of his men. Both President Andreas Pastrana and his defence minister say that they will, if necessary, let more heads roll to clean up the air force.

Colombians have always been keen – sometimes with reason – to blame an American conspiracy for the latest surreal twist in their drug wars. Some claimed to see “gringo” involvement in the recent prison killings. Speculation intensified last week when an agent from America’s Drug Enforcement Administration was shot dead outside a fashionable Bogota nightspot. Police say the murder – the first killing of a DEA agent in Colombia – was the result of a bar-room brawl and had nothing to do with the current spate of drugs violence. Tell that to the conspiracy theorists!

Текст 11. ОРГАНИЗАЦИЯ «ГРИНПИС»

 

GREENPEACE

 

to set for – отправиться куда-либо

environmental pollution – загрязнение окружающей среды

to moor – ставить на якорь

explosives – взрывчатые вещества

to sink (sank, sunk) – топить, пускать ко дну

 

Greenpeace is the name of an ecology group which is based in Britain. Its members are people of different nationalities who wish to protect the environment we live in. They do research, bring problems to the attention of the public and take non-violent direct actions on many issues related to environmental protection and pollution. One of the issues which particularly concerns Greenpeace is the damage to the environment caused by the use of nuclear bombs in experimental tests. In July 1985 the French planned a series of nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean. Members of Greenpeace decided to stop the test if they could, and set off for the area in their boat - the Rainbow Warrior III.

When Greenpeace was preparing for action in the Pacific, French secret agents attacked the boat with explosives while it was moored in Aukland Harbour, New Zealand. Fernando Pereira, the Greenpeace photographer on the expedition, was killed by drowing in the attack and the Rainbow Warrior was sunk.

 

 

Текст 12. ИМПИЧМЕНТ

 

WHAT IS IMPEACHMENT

Founding Fathers – Отцы государства

impeachment – порицание, обвинение; импичмент

treason – измена, предательство

bribery – взяточничество

trust – доверие

valve – клапан

safeguard – гарантия, охрана

 

The American Constitution provides that the “President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours”. Thus, impeachment is the constitutional remedy – the only one, addressed to seriuos offenses against the system of government and the public trust. The impeachment procedure, outlined in the Constitution, has been given content over the two centuries since its adoption. What conduct justifies impeachment has been the subject of some controversy among legal scholars. One cause of the controversy is the political nature of impeachment. As constitutional scholar Michel Gerhardt has noted, “Impeachment is by nature, structure, and design an essentially political process”. Our Founding Fathers adopted this view of impeachment from English law and made it uniquely their won. It’s a scope confined to political officials; it charges only “political crimes” and imposes purely “political punishments”.

Thus, impeachment is not a criminal proceeding dependent on proof of a criminal infraction. An inquiry of impeachment examines the “undermining of the integrity of office, disregarding of constitutional duties and oath of office, arrogation of power, abuse of governmental process, and adverse impact on the system of government”.

Impeachment was intended to be a “safety valve, a security against an oppressive or corrupt President and his sheltered ministers”. Our Founding Fathers were familiar with the despotic rule a too-powerful executive could impose. Consequently, they constructed a safeguard against the executive abuse and usurpation of power that might occur in the separate executive branch they fashioned. James Wilson, a member of the Pennsylvania ratifying convention, noted that the President is “placed high, and is possessed of powere far from being contemptible, yet not a single privilege is annexed to his character; far from being above the laws, he is amenable to them in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment”.

 

Robert Barr, “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”