Still the wild east--Russia

It is strictly business, you understand, nothing personal---Canadian Lives to Tell His Tale.

First he had to give up his Mercedes to avoid being killed. Then a man who owed him $1 million tried to kill him, and his girlfriend took out a contract hit on his life. In February, he was kidnapped and forced to pay a ransom of $1.5 million.

Incredibly, businessman Igor Lantsov, who claims to be a victim of circumstance, has not soured on working in Russia and is forging ahead with plans to build several golf courses. Maybe only after that will he go home to Canada.

"I don't walk around with bodyguards, and I don't owe anybody any money. It's strange, but what can you do?" Lantsov said of his recurring troubles.

Moscow city prosecutors on Tuesday charged two men, including a Moscow region police officer, in the February kidnapping of Lantsov, the vice president of the Russian National Association of Professional Golf and a former deputy director of the Kremlin Trading House, which provides food to the Kremlin, Vremya Novostei reported Wednesday...

It may not be like the 90s, though some say it still is, but this sort of thing continues to happen in Russia and here. I think though with the greater openness and transparency the Orange Revolution brought to Ukraine, it will be a harder thing to do from now on.

This also goes to show that unrestrained competition is not what is wanted. Competition must have a basic set of rules that people live by or you will get this sort of thing.