There is nothing illegal about such dealings, and Russia is an attractive emerging market. The country has drawn $45 billion in Western capital so far this year. And as Mr. Shvartsman’s foray into Silicon Valley, presumably in search of investment opportunities for his funds, showed, Russians are also stepping up their investment abroad of tens of billions of dollars, part of the country’s windfall from high oil prices.

It could also be argued that the role former members of the intelligence services play in business here is similar to the outsize role the Chinese Army plays in businesses there.

Currently serving security service employees are prohibited from working outside the service, according to Gennadi V. Gudkov, a member of parliament and a former K.G.B. agent.

Only, according to an old Russian axiom, no one ever leaves the service. Mr. Putin himself said in his 2000 presidential campaign, using a post-1917 revolution name for K.G.B. precursors, that “there is no such thing as a former Chekist.”

In the interview published in the newspaper Kommersant, Mr. Shvartsman described other fund investors as “not the leadership of the presidential administration, but members of their families.” And he boasted that his ties to the secret police helped his company, the FinansGroup, buy businesses in Russia at knock-down prices because business owners, he said, “know where we come from.”

Image A first deputy prime minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, right, speaking with Sergei V. Chemezov, the chairman of Russian Technology. Credit... Natalia Kolesnikova/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Shvartsman suggested that he had F.S.B. backing for corporate raiding, a term that is often more than just a figure of speech in Russia’s bare-knuckle business world.