Monday, March 24, 2008, 3/24/2008 07:26:00 AM

Turnabout? Fair Play? Americans Stealing Russian Oil Trade Secrets?

A man-bites-dog story from the Times of India, concerning economic espionage with the Americans and British allegedly stealing Russian trade secrets.

Russia's internal security agency announced the arrest of two Russian-Americans for their alleged involvement in economic espionage, a day after the raids on the offices of British oil major BP.

The agency, Russia's FSB, claimed that the duo was "illegally gathering secret commercial information for the benefit of several foreign oil and gas companies, in order to give them advantages over Russian competitors."

The FSB said charges were brought against the Zaslavsky brothers on March 18 and next day police seized documents from the central office of the TNK-BP, one of the largest crude producers in Russia. The Moscow office of British oil major BP was also raided by police.

The FSB may not be the most reliable agency, so let's take this one with a grain of salt for now.
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