Jordan’s wealthĪccording to Forbes, Jordan is a “self-made” billionaire who “cut his teeth in investing” in Moscow in the 1990s. And though richer or more prominent tycoons might have been more likely to be influenced by the government in some way, Jordan’s fortune may have been just small enough to stay under the Kremlin’s radar, Åslund added. While Jordan earned himself a reputation as “the ugly face of western capitalism in Russia in the 1990s” and was certainly politically active in Putin’s first term – “What he did for Putin with NTV in 20 was ugly,” Åslund said – Jordan has since kept a lower profile, staying out of politics and away from sensitive industries such as oil and gas, precious metals, and defense. “I find it difficult to go after people like ,” said Anders Åslund, an economist, former adviser to Boris Yeltsin and the former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, and author of the book Russia’s Crony Capitalism: From Market Economy to Kleptocracy.
Other experts on Russia and kleptocracy take a softer line than Shelley. This is a criticism that can be applied to Curaleaf as much as to any number of other US and international businesses. Photograph: Joseph Kaczmarek/REX/Shutterstock While western firms doing business in Russia – and public spectacles such as the seizure of sanctioned oligarchs’ luxury yachts – have captured public attention, Shelley says, the historical movement of oligarchic capital into the US, UK and other western democracies has received less scrutiny.Ĭustomers at the Curaleaf dispensary in Bellmawr, New Jersey. This is cash that flows from Russia with government approval – and, in some cases, a government cut – to western banks and investment vehicles based in countries with rule of law. The political realities in Russia qualify fortunes acquired and maintained since Putin’s ascent to power as what Shelley calls “oligarchic capital”.
Speaking generally, Shelley, a professor at George Mason University in Washington DC, said: “Nobody has made money in Russia without, at the minimum, an accord or an accommodation with the Kremlin.”. ‘Oligarchic capital’Īccording to Louise Shelley, the founder and executive director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center and an expert in the flow of capital in and from Russia, there is reason to look closely at any business with historical financial links with Russian money. Yet the sources of its capital have not been closely scrutinized. With licenses throughout the country, Curaleaf is positioned to eat a lion’s share of the US cannabis market, estimated to grow to $75bn by 2030.
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