Russian banks offer reward for banker's killers

MOSCOW, Sep 15 (Reuters) Russia's bankers offered a big reward today for information on the killers who gunned down a top central bank official.

Despite launching a major manhunt, police said they had no firm suspects in the contract killing of Andrei Kozlov, 41, a crusader against money laundering.

Kozlov died yesterday in hospital, hours after being ambushed as he left an amateur football match.

''We are checking painstakingly his contacts, links and acquaintances to establish if he had received any threats or whether he had been in any conflict with someone,'' an investigator told Itar-Tass news agency.

Police were examining the discarded murder weapons -- two gas pistols equipped with silencers, one of which broke off.

The killing of Kozlov, first deputy Central Bank chairman, was the highest profile assassination in Moscow in President Vladimir Putin's six years in power and alarmed Russia's financial world.

The country's banking association announced a special fund to help the manhunt, promising big money if the killers were found.

''There will be sizeable rewards paid. But we are deliberately not naming the sum,'' association head Garegin Tosuynyan told a news conference. ''We will do everything we can to find out who did this.'' Well known in international financial circles, Kozlov had been closing fly-by-night commercial banks suspected of money laundering and other crimes.

Government ministers paid tribute to his bravery and commitment.

But Putin, on holiday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, maintained silence on the affair despite a growing clamour from Russia's establishment for the assassins to be tracked down.

''Only the inevitability of punishment can ensure respect for the authorities,'' said a draft statement by the State Duma, parliament's lower house.

EASY PREY News reports said Kozlov, a father of three, had been cavalier about his own protection, often moving around without bodyguards, and was easy prey for the killers who ambushed him as he walked to his Mercedes car on Wednesday night.

Anatoly Aksakov, an old friend in the Duma, was quoted by Vedomosti newspaper as saying he once met Kozlov coming out of the theatre one evening without a bodyguard.

''I was even glad that in our country a man taking part in such a tough business (as selecting banks for licences) could calmly walk in the street. Now it appears I was wrong,'' he said.

Police quoted by newspapers said the attack, in which Kozlov's driver was shot dead on the spot, had been planned for months.

The killers appeared to have crawled through holes in a fence at the stadium to gain entry and waited for their victim to come out of the stadium where he had been attending an amateur soccer match between bank employees.

They pumped bullets into him and his driver as they walked to their car, shooting Kozlov in the forehead as he lay on the ground wounded, according to Kommersant newspaper.

Many high-profile contract assassinations -- a feature of post-Soviet life -- have remained unsolved. And in cases where killers have been brought to justice those who ordered the ''hit'' have often remained at large.

One banking analyst said there were people at the Central Bank who were ready to pick up the torch from Kozlov -- but they needed adequate security protection.

''This is a point in time where the government and the security services can demonstrate to the world that Russia has become a different place,'' said the analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

''If they (the authorities) are robust and resolute in their response, then there are people in the central bank who will step up to the plate. But they need to feel protected,'' he said.

REUTERS AB BST1631