Federal troops cannot catch Shamil Basayev because he is a well-off man. The special services report that ethnic Chechen businessmen from St Petersburg to Tyumen make donations or pay tribute to him. The federals cannot buy Basayev's head even for [the bounty of] 10m dollars because Chechens do not believe a single word of theirs. And no-one in Chechnya will give a penny for the life of the informer who will have guts to do this.Judging by his interviews to the electronic media, Basayev tries to dissociate himself from Al-Qa'idah whenever he can and says that he does not receive any centralized financial assistance from it and mainly collects money in Russia, from Chechen policemen, businessmen, from robbery and racket. Naturally, he uses different terms such as "trophies", "donations" and "protection money". Of course, one does not feel inclined to believe Basayev's words, especially the electronic ones, but what he says is generally confirmed by special service troops who operate in Chechnya.
"From the point of view of geography of his influence, Basayev is more successful than anyone else," an anonymous high-ranking counterintelligence officer, who has already been mentioned in previous articles, told me. "He used to reach Moscow and send 'producers' to St Petersburg. He does recruiting and financial work in the Diaspora of the central and European regions of Russia. His people travel to Siberia. There is a lot of money there, say in Tyumen Region which is rich in oil and gas. And there are plenty of Chechens in this business there. Basayev takes money precisely from them. Of course, he does this neither personally, nor through people from his entourage, but through a third party. I mean through relatives of Chechens who live in Chechnya but who have relatives in other regions.