[4] As more of Russia's industry was privatized, Trans World bought stakes in the country's largest smelters, to prevent the rise of competitors which also might be interested in signing tolling deals.
[4][6] When the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Factory, Russia's second-largest, refused to enter an agreement with Trans-World, the director of the plant began to receive threats.
[7] Trans-World eventually took control of the Krasnoyarsk smelter in cooperation with Anatoly Bykov,[1] described by the New York Times as "one of Russia's most infamous mobsters".
[1] In June 2000, an investigation into Trans-World's business was published in Fortune magazine; the article remarked that the company's history was filled with "more than a few corpses".
[3] Fortune's findings were mirrored in the pages of the Financial Times, which in a 2000 article similarly noted that struggles over the control of the Krasnoyarsk smelter had resulted in dozens of murders.
[11] While noticing that the victims included both allies and competitors of Trans-World, the story stressed that David Reuben "angrily denies any hint that they or their partners had any role in the violence".