Security reporter Brian Krebs has a fascinating piece up on Pavel Vrublevsky, founder of Russia's biggest online payment processor, ChronoPay. Krebs reports that this man also co-owns Rx-Promotion, an online pharmacy that sells tens of millions of US dollars worth of controlled pills to Americans each year: Valium, Percocet, Tramadol, Oxycodone, and other substances with high street resale value. Just before Krebs arrived in Russia to meet with Vrublevsky, "several truckloads of masked officers from Russian drug enforcement bureaus" raided a private party thrown for the top moneymakers of Rx-Promotion (that's their promotional banner, above). Snip:
I hadn't told Vrublevsky that I was coming to Russia before I arrived on Feb. 8. But I wasted no time in phoning him via Skype, using the line he normally calls me on several times a week.
"Duuuuuuuudddde!," he answers. "It's 7 a.m. where you are, who died?"
I reply that I am in fact in his time zone and that we should meet. After another long "Duuuuuuuuddde!" Vrublevsky promises to send a car if I will wait in the hotel lobby. He tells me he'll be sending along with the driver his receptionist, named Vera. He proceeds to describe Vera as this grossly overweight, unattractive older lady but, hey, she speaks English and knows how to deal with Westerners, so she's coming, he says.
Fifteen minutes later, I am seated in the lobby waiting for Vera, watching incoming guests as they stomp off snow and trudge through the hotel's revolving door. I find it difficult to avoid staring at this unusually attractive, slender, dark-haired young woman standing nervously just beside the door. I notice she also keeps glancing at me. Finally, she comes over and asks if my name is Brian. I am momentarily alarmed (I know next to no one in Moscow yet) until she says her name is Vera and I suddenly remember with a smile why I can trust almost nothing of what comes out of Vrublevsky's mouth.
Russian Cops Crash Pill Pusher Party
(via Joseph Menn)
