After the Russian court convicted American basketball player Brittany Greiner of drug smuggling and sent her to 9 years in prison, government officials in the United States and Russia are having a vigilant conversation about an exchange deal that will lead to her release. The state of relations between the two countries leaves no room for doubt: a precedent Naama Issachar and a solution In the form of a unilateral gesture on Putin's part, they will not repeat themselves in this case.
Like other WNBA stars, Greiner chose to play in Europe at the same time as her career in the best women's league in the world, which began back in 2013. Her choice of the Russian UGMK, a wealthy elite club from the city of Yekaterinburg, paid off financially.
According to estimates, of the approximately 5 million dollars the actress earned from basketball during her career, no less than 1.5 million dollars came from the Russian team.
This is not so surprising, if we remember that UGMK under her leadership won the Women's Euroleague 4 times.
Her last flight from Phoenix to Russia in February of this year was also planned for Greiner to help her Russian team in the playoffs of the Women's Euroleague, but instead of basketball halls, she has since seen only detention centers and a few courtrooms.
The fact that this is a famous figure only exacerbates the situation of the basketball player, because the Russians understand that in exchange for her you can redeem a fat fish - or several such, which are banned in the USA. If you had any doubt, none of the potential freedmen are related to the worlds of sports.
The first and main candidate for the prisoner exchange deal being forged these days is Viktor Bot, a retired Soviet officer, and until his arrest, one of the biggest arms dealers in the world.
His business empire armed the warring parties in dozens of armed conflicts around the globe and made him an extremely wealthy man.
American law enforcement officials claimed that his worldwide activities would not have been possible without the patronage of his friends in Russia's security services.
Victor Bott.
Will he be released in exchange for Greiner?, Photo: Reuters
In 2008 Bot was lured to Thailand in order to close a deal to sell arms to rebels in Colombia.
He was arrested by the authorities at the request of the United States, extradited to it two years later despite loud protests from the Russian government, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. After serving about half of the sentence, Greiner's arrest with 0.7 grams of cannabis oil in his bag, may be a lifeline for him.
At least 4 more Russians will compete for the right to go free in exchange for the release of the American basketball player, all of whom have a criminal record that links them to powerful figures in the corridors of power in Russia: Alexander Vinik, known as "Mr. Bitcoin", who founded the virtual crypto exchange, which was used by criminals from all over the world and laundered billions ;
Roman Selezniov, son of a Russian member of parliament and founder of a group of hackers (hackers) that specialized in trading in stolen credit card data;
Vladislav Kalushin, who was accused of trading inside information of huge corporations, which was obtained by hacking into their servers;
Denis Dubnikov, who was engaged in blackmailing people and companies, asked whose computers a spy was implanted.
Which of them will soon see the light of day thanks to the unfortunate Greiner?
It is likely that we will know this in the coming months, after this morning (Monday) the basketball player's lawyers filed an appeal against the sentence, but the court is expected not to accept it.
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