Depending on the amount of weapons they brought back, each of the participants on such a trip would earn from 700 to 2,000 dollars.
The group s final weapon-smuggling operation took place during the first half of August 2000. At that time, the special team was already having problems. First, several of its members disappeared, then another one drowned in the Volga River. In June, Gennady Chugunov, Mikhail Vasiliev and Sergei Tarasiev (their real names) were burnt to death in their car. Morev had been traveling with them in the Zhiguli, but he got out earlier since he had a meeting arranged with his cousin. Before the trip, the Zhiguli had stood for a while at number 38 Petrovka Street.
When he heard about his friends death, Morev first videotaped his testimony as insurance, then left copies of the tape at several different addresses, and got out of Moscow. He was then put on the federal wanted list for ferrying weapons out of Chechnya and attempted murder. Now, Morev wanders around Russia, taking care not to sleep anywhere for more than two nights in a row. But unlike his comrades, he is still alive.
The secret services were also involved in the murder in St. Petersburg on November 20, 1998, of Galina Starovoitova, State Duma deputy and leader of the Russia s Democratic Choice movement, and the wounding of her assistant Ruslan Linkov. While the criminals abandoned the Agran-2000 automatic pistol and the Beretta they used to murder Starovoitova, for some reason, they took the USP pistol, used to wound Linkov in the head, away with them. In November 1999, Konstanin Nikulin, a former soldier of the Riga OMON, was arrested in Latvia. When searched he was found to be carrying a ninemillimeter pistol which forensic examination demonstrated was the one with which Linkov had been wounded.
However, the St. Petersburg UFSB refused to accept this. UFSB press secretary A.
Vostretsov stated that there is at present no information indicating Nikulin s
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involvement with this case. The investigative agencies instead, put forward a financial explanation for Starovoitova s murder, which essentially claimed that several days before the killing took place, a meeting of sponsors of Russia s Democratic Choice had been held in the organization s Moscow office, and they had allocated 890,000 dollars for elections to the legislative assembly in St. Petersburg. The FSB claimed that the money had been handed over to Starovoitova, and she had written out a receipt which was put in the safe at the movement s headquarters. Unfortunately, no one had seen this receipt, since a week after the murder, the Russia s Democratic Choice office was burgled, and Starovoitova s receipt disappeared. Russia s Democratic Choice has always rejected the account of the murder as being motivated by theft.
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Chapter 10
The secret services and abductions Every time we hear about beheadings, we are reminded of the abduction and brutal execution of hostages in Chechnya. Everybody knows that most of the abductions are carried out by Chechen bandits in the hope of extorting ransom. Just how difficult a job it is to get hostages freed can be seen from the well-known case of the abduction of Magomet Keligov. On September 15, 1998, Keligov, who was born in 1955, was kidnapped in the town of Malgobek by a Chechen organized criminal group from UrusMartan, headed by Rizvan Varaev. The group s scout in this case and organizer of the crime was Keligov s neighbor, one of the inhabitants of the town of Malgobek. The kidnappers believed that they would not be identified, and they began sending intermediaries to the Keligov family to convey their demands for a ransom of five million dollars. The Keligovs, however, refused to pay up. The scout was rapidly identified and placed under arrest, and all the members of Varaev s group were identified. Varaev then openly admitted that he was holding Magomet Keligov hostage and demanded the ransom.
The victim s family had resolved not to pay the ransom (they probably didn t have that kind of money anyway). In fact the Keligov family paid for a special state anti-terrorism unit to prepare an operation to capture and eliminate Varaev s band. At 14.00 hours on July 22, 1999, the Keligovs and members of the special unit ambushed members of the gang, who were returning to Urus-Martan from the village of Goiskoe in three automobiles. The column was raked with automatic weapons fire and shelled from grenade-throwers for twenty minutes. Seven members of the gang were killed, and five were wounded. The Keligovs and the members of the special unit then went to Ingushetia, taking with them Aslan Varaev s body and the badly wounded Rizvan Varaev. Rizvan died shortly afterwards, but the Keligovs, nonetheless, announced that the Varaev brothers had only been wounded, and they were willing to exchange them for Magomet Keligov. In the course of subsequent negotiations with spokesmen for Varaev s gang, the Keligovs were forced to admit that Aslan and Rizvan had been killed, but even so, the bandits agreed to exchange Magomet Keligov for the bodies of the two brothers.
The exchange took place on August 31, 1999, at 17.00 hours on the administrative boundary with the Chechen Republic, close to the village of Aki-Yurt. Magomet had spent almost a year as a hostage.
The Varaevs were unlucky. Other well-known Chechen kidnappers have been far more fortunate: Arbi Baraev from Alkhankala (Yermolovka), Rezvan Chitigov, Apti Abitaev, Idris Mekhitsov ( Abdul-Malik ), Aslan Gachaev ( Abdulla ), Doku Umarov, and others. In their cases too, the secret services have been accused of involvement in the abduction of people in Chechnya. In the case of Arbi Baraev, there were substantial clues. According to Ruslan Yusupov, a Chechen who served as an officer first in the Soviet and then in the Russian armies, and was recruited by a member of the FSB in
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Chechnya, Baraev undoubtedly worked for the Russian secret services, and they, in turn, took care of Baraev and his people.
In mid-July 2000, Yusupov was approached by his old schoolmate, Magomet S., who said he wanted to contact the FSB and give them some information on Baraev. Magomet at least believed that Baraev was responsible for the abduction of dozens of hostages in Chechnya, including members of the FSB, the president s representative in Chechnya, Valentin Vlasov, and journalists from the ORT and NTV television channels. Baraev was also involved in the murder of Red Cross personnel, three British citizens, and a New Zealander.
The FSB agreed with Magomet that for 25,000 dollars, he would lead the FSB to the exact spot, where Baraev was due to meet with his Chechen field commanders within the next twenty days. Magomet was told how to contact Yusupov and the deputy head of the district department of the FSB.
Five days later, Magomet had another meeting with the deputy head of the district department of the FSB. This time, Magomet brought with him one of Baraev s closest associates, Aslakhanov, under the FSB s guarantee of safety. Aslakhanov was on the Russian federal and Interpol wanted lists for taking part in the execution of an Englishman and a New Zealander, for kidnapping Polish citizens in Dagestan, abducting the photojournalist Jacini, and soldiers mothers who were trying to find their sons in Chechnya. Aslakhanov moved around Chechnya with the help of a Chechen MVD identity card in the name of Saraliev. In the course of negotiations, the terms of the deal were changed. Magomet, himself a former guerrilla, and Aslakhanov agreed to hand over Baraev without payment, in exchange for an amnesty.
Ten days after that, Aslakhanov passed on information about a forthcoming meeting between Baraev and his field commanders, Tsagaraev and Akhmadov, at a chemicals plant in Grozny. Four hours before the meeting, Yusupov received information confirming this report via the deputy head of the district department of the FSB. The meeting between Baraev, Tsagaraev, and Akhmadov took place as planned, but the FSB did not carry out any operation to arrest them. When Yusupov began trying to find out from the deputy head of the district department of the FSB why the operation had been canceled, the answer he received was: If I stick my neck out any farther, they ll have my head and yours. We re only pawns in all this, we don t decide anything.
After about another ten days, Aslakhanov reported that he and Magomet would have to make a run for it, because Baraev s people had found out everything. Yusupov immediately got in touch with the district leadership of the FSB and set up a meeting.
When Magomet and Aslakhanov arrived at the meeting place in the nearby regional center, instead of FSB operatives they were met by guerrillas, who shot them down right there in the street. That same day, persons unknown abducted Yusupov s wife and her sister from a bus stop, and took them to the premises of the republican OMON, where they told the policemen that these trollops men are working for the Russians. The women cried and tried to explain that they were married, but no one would stand up for
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them. Their abductors took them away to some deserted yard, beat them until they were barely alive, and raped them.
Yusupov contacted the criminal investigation department of the Leninsky District of Grozny and asked them to find the owners of the white Zhiguli automobile 023 VAZ 2126 used by the abductors. The detectives told Yusupov that these people did not live in Grozny, and no one knew them. Shortly after that, Yusupov discovered that the abductors were members of Baraev s brigade, former members of the Chechen OMON, who came from Achkha-Martan, and they had committed a long list of crimes, but since they were Baraev s people, no one was trying to find them.
A week later, two Chechens from the republican FSB and a Russian member of the GRU turned up to see Yusupov. They told Yusupov that Aslakhanov had been killed because of him, and then beat him up in front of his wife and children, and took him away to a private house in the next city district. An hour later, two of Baraev s guerrillas arrived at the house. From the questions which they put to Yusupov, it was clear that everyone present knew all about Yusupov s work for the FSB. When Yusupov denied collaborating with the FSB, he was beaten again, and the beating was actually administered by Chechens from the FSB. The following day, Yusupov was taken to Grozny and dumped in the rubble. Two days later, he and his family left Grozny.
The Chechens had a humorous saying at this time: In Chechnya there are three-and-ahalf armored personnel carriers, ten secret services, and one Chechen per square meter.
They also used to say: Take away the GRU, FSB, and MVD secret agents, and peace will dawn. It was hard to tell just who was working for which Russian special service.
There were persistent rumors that, in addition to Arbi Baraev, the Akhmadov brothers from Urus-Martan worked for the Russians. Local residents said that until just recently, the Akhmadov brothers and Arbi Baraev had been living in their own houses. During the second Chechen War, Baraev twice held boisterous weddings in his house in Alkhankala.
The Akhmadovs and Baraev traveled around the republic quite openly in their own automobiles without encountering any problems, when their documents were checked at roadblocks. Privates on guard at the roadblocks saluted Baraev as he passed. In the summer of 2000, it became known that the Akhmadov brothers carried FSB identity cards. The UFSB agent for the Urus-Martan district, Yunus Magomadov, may well have been sacked for leaking information and exposing the identities of secret agents.
Baraev was involved in the FSB s work on printing counterfeit dollars in Chechnya.
From the very beginning of the Chechen campaign, the printing of counterfeit dollars had been transferred to Chechen territory, so that if the printing works were exposed or discovered, the blame for the crime would fall on the Chechen leadership. One of Baraev s printing works was discovered in April 2000 (the house in which it was located belonged to Baraev s relatives). The dollars were shipped to the central regions of Russia via Ingushetia and exchanged at a rate of thirty to thirty-five cents.
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The counterfeit notes were very high-quality; it was virtually impossible to identify them using the detectors in operation in the ordinary treasury bureaus, specialized equipment that only banks possessed was required. A large proportion of the profits earned was used to pay fighters their salaries or buy weapons and ammunition. The counterfeit dollars also circulated outside Russia. It is believed that in the last few years up to ten billion counterfeit dollars might have been put into circulation, i.e. about 10,000 dollars for every Chechen. It makes no sense to assume that Baraev alone was responsible. It is more likely that Baraev was simply used as a cover for the business of producing counterfeit notes, which was organized by the FSB.
Diplomatic, but entirely unambiguous, hints at Baraev s collaboration with the FSB were given by the president of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, at a press conference held on July 6, 2000. When asked who was responsible for the recent attack on a military column in Ingushetia, Aushev replied: The column in Ingushetia was attacked by Arbi Baraev s detachment. There is, by the way, one thing which I do not understand: Arbi Baraev is based in the village of Yermolovka, and any of you who have been to Grozny know that is almost a suburb.
That s where he is, I think he has married for the fifth time. So fine, there he is, and everybody knows where he is. It seems to me that the joint forces group needs to take rather more decisive action, especially as Baraev is attacking army columns& I know that Arbi Baraev, according to my information is located, in Yermolovka, which& you know it s not really a problem to resolve this. I was saying recently he got married yet again&
And our Federal Security Service Office knows that. Everybody knows it.
The well-known civil rights activist and Duma deputy Sergei Kovalyov was more frank: Let us take one of the most important dealers in human beings, a young scoundrel, probably quite an audacious one. Let us forget that absolutely everyone in the northern Caucasus says: Arbi Baraev? But he s a KGB agent! All right, so these are confident claims, but they can t be verified. But there are a few riddles here. A few months ago, everybody knew that he was living not far from Grozny in the village of Yermolovka. He got married there for the nth time, as permitted by Islam, and was living with his young wife. The commander of the federal forces was asked: Why don t you take Baraev? He replied with a true soldier s naiveté: if they tell us, we ll take him . So why don t they tell him?.. We had meetings with Chechen members of parliament. One of them, a very reliable and well-respected man, told us that one of his relatives, who had recently come down from the mountains, arrived in Yermolovka. And then a so-called clean-up started. His documents weren t in order-what was he to do? Well-wishers told him: Go to Baraev s house, no one will touch you there . He went to Baraev s, and the clean-up just passed him by.