Excerpt from Konstantin Borovoy's book "Russia against USA" (full book available here)
Chapter 11. The FSB Manipulates American Authorities.
Western readers of my book will likely assume that the long arm of the KGB cannot reach them. After all, the main mission of Western governments and law enforcement is to protect their citizens from foreign danger. What possible personal harm can come to a law-abiding Western citizen from the "special security services" of distant Russia?
At least one US citizen's sad but instructive story tells otherwise.
Imagine that you, a US citizen, felt compassion to victims of a terrorist act in Russia and launched a charity project to help them. While gathering information needed to distribute assistance, you learned of a US citizen from Oklahoma who died in this terrorist act in Russia. You also discovered evidence that the Russian authorities simply killed him in cold blood. You then turned this evidence to the US authorities and helped them investigate and prosecute those responsible for his death - who were identified as being the leaders of Russia and its security services.
Must you, a US citizen, now fear retribution from these Russian security services on American soil? Most people will say no - and will be mistaken.
Not only will the FSB avenge your "misconduct", but it will find a way to do so using American law enforcement as its puppets. And FSB's payback will be cruel - you will be accused of terrible crimes and sent to prison for a long time. Not in Russia, but right here, in the US.
Impossible? I thought so too, until I investigated one very real story of a US citizen who met that exact fate.
This amazing story has many twists and turns, making it worthy of a separate book. I plan to write it soon. In the meantime, I will provide a very short version of events to illustrate my point.
Andrew Mogilyansky, a happily married and successful Pennsylvania businessman, learned about a hostage crisis at the Nord-Ost theater in Moscow on October 23, 2002.
Andrew and his wife were especially impressed by the heroic sacrifice of Olga Romanova, a young woman who walked into the theater and demanded the release of women and children. The terrorists killed her on the spot.
A successful businessman and mathematician, Andrew Mogilyansky formed a Foundation to help the victims of this terrorist act on the day the theater is stormed by Russian troops. Everyone participating in the Foundation was a volunteer, all money raised went to the victims.
Andrew was 18 when he emigrated from the Soviet Union. A talented mathematician, by that time he had already published a scientific article that was translated worldwide. In the US, Andrew proceeded to graduate from Columbia University with honors before becoming a businessman.
He had no political goals when he created his Foundation. It was simply an expression of compassion to what was happening in the world, a desire to help the suffering people of the country where he was born.
Using his own resources, he launched the Foundation and gathered a network of volunteers from all over the world. The project was run in a fully transparent fashion: the Foundation's website published daily reports about each dollar raised from donors and each dollar distributed to terror victims.
Andrew paid all expenses out of his pocket, guaranteeing that every penny raised would be distributed.
In a very short time, the Foundation raised several tens of thousands of dollars, and Andrew was distributing this money to the victims. Around the same time, those same victims organized and formed a Russian NGO called "Nord-Ost". Andrew provided significant help by giving the NGO's leaders a large database of Nord-Ost victims and their family members gathered by his Foundation.
At that time, there was a lot of speculation about the sad fate of at least 130 hostages who died while being "freed" in the botched FSB operation to deploy "sleeping gas" into the theater. Putin publicly announced that "the gas was harmless". Authorities tried to shift the blame on lack of ambulances and negligence of medical personnel. However, even if that were true, the number of victims was still inexplicably high.
The newly formed NGO "Nord-Ost" started looking for answers:
- Who gave the order to storm the building and use the gas?
- Why did so many people die?
- Was the gas really harmless, as Putin claimed, or was it poisonous?
- Why hundreds of surviving victims who inhaled the "harmless" gas were left with lifelong disabilities: failing lungs, kidneys, liver, brain, other organs?
The first question was answered by Putin himself: no negotiation with terrorists, he and the FSB Chairman Nikolai Patrushev personally ordered the use of the gas.
Other questions lingered unanswered for a while. NGO Nord-Ost tried to independently ascertain what gas was used, and in what concentration.
Russian experts refused to cooperate, openly stating their fear of retribution by the FSB.
In mid-2003, leaders of NGO Nord-Ost asked Andrew Mogilyansky to arrange cooperation with experts in America. Not understanding the risk, Andrew agreed to help.
The main expert report, published in the form of a scientific article, was made by Professor Mark Wheelis of University of California - Davis. In his article, Mark Wheelis provided scientific proof that the gas was not "harmless", and that the death of 130-160 people was scientifically assured.
By then, Putin and the FSB openly admitted that they ordered to use a high concentration of the gas, sufficient to put all 900 theatergoers to sleep. This concentration was designed to put to sleep even those that needed the highest dosage. Because of physiological differences between 900 random people, this concentration was guaranteed to kill 15-17% of them. The heart stops, lungs fail, and the person dies.
These statistics were known in advance to those who ordered the gas to be used.
In other words, the death of 130 people and the disability of hundreds of others was not an accident, but a pre-planned "acceptable" sacrifice. It resulted from deliberate use of poisonous gas - a crime of premediated murder.
Among those who died from the poisonous gas was Sandy Alan Booker, a US citizen from Oklahoma. He came to watch the Nord-Ost show together with his fiancée Svetlana Gubareva and her daughter Sasha Letyago. The 14-year old Sasha also died from the gas. Svetlana was the only survivor.
The death of Sandy Booker became subject of an FBI investigation in the US. A grand jury was convened to indict those responsible. Since all the terrorists at Nord Ost had been killed by Russian special forces, the Russian government leaders were the only ones responsible who were still alive. The US authorities considered them responsible on par with the terrorists of killing Sandy Booker.
The expert report obtained by Andrew Mogilyansky was presented by the FBI to the grand jury. Andrew provided his own testimony to the FBI. He also gave FBI investigators contact information of hundreds of previously unknown witnesses, hostages who were in the theater and survived - information the FBI had unsuccessfully sought from the Russian authorities for over a year.
But most importantly, Andrew Mogilyansky arranged for the main witness of Sandy Booker's death, his widow Svetlana Gubareva, to fly from Russia to the US and testify to the Grand Jury. Svetlana was not only a witness to Sandy's death; she was also one of the founders and leaders of NGO Nord-Ost.
Thanks to Mogilyansky, the anti-Putin NGO Nord-Ost was finally heard outside of Russia.
Svetlana publicly thanked Andrew for his help in organizing her visit and testimony. She also announced in interviews with American media that she and NGO Nord-Ost hold Vladimir Putin and the head of the FSB Nikolai Patrushev responsible for the death of all hostages, including Sandy Booker.
Needless to say, the FSB was fuming in anger.
To this day, Andrew Mogilyansky naively insists that he did not want to delve in politics, that he simply ran a charity to assist victims of terrorism.
As the Russian saying goes, if you don't delve into politics, the politics will delve into you.
By that time, Andrew Mogilyansky was already on the FSB's radar. He was receiving threats from Russian security services, overt and anonymous, but did not take them seriously.
What could the FSB do to a law-abiding American citizen?
In 2003, Putin was not killing anyone outside Russia yet. Nor did he yet dare assassinate foreigners who came to Russia. The first real elections in which Putin faced opposition were coming up in March 2004. There were enough scandals already - an assassination of a US citizen at that time could have doomed Putin's chances for re-election.
And so, believing himself to be safe, in early December 2003, a mere three weeks after the FBI and grand jury testimony, Andrew gets on a plane and … flies to Russia. He distributes the last batch of charity assistance to families of Nord-Ost victims. He also brings with him Mark Wheelis' article, describes it in numerous meetings with victim families and the anti-Putin activists of NGO Nord-Ost.
Fantastic carelessness. Andrew doesn't know it yet, but he is already doomed.
At this time, Putin is still uncertain about his victory at the elections coming up in about three months, in March 2004. The gas used at Nord-Ost is one of three main "problems" Putin faces, together with apartment building explosions in 1999 and the submarine Kursk disaster in 2000.
The leaders of NGO Nord-Ost are actively distributing information received from Andrew in late 2003. This information is explosive - it is a "bomb" against the FSB, its leader Nikolai Patrushev and against Putin himself, a scientific proof that the leadership of Russia committed mass murder. Years later this information would be validated at the UN Court for Human Rights in the Hague, in a case that the government of Russia will lose.
Andrew spends two months in Russia and returns to Philadelphia in late January 2004. He does not yet know that he has become the target of a joint "special project" of two of Russia's strongest security services - the FSB and the Federal Protective Service. The latter, also known as the FPS, is the Russian President's personal security service that acts directly under Putin's command.
On September 1, 2004, the first day of school in Russia, the largest-ever terrorist act in Russian history takes place in a small town called Beslan. Over 1,000 schoolchildren and their parents are hereded into a school gym, surrounded by explosives and held hostage for three days. The story of Nord-Ost is repeated almost literally. The government refuses to negotiate, storms the school in a barbaric fashion using heavy military equipment, grenade launchers and tanks.
The consequences are catastrophic - 335 dead including 186 children. Hundreds of others, mostly children, are in hospitals with horrific wounds and burns. The medical treatment of many of them continues to this day…
Andrew Mogilyansky's foundation, a worldwide group of volunteers, begins an assistance project literally on the day of the attack.
The results are astounding - over $1.2 million raised, many children's lives saved, the lives of hundreds of families changed forever by significant financial assistance. The volunteers of Mogilyansky's foundation were distributing emergency assistance bed-to-bed in children's hospitals in Beslan within mere days after the attack.
Doctor Roshal, a famous Russian pediatrician, was so impressed by Andrew Mogilyansky's project that he said, "What this Foundation has done is the best I have ever seen."
Families of the Beslan tragedy form a new NGO called "Mothers of Beslan". The activists begin to ask the same questions as at Nord-Ost:
- Who ordered to storm the school and why?
- Who is responsible for the huge number of victims?
These are the same activists whose families are receiving assistance from Andrew's foundation.
Politics.
Russian security services continue their "project" against Andrew Mogilyansky.
During Andrew's fateful trip to Russia in late 2003, Russian authorities searched the apartment of Andrew's distant acquaintance in Moscow, and accused him of running an illegal escort service / prostitution ring. However, instead of arresting him, they demanded that all of his "employees", the prostitutes, confirm that Mogilyansky had sex with them. This being Russia where contradicting the authorities can be hazardous to health, the girls of course agreed right away and signed anything the FSB placed in front of them.
The joint FSB/FPS project culminates in the decision to accuse Mogilyansky of criminal sex tourism, specifically under American law. In order to do this, it must be proven that during his trip to Russia, Mogilyansky had sex with a prostitute who was under 18 years old. This is a crime under US law.
For good measure, Russian security services produce the testimony of not one, but three prostitutes who all say that Mogilyansky had sex with them in December 2003. Precisely during that same trip when he distributed charity assistance to Nord-Ost victims and explained the nature of Mark Wheelis' article.
In mid-2004, the FSB, laundering its involvement through other straw Russian government organizations, requests that the US government initiate criminal charges against Andrew Mogilyansky for his alleged involvement in the escort service and sex with its underage "employees".
There are no documents, except the testimony of the prostitutes.
Naturally, there is also no physical evidence.
Americans are skeptical about the accusations. They clearly understand why the FSB has suddenly grown such a desire to persecute Mogilyansky.
Nevertheless, the Russians, a special division of the Russian Prosecutor's Office, but actually the FSB and as it was later determined, the FPS, demand the prosecution of Mogilyansky in the US under American law.
The Russians finally arrest the owner of the prostitution service. After lengthy interrogations, he signs a statement confirming the prostitutes' stories. As he later confessed, he did this simply to save his life.
As years go by, the Russians send to US authorities more extensive testimonies of the same three prostitutes, now older, with tear-jerker stories intended to impress American jurors about how Andrew Mogilyansky engaged in criminal sexual conduct with them.
But there is more.
All three prostitutes describe themselves as residents of a government-run orphanage, from which Mogilyansky allegedly drafted them into the escort service.
The FSB/FSO masterminds predicted that American jurors would faint from the sad story of the orphans-turned-prostitutes. What may escape the Western reader is that being a resident of a Russian orphanage means that the Russian government has always had full control over these girls and their testimony.
In 2004, a US consular officer in Russia asked for a meeting with the three alleged victims. During the interview, he unexpectedly took out several pictures and asked the girls to identify which one depicted Mogilyansky. Only one of the three girls guessed the right picture. Not expecting this test, the two others could not "recall" how Mogilyansky looked.
All of this did not convince the Americans to go after Mogilyansky. They knew who they were dealing with and were unwilling to sacrifice a US citizen to let the FSB play its tricks.
But then times changed…
In 2008, the relationship between the US and Russia warmed up significantly. Russia's foreign ministry and the FSB again reach out to the US State Department with a request to arrest Mogilyansky and press charges against him under US law. At the same time, Russian media begins peddling a loud propaganda campaign about "American pedophiles" who go to Russia for sex tourism.
The Americans begin negotiations with the Kremlin. Among other, bigger topics on the agenda are: the worldwide economic crisis, Russia's increased influence in the territory of former USSR, including its effective control over Kyrgyzstan. Located in Kyrgyzstan is Manas, an air base through which the US supplies its forces in northern Afghanistan. The US needs Russia to allow the base to maintain operations. Among Russia's requests is the immediate prosecution Mogilyansky in the US.
Andrew Mogilyansky is arrested in Philadelphia in late 2008. He is not released on bail even though 24 people pledge their houses for his bail.
Mogilyansky, a Jewish president of a foundation assisting victims of terrorism, is placed under 24-hour lockdown in a cell with… a Muslim terrorist. The panic button in the cell that allows to call corrections officers in case of emergency, such as a fight between the two inmates, is turned off. No phone calls, no visits. Mogilyansky is kept in these conditions for nearly two months.
In 2009, the Americans still had illusions about the truthfulness of information coming from Russian security services. The entire world was fighting the biggest economic crisis in history, there was no time for political squabbles. America's newly elected president Barack Obama announced a "reset" of the relationship with Russia, the beginning of a new era of friendship between the two superpowers.
On March 9, 2009, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov a big red button with the mis-spelled word "reset" written on it in Russian. The same day, March 9, 2009, the US prosecutors sent a plea offer to Mogilyansky's defense lawyer.
The hand-eye coordination between different branches of US government had never been better.
In exchange for Mogilyansky's admission of "sex tourism" he is offered a prison term of 7-8 years. If he refuses - an open trial with jurors and well-orchestrated hysterical testimony of formerly underage orphans-turned-prostitutes.
Without the plea deal, Mogilyansky was risking a 120-year sentence.
Alex Goldfarb and dozens of friends urge Andrew not to sign the false admission of guilt, to go to trial and fight. But Andrew's attorney, who is too familiar with the merciless methodology of the Justice Department and the psychology of jurors, states that Andrew could still lose the trial with a high probability of 25%. Despite everything, the tears, sad stories and sincere faces of the professionally coached ex-prostitutes might prove too convincing.
Andrew has a family and three toddlers at home…
Tough choice. A 25% probability of a life sentence or "only" 7 years of prison?
The government's position is expressly cynical. The prosecutor openly tells Mogilyansky's lawyer that the US "promised the Russians a conviction". The 7-8 year sentence is the minimum that the US authorities will accept - after negotiations with their "partners" from Russia.
Andrew Mogilyansky understands that his chances of defeating the two strongest countries in the world and their security services are slim.
He puts the future of his family above everything - and accepts the plea deal.
In a near unprecedented fashion, the plea agreement was approved personally by the US Attorney General Eric Holder. Even Mogilyansky's attorney, himself a former prosecutor, had never heard of a plea deal that had to be approved at such a high level.
At the plea approval hearing before a federal judge, the prosecutor admits in open court that the criminal case against Mogilyansky is very weak because "all evidence is from Russia." All of Mogilyansky's supporters, who filled the entire courtroom, loudly gasped when they heard this. The prosecutor made this statement, perhaps without even realizing how shameful it was for her and the USA as a whole.
After Mogilyansky entered his guilty plea, the US General Consulate in St. Petersburg, Russia threw a celebratory reception in honor of cooperation of US and Russian security services. Toasts were raised to the newly found mutual understanding between the two superpowers.
At the sentencing hearing, the court received 89 letters in support of Mogilyansky. People wrote from all over the world, pleading for justice, pleading for mercy. Victims of terrorism, parents of maimed children, charity activists, business partners, family friends. They all knew the charges to which Mogilyansky plead guilty, and still supported him. This was unprecedented in the entire history of such cases in the US.
The story of Andrew Mogilyansky is not finished. He completed his sentence in an American prison, exactly seven years. His family and dozens of friends visited him almost every day during this entire long ordeal. After his release in 2015, he fully restored his reputation. Today he is surrounded not only by his loving family, but a large circle of friends and business partners who respect him.
Today, knowing what Russian security services are capable of, it is obvious that in 2008-2009 the US criminal justice system committed an unpardonable blunder. The US Justice Department lost its vigilance, failed to properly protect law and order. In the end, Russian security services were permitted to manipulate US prosecutors and courts, undermining the judicial process.
The KGB has not vanished, and its methods for persecuting the "undesirables" have not changed. The long arm of the KGB can "reach out and touch" anyone, even far beyond Russia's borders. Reincarnated as the FSB, FPS, GRU and several other lesser-known branches of Russia's government apparatus, the KGB continues to manage not only terrorist organizations, but also sometimes, when they get especially lucky, even the careless law enforcement and security organizations of Western democracies.