The Russian Boomerang

Armen Makaryan is a powerful multi-millionaire who owns several companies throughout Russia. Despite his unorthodox business methods, he is a respected member of the influential business community in Moscow called the Conseil and has a seat on the board of RusAeroSpace in Khimki, a position that is both enviable and dangerous. His activities are under scrutiny by the specialised FSK unit for organized crime in Russia, the URPO, who infiltrate mafia organisations. Armen’s empire is being threatened by political and economic reforms aimed at combatting organized crime. Then Armen dies of strychnine poisoning in his home in Moscow. The poison was smuggled into Russia from Australia in a truck transporting wine which was loaded in Germany. Not all the wine exported from Germany to Russia was declared to the customs authorities. The more expensive wine was smuggled in the middle of pallets containing cheap French wine bottled in Germany. Smuggling wine into Russia is a lucrative business in 2011. A series of police reforms came into force in March and several importing companies have just lost their importing licence for wines and spirits. New customs restrictions on importing certain goods including wine and spirits have been planned for the end of the year.  Not only Armen’s empire is beginning to suffer from the changing political and economic climate. Some mafia organisations are even concerned about their continued existence. Is this murder just a result of a feud between warlords? Inspector Vladimir Antipov from the URPO and Inspector Max Baer at the German BKA in Wiesbaden discover a trail that leads from a strychnine producer in Sydney who selling toxic substances legally and on the black market to a wine broker near Frankfurt, Thomas Becker. There is a business and a personal connection between the deceased and Thomas Becker and his Russian fiancée Svetlana. Thomas Becker is the prime suspect and according to the Germany BKA had acquired a lethal quantity of strychnine on the black market and paid his freight forwarder to smuggle it into Russia. But why should he wish to murder one of his customers? There doesn’t seem to be a plausible motive. The deceased’s brother, Boris, decides not to wait for the FSK to bring the culprit to justice but to punish the murderer and his accomplices himself. From his holiday mansion on the island of Gozo, he flies to Frankfurt to pay a visit to Thomas Becker. In Moscow and Wiesbaden the description of the Thomas Becker who bought strychnine in Frankfurt on the black market differs significantly from the real wine broker and leads them to an imposter based in Moscow, an ex FSB agent, Andrey Ivanov, who is now a free-lance killer. Before he can be questioned by the police, he is found dead. The same weekend two other people in Moscow have fatal accidents which are no coincidence. Like a boomerang, evil comes back to those who sow evil.