signed by Richard Nixon, with "finishing off the Mafia" as the familiar pretext. Since all it has to do is to establish a pattern of criminal activity, RICO is popular with prosecutors. In civil cases it imposes a triple penalty - hence the escalation from $7.5bn to $22.5bn.

The public posture of BNY has been to slight the Russian case, insisting that the RICO law can't be be used in cases outside US jurisdiction and that if a Russian kangaroo court - it's the same one (Basmanny) that did in the oil company Yukos - finds BNY guilty, the Russian Customs Service will never be able to collect.

But as court proceedings got under way in Moscow this year, BNY had some nasty jolts. The man who actually wrote the RICO law, G Robert Blakey, filed an affidavit supporting the Russians, and flew to Moscow to testify. Prof Alan Dershowitz similarly filed a supportive affidavit. The lawyers will reassemble in the Moscow court on July 28 when Blakey thinks there will be a settlement out of court. BNY, meanwhile, keeps an anxious eye on its share price.

Aside from trying to get their money back, the Russians want to send a strong signal that looting the Federation and exporting the proceeds is no longer a risk-free option. These sorts of signals do have an effect. Fearful of being grabbed on charges of war crimes, Henry Kissinger is still careful in the jurisdictions he visits, as no doubt will be George Bush and Dick Cheney, once they quit office.