Public Intelligence

As tremors of distrust resonate throughout Russia due to widely-believed allegations of fraud in Sunday’s Parliamentary elections, new research reveals that US$501.3 billion in illicit money has left the country in the ten years (2000-2009) following Vladimir Putin’s rise to power. The forthcoming report, Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries over the Decade Ending 2009 , is to be published next week by Global Financial Integrity (GFI). To make matters worse, The Wall Street Journal reports that Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has predicted net capital flight upwards of US$85 billion for this year, further adding to the illicit component of GFI’s estimates.

Ten surveillance videos released by the FBI regarding the investigation into the so-called “Illegals Program”, a network of accused Russian spies operating unofficially in the U.S. from the late 1990s to 2010.

This “previously confidential list of people and organizations found to be involved in laundering money and funding terrorism” was presented by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the Russian-government owned newspaper. It was originally compiled by the Russian Ministry of Justice.

This “previously confidential list of people and organizations found to be involved in laundering money and funding terrorism” was presented by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the Russian-government owned newspaper. It was originally compiled by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Israel’s military attaché in Moscow was arrested and expelled earlier this week, it was revealed on Wednesday, with sources saying that the top Israel Defense Forces officer was questioned over espionage suspicions. Colonel Vadim Leiderman was arrested during a May 12 meeting in a restaurant, in what appeared to be a violation of his diplomatic immunity. He was then questioned for a few hours, released, and subsequently deported. Leiderman, who was born in the Soviet Union, has a doctorate in engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. He was a member of the Israel Air Force (IAF) technical corps, and spent some years working for the IAF in America.

Switzerland has opened a money- laundering probe at the request of Hermitage Capital Management Ltd., the first criminal investigation outside Russia linked to the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison. The allegations involving a former Russian tax official are the most recent lodged by Hermitage founder William Browder as he asks authorities around the world to sanction officials he blames for Magnitsky’s death. The lawyer, who alleged Interior Ministry officials fraudulently collected a $230 million tax refund using documents seized from Hermitage, died in 2009 after a year in pre-trial detention. “It’s been impossible to get any kind of real criminal investigation in Russia,” Browder said yesterday by phone. “It’s highly significant that a Western law enforcement agency is taking this seriously and is launching an investigation.”

The number of corruption-related crimes involving top government officials and large bribes increased 100% in 2010 year-on-year, Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said on Thursday. “Criminal proceedings were launched against some 10,000 officials, one-third of them were started for taking brides,” Nurgaliyev said at a session of a Russian presidential council for combating corruption. More than 20 top Russian officials were brought to trial last year compared with half that number in 2009. “Such cases almost doubled,” Nurgaliyev said adding that corruption remains an issue of concern despite efforts taken by the government. Nurgaliyev said the Russian Interior Ministry plans to speed up efforts to combat corruption. He said the main focus will be made on detecting corruption-related crimes among businessmen and also ministry officials themselves.

Six issues of the Open Source Center’s Russia “Cyber Focus” report with dates ranging from August 2009-June 2010.

On Oct. 10, to celebrate its 65th anniversary as a one-party state, North Korea unveiled a new missile in the type of military parade that for decades has been a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. The North Koreans call the missile the Musudan. The Musudan is now playing a starring role in reports this week prompted by WikiLeaks’ release of U.S. diplomatic cables. One of the documents says that Iran has obtained 19 of the missiles from North Korea, prompting news reports suggesting that the Islamic republic can hit targets in Western Europe and deep into Russia – farther than Iran’s existing missiles can strike.

Suspected international arms dealer Viktor Bout is claiming that he was pressured by U.S. authorities to confess on his extradition flight from Thailand to the United States, a deputy spokesman for Russia’s foreign ministry said Thursday. Spokesman Alexei Sazonov told reporters at a news briefing in Moscow that Russian officials will closely monitor the charge and “respond accordingly.” Deputy Russian Consul General Andrei Yushmanov told state media that Bout told him that he was subjected to “professional psychological pressure” during his extradition flight, Russia’s official news agency ITAR-TASS reported Thursday. Bout is now in U.S. custody awaiting trial on charges that he agreed to sell millions of dollars of weapons to a Colombian narco-terrorist organization. He pleaded not guilty Wednesday in a U.S. courtroom in New York to four counts of terror-related crimes.

Masked Men Raid Billionaire Alexander Lebedev, Rusnano Building in Moscow (Bloomberg):
Masked police raided offices of a bank controlled by billionaire Alexander Lebedev, the Kremlin critic who owns the Novaya Gazeta opposition weekly in Moscow and Britain’s Evening Standard and Independent newspapers.
The search of Lebedev’s National Reserve Bank was part of an “ongoing criminal investigation,” police [...]

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin blamed extremists “without souls, without hearts” for a suicide car bombing that killed 17 people Thursday in the crowded central market of a city in the North Caucasus. It was the fourth terrorist attack at the market in a decade, and while no one claimed responsibility, the Kremlin has been trying to contain Islamic militancy in the mountainous southern region of Russia. Nearly 140 were wounded in the bombing in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, with about a half-dozen hospitalized in very serious condition.

Intelligence officials have expressed their bemusement at details of the alleged ring following the arrest of eleven alleged secret agents including ‘femme fatale’ Anna Chapman. Two of the alleged agents organised a ‘drop’ at a park in Arlington, near Washington, in which one placed $5,000 in cash in an envelope hidden in a folded newspaper and left it for collection by the other. The package was intercepted by the FBI.

Alaska State Trooper Russian Criminal Tattoos Guide, 2001.

Kyrgyzstan’s interim government said on Tuesday it had charged the country’s ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev with “mass killing” and has formally prepared an extradition request. Belarus took in Bakiyev last week after he fled in the aftermath of a bloody revolt. Moscow made clear he was not welcome in Russia.

(U/FOUO) According to Russian government and open source reporting, two female suicide bombers attacked two trains on the Moscow metro on 29 March by detonating improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that were worn on their bodies. Initial reporting indicates 38 people may have been killed and 102 injured.

Bombings(U) Moscow, Russia –Two female suicide bombers detonated explosives in Moscow’s subway system.

(U) Facts:
–(U) Two unidentified female suicide bombers detonated explosives in Moscow’s subway system
–(U) Explosions occurred on 29 March at Lubyanka and Park Kultury train stations in downtown Moscow at approximately 0800 and 0845 local Moscow time (2400 & 0045 EDT)
–(U) Preliminary reports indicate 37 killed, 102 injured
–(U) Russian media reports that an unexploded suicide belt was discovered at Park Kultury Station(U) No group has claimed responsibility at this time. However, Doku Umarov, a self-proclaimed Chechen militant leader, posted an Internet video warning of potential attacks in Russia in February.

Russian officials said two suicide bombings in the southern province of Dagestan have killed at least twelve people, including two policemen. In Wednesday’s attacks, a suicide bomber detonated explosives in the town of Kizlyar near Dagestan’s border with Chechnya, when police tried to stop the bomber’s car, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said in televised comments. “Traffic police followed the car and almost caught up — at that time the blast hit,” Nurgaliyev said. He said the deadly cargo was headed for the center of Kizlyar. There was a school and law enforcement building nearby.

Female suicide bombers detonated explosions that rocked two subway stations in central Moscow during rush hour on Monday morning, killing at least 35 people, officials said. “It was a terrorist act carried out by the female suicide bombers,” said Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, citing Russia’s intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service. “They were specifically timed — for … the train was nearing the station — to make the most damage. “The blast was caused by 300 to 400 grams of explosives,” he said.

The United States and Russia have reached a deal on their most extensive nuclear arms-control agreement in nearly two decades, the Kremlin announced Wednesday. The pact appeared to represent President Obama’s first victory in his ambitious agenda to move toward a nuclear-free world. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) would replace a 1991 pact that expired in December. Experts called the new agreement the most significant arms-control accord since the 1993 signing of START II, which the Russians never ratified.

India signed five deals Friday to purchase more than $7 billion in hardware and expertise from Russia, including an aircraft carrier, a fleet of MIG-29 fighters, defense and space technology and at least 12 civilian nuclear reactors. On the minds of both parties, analysts said, was a nation not present at the signing. “China will be the ghost in the room,” wrote analyst C. Raja Mohan in an opinion piece this week in the Indian Express.

Valery Yarynich glances nervously over his shoulder. Clad in a brown leather jacket, the 72-year-old former Soviet colonel is hunkered in the back of the dimly lit Iron Gate restaurant in Washington, DC. It’s March 2009—the Berlin Wall came down two decades ago—but the lean and fit Yarynich is as jumpy as an informant dodging the KGB. He begins to whisper, quietly but firmly.

9P113
NICKNAME: LUNA-M
NATO NAME: FROG-7
CHASSIS: ZIL-135L4.
RANGE: 70000 m.

Amid ongoing tensions over North Korean missile activities, Russia has set up a third missile unit fitted with the S-400 defense system close to its eastern borders. “We have deployed an S-400 battalion [in the Far East] already,” Head of Russian General Staff, Nikolay Markov was quoted by Russia Today as saying on Wednesday.