Shooting of banker threatens Russia

MOSCOW - Andrei Kozlov, a top central banker crusading against money-laundering, had just finished playing soccer with colleagues when two assailants pumped him full of bullets.
Officials suspect the slaying was ordered by crooked financiers unhappy with Kozlov's drive to clean up the system — underscoring how Vladimir Putin's Russia remains a cauldron of murky business interests rife with gangland killings.
The assassins fled in the darkness, leaving their guns behind — the signature of a contract killing. There were no surveillance cameras in the area, and no one could describe the gunmen.
Kozlov, the bank's first deputy chairman, died in a hospital early Thursday without regaining consciousness hours after he was shot late Wednesday, Moscow prosecutor's office said. The banker's driver was also killed in the attack outside the Moscow sports arena where Kozlov and other bank employees had played soccer.
While on a lesser scale than in the turbulent 1990s, contract killings of businessmen and bankers still occur regularly in Russia, where business conflicts often turn violent and the government is seeking closer control over economic activity.
However, the assassination of such a high-ranking official was unusual, and analysts said it posed a direct threat to Putin's government and the country's reputation, possibly leading investors to conclude that Russia is too risky a place to do business.