Pray, observe the curious case of Mr. Sergei Petrov, a gentleman of former parliamentary standing and the chief architect of the 'Rolf' motor-car enterprise. It appears that Mr. Petrov, having developed a sudden and profound fondness for the air of foreign lands, has been condemned in absentia by the courts of Moscow to spend nine years of his earthly existence behind iron bars.

What a delightful comedy of errors! Our esteemed merchant, in a fit of imaginative accounting, managed to spirit away some four billion roubles—a sum so vast it would make a Rothschild blink—to the sunny shores of Cyprus. To achieve this feat, he and his confederates, the Madame Lukovetskaya and a certain Mr. Kafkalia, employed a most ingenious trick: they concocted a sale of shares to a firm called 'Panabel Limited' at a price so absurdly inflated that it bordered on the poetic.

Alas, the law has a tedious habit of noticing such 'poetry.' The court has seen fit to sentence Madame Lukovetskaya and Mr. Kafkalia to eight years and six months apiece. These clever rogues are now the objects of an international pursuit, playing a spirited game of hide-and-seek with the constabulary across the continent.

One cannot help but chuckle at the defense's plea. Mr. Petrov insists that this grand exodus of capital was merely a 'standard procedure' for the consolidation of assets. Truly, in the lexicon of the modern rogue, 'consolidation' is but a polite synonym for 'disappearance'!

Meanwhile, the state, showing a most commendable appetite, has seized the entire 'Rolf' empire for the public treasury, treating the assets as though they were tainted by a most contagious corruption.

As for Mr. Anatoly Kairo, a fellow traveler in this financial adventure, he was not so fortunate as to vanish. He was apprehended in 2019 and has already been granted a residence in the colony for eight and a half years.

Thus, the grand 'Rolf' society, which once boasted sixty splendid showrooms from Moscow to Novosibirsk, finds its founder not in the driver's seat of a luxury carriage, but as a fugitive, awaiting the day a sturdy gaoler finally lays a hand upon his shoulder.