Russian Intelligence Operations

From RAGEPATH Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search

1970s: Soviet Agents Were Seeded Among Jewish Emigrants

  • 1988: The Soviet Union’s intelligence service (KGB) often recruited criminals to emigrate under the cover of its program allowing Russian Jews to emigrate to Israel according to prominent Soviet dissident Anatoly Sharansky. “During his years of imprisonment, Soviet dissident Anatoly Sharansky chanced to meet a Russian criminal, a professional con artist who was pursuing a bizarre goal: Despite the rigors of prison life, he was diligently studying English in hopes of emigrating to America--to ply his trade as a swindler. America, he declared, was a land of easy pickings. Three of his friends were already there. ‘But how will you get there?’ asked the astonished Sharansky, who knew first-hand how hard it is for Russians to get permission to leave their homeland. ‘You aren't Jewish.’ ‘The KGB will help me,’ the confident swindler replied. The Soviet secret police had helped his friends get to the United States by obtaining exit visas to Israel, he said, and he expected the same.” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)
  • Many of these emigres from the Soviet Union were members of ethnic minority groups who were granted a right to leave the Soviet Union in order to migrate to their “historic homelands.” “Under Soviet law, members of ethnic and national minority groups who have relatives in the West are theoretically allowed to emigrate to their ‘historic homeland.’ Soviet Jews make up by far the most prominent group seeking to take advantage of this rule, but ethnic Germans, Armenians and others are also sometimes allowed to leave. Jews get permission to go to Israel but most now come instead to the United States, where they also have relatives. Some of these emigres embark on or continue lives of crime here as part of groups known to U.S. law enforcement officials as ‘the Russian Mafia’ and ‘Russian Jews.’ In fact, although they are often associated with the Italian Mafia, the Russian gangs are themselves not well organized, the officials say.” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)
  • A report by the a Presidential Commission on Organized Crime found that “a significant number of criminals […] were forced to leave Russia” under the guise of ethnic emigration, especially under the Soviet Union’s program for Jewish emigration. “According to a report by the President's Commission on Organized Crime, the more than 200,000 Soviet immigrants who arrived over the last two decades ‘included a significant number of criminals who were forced to leave Russia.’ It suggested that by means of Jewish emigration: ‘The Soviet Union attempted to empty their prisons and rid their society of undesirables, much as (Cuba's) Fidel Castro did several years later during the Mariel boatlift.... Some agents of the KGB were included among the large numbers of Russian emigres.... (A) possible connection (exists) between the KGB and Russian immigrants now involved in organized crime here.’ ‘Approximately 12 Russian organized crime groups’ exist in New York, with other groups in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, Dallas, Portland, Boston, Miami and San Francisco,’ the commission said.” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)
  • Israeli officials arrested and charged one Russian émigré with spying for the KGB who had become an international businessman and even held a seat in the Israeli parliament (Knesset). “Western counterintelligence agencies have long suspected that the KGB ‘salted’ the emigres with their agents. One such plant was uncovered in December in Israel when authorities arrested Shabtai Kalmanovich, 46, and alleged that he had spied for 14 years. During that time he had worked briefly for a member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) and, during a period in which he worked as an international businessman, he reportedly helped in at least one U.S.-Soviet spy trade.” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)
  • Two Russian immigrants from the Soviet Union were convicted of espionage in 1985, along with an FBI agent assigned to monitor them whom they recruited to work for the KGB. “In the most celebrated American case involving the KGB and Soviet emigres, Nikolai Ogorodnikov, 55, and his wife Svetlana, 36, were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in 1985, along with renegade FBI man Richard W. Miller in Los Angeles. Miller, whose FBI duties consisted of surveillance of the Russian community, was allegedly recruited by the Ogorodnikovs to work as a KGB agent. Nikolai Ogorodnikov, who said he had changed his name from Wolfson, pleaded guilty at the trial and was sentenced to eight years, but now proclaims his innocence. In an interview in the Federal Correctional Institution in Phoenix, he denied having been recruited by the KGB but admitted spending over 10 years in Soviet prisons on six criminal charges, mostly burglary, before coming to the United States in 1973.” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)
  • Ogorodnikov’s prosecutor speculated that the Soviet spy, who was allegedly Jewish but actually deeply anti-Semitic, had either been recruited by the KGB before leaving the Soviet Union or had voluntarily approached the KGB to earn permission to return to the Soviet Union. “U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner, who prosecuted the case, in an interview offered two possible explanations for Ogorodnikov's ties to the KGB: ‘He was planted before he left the Soviet Union,’ and he might have been given a Jewish identity as a cover. ‘The FBI indicated that he (Ogorodnikov) was anti-Semitic,’ Bonner said. Or alternatively, Bonner speculated, Ogorodnikov was allowed to emigrate because of his criminal record. Once here, Ogorodnikov had a change of heart and ‘intensely’ wanted to return to the Soviet Union, where his mother still lives, and ‘had to earn it’ by serving the KGB, Bonner suggested.” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)
  • The Soviet Union created a large network of unsophisticated spies, whom they relied upon for a broad range of low-sensitivity objectives. “Neither of the Ogorodnikovs seemed educated or stable enough for elaborate espionage work, but the Soviet intelligence agency would want a network of relatively unsophisticated helpers in the Los Angeles area, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Russell Hayman, the co-prosecutor in the case. ‘The Soviets don't have legal spies (those working as diplomats of an embassy or consulate) to service this community,’ Hayman said. ‘They have to rely on illegals or agents they recruit.’” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)
  • A Presidential commission on organized crime warned that Soviet emigrants engaged in organized crime had entered a number of fields and had stolen $2.7 million from American Express alone through credit card fraud in 1984. “The Organized Crime Commission and various federal and local law enforcement agencies said Soviet emigrants engaged in crime here often steal jewelry, furs, electronics equipment and sporting goods, although incidents of drug trafficking, extortion and fraud were also found. The American Express Co. lost $2.7 million in nine months of 1984 alone in credit card fraud to Russian gangs, the commission reported. A company spokesman declined to provide an up-to-date figure, saying such information is normally not made public. The Russians are ‘intelligent, professional criminals’ who, having experienced Soviet police and prisons, do not fear U.S. authorities, it reported. Many law enforcement officials confirmed this view, and Ogorodnikov said his Phoenix prison was ‘a kindergarten’ compared to Soviet jails.” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)
  • Criminal emigrants from the Soviet Union reportedly forged cooperative ties with New York’s preexisting Italian crime families, especially the Genovese family and the Colombo family. “Russian gangs in New York have been linked to the Genovese Mafia family in insurance fraud and drug deals, and with the Colombo family in New York and Pennsylvania conspiracies to evade tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in gasoline taxes through a series of bogus companies. Michael Franzese, a movie producer with ties to the Mafia who is now serving 10 years for racketeering, was implicated in the case in 1986. But it appears that the Russian gangs use the Mafia networks to distribute their stolen merchandise—‘they are Russian, after all; undisciplined,’ said an emigre who has contacts with the Brooklyn gangs.” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)
  • Criminal emigrants from the Soviet Union were linked to a series of brutal attacks on construction sites in Paramus New Jersey. “Another group, caught during a Paramus, N.J., robbery in August, was led by a Soviet emigrant from Kiev, Mikhail Khait, 37, who was quickly bailed out by a Mafia lawyer. Nine days later, after being questioned by the FBI, he was found dead in suspicious circumstances in Brooklyn. Local police suspect he was killed to silence him, although the FBI said he died of a cocaine overdose. While often sophisticated in their techniques, the Khait gang hit four Paramus stores using the same brute force method: smashing huge holes in the outside walls of buildings which were either being expanded or next to a construction site. ‘They had enough tools to field a whole crew,’ said Paramus Police Chief Joseph J. Delaney.” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)
  • Law enforcement officials in Brooklyn claimed that criminal elements among the Soviet émigré community often targeted other emigrants living in Brooklyn’s Russian-speaking ethnic enclaves. “Honest and hard-working Soviet emigres, who form the vast majority of the community, are the main prey of Russian criminals who practice extortion and protection rackets, according to the Brooklyn district attorney's office. But cracking down on these criminals is difficult. In part this is because the criminals are less concerned with arrest and imprisonment than American criminals. ‘Some of these guys have known beatings, torture, in the Soviet Union, and our police treat them with kid gloves compared to the Russian cops,’ said one district attorney's aide.” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)
  • American diplomatic officials eagerly accepted Russian emigrants, despite difficulties determining previous criminal history, due to other national interest concerns. “Part of the reason that Soviet criminals enter the United States freely is that Soviet authorities refuse to provide criminal files on emigres, and U.S. authorities waive the requirement for detailed explanations of arrests in such cases. Ruth Van Heuven, spokeswoman for the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, which issues entry visas, said: ‘It is not possible for people coming from the Soviet Union to get copies of their police or criminal records (for submission with their applications). The requirement is waived for them’ if they come directly from the Soviet Union.” (Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1988)

Former Soviet Spies Established Business Near Trump

This is a lead that hasn't yet been followed: CTC International Group, a business employing former CIA and KGB agents, established an office on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach near Trump Plaza. “The spies are coming in from the cold ... to sunny West Palm Beach. Who can blame them? With no Cold War to fight, they have to do something, and they're doing it on Clematis Street. Fred Rustmann, formerly of the CIA, has formed CTC International Group, not to spy in the James Bond sense, but to collect business intelligence. Let's say you have a company and want to expand into another country. Fred's crew will go in, do risk management and analyze the market. If Eastern Europe is your target, no problem. Ex-KGB agents work for him, too.” (Palm Beach Post, December 6, 1995)

Trump Doxxed by Russian Hackers?

  • Hackers using an obsolete web domain previously reserved for sites based in the Soivet Union released personal information of Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and FBI Director Robert Mueller. “Hacker(s?) on the website exposed.su have either doxxed or hacked directly into celebrity private info, publishing photos, credit reports, mortgage details, Social Security numbers, etc. And now, says the FBI, the louts are ‘using’ the info. Exactly how, not saying. Targeted celebs: Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and, irony, FBI Director Robert Mueller, plus Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Mel Gibson, Ashton Kutcher, Joe Biden, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck. Notice that .su suffix? It used to be used for Soviet Union sites. Hmm. exposed.su started posting the info Monday. LAPD and FBI say they've been on it for a while and still are on it.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, March 13, 2013)