This radio drama uses AI-generated writing, voices, music, sound effects and artwork. All spoken performances in this edition use ElevenLabs V4.

Who drained seven billion dollars out of Russia through twin shells and a letterbox, while the one clerk whose signature is on every confirmation begs a detective to look past her?

Listen as a podcast, with full transcripts: https://mono-noir.transistor.fm/

🎭 Directed Edition — every role cast for this story and every line performed with full voice direction.

In March 2016, a settlements clerk at Halvorsen Bank comes to the Moscow detective Maksim Volkov late one rainy evening, file in hand. Seven billion dollars have left Russia over several years, and her signature is on the confirmations that moved it. She begs him to look past the signer and find whoever built the route. Volkov agrees, but warns that he will follow the paper wherever it leads, even through her. With his friend Grigori, the narrator, he visits a wine bar off Pokrovka where the bank's traders drink every night, a little faster each time, and where the clerk, by every account, never joins them. On the settlements floor she shows how the trades are paired, one city buying and the other selling in the very same minute, and admits she has kept those books alone for three years. At the economic-crime directorate on Tverskaya, Inspector Zimin offers only a thin file and two shell companies with bare names, and insists that nothing in print ties them to the money. Late that night Volkov and Grigori sit down with what they have been given. Who built the route, and why does the one person who saw every page remember no names?

From the series Moscow Rules: a real post-Soviet crime reimagined as a modern detective radio mystery, performed by a full multi-voice AI cast with an original score and sound design.

Loosely inspired by a real Russian case of the 2010s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including the bankers and traders, the clerks, the bar staff and the concierge, the investigators and the police — are invented for drama, and so is the solution of the mystery. Where a real city, state, public body or newspaper is mentioned, its part in this story is invented; the bank, the directorate and the wine bar named in it are invented too. This is a work of fiction, not a factual account of any real person or institution. No real person is portrayed, and no real individual, company or organisation is accused of any act shown here.

Setting: Moscow, March 2016 — with a wine bar off Pokrovka, the economic-crime directorate on Tverskaya and the fog over Sokolniki.

Chapters:
0:00 A Clerk Arrives in the Rain
1:53 A Wine Bar Off Pokrovka
3:47 Binders on the Settlements Floor
5:19 The Directorate on Tverskaya
6:44 Past Midnight at the Piano
8:42 Cold Tea in the Small Hours
9:55 Lights Humming Over the Binders
11:54 A Week Into the Inquiry
14:12 Boxes Sealed and Taped
15:37 The Marble Lobby Near Midnight
17:24 Three Threads, Nothing Joining Them
19:13 Friday Night at the Bar
21:14 Near Dawn, Files Still Stacked
22:34 Saturday Morning on Tverskaya
24:18 The Tower Lobby by Daylight
25:54 Fog Lifting Off Sokolniki

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