10 Nov 2024
‘Rail Baltic’ which was supposed to cost 6 billion euros will now cost 24 billion euros and it’s delayed for years. This is probably because of Latvia’s ‘Construction Cartel’ (Skonto) which has openly overcharged Latvia continuously since 1991 for all infrastructure construction. For example Riga’s South Bridge in 2008 cost 200 million euros to build plus 600 million euros stolen for a total cost of 800 million euros funded by a loan from Parex Bank in cooperation with Deutsche Bank where the first loan payment was due 5 years after the loan was extended and during those 5 years the loan wasn’t included in Latvia’s debt calculation. This clear fraud to benefit the Skonto KGB oligarchs was similar to a 2-billion-euro 2008 fraud which benefitted the Parex KGB oligarchs when they embezzled the bank’s assets. Seems nobody in the EU is aware what’s happening since nobody got prosecuted and no stolen money was recovered and now the EU is funding a larger project where the money will go to the same crooks and Latvia will falsify its already-unrepayable debt even more.
In Russia’s shadow: The Baltics wait for Europe’s strategic new railway
