Authors: Haggai Carmon
"Dan," he said as I entered his office, "I distributed the report you wrote
on your Germany visit. Treasury thinks the major money transfers are
covering up major criminal activity, and we agree. But we need more evidence."
"Fine," I said. "I'll get right on it."
He shook his head. "The Justice Department has decided to convene a
task force. This matter is too big for this office, so other sections of the
government are taking over."
I was surprised to hear that. I moved from my chair to the leather sofa
at the back, a status symbol in the penny-pinching administration.
"Sixty million is too big? We handle cases of a hundred million!"
"It's not only the money. Look at the individuals involved. This office
doesn't fight multinational crime organizations. Our job is to go after
their laundered money. The guys upstairs want criminal charges to be
filed and these crooks put behind bars."
"I see." I had just started liking this case, and now it seemed to be slipping away.
David read my mind once again. "I'm assigning you to the task force as
this office's representative."
"Why a task force? And who's in it?"
"They're hoping to avoid the usual agency turf wars. It'll have the usual
members - Homeland Security, the Criminal Investigation Division of
the IRS, the FBI, the Postal Inspection Service, Treasury, and Justice.
Altogether there will be more than twenty-five active members."
I was pleased I'd be able to participate. Yes, task force assignments usually meant moving to another location, one likely to be less comfortable
than my office. Still, I could continue the investigation I'd begun.
But why me? I was pretty well known for my lack of interest in joining
a team - any team. Ever since I'd left my three-year service in the Israeli
Mossad, graduated from law school in Tel Aviv in the late rg6os, and
relocated to the United States in mid-rg8os, I'd tried to capitalize on my
strengths: I was a lone wolf and I got the best sheep if I hunted alone. My
job as a DoJ investigative attorney had been a more or less an ideal fit for
me: international legal investigations of complex multimillion-dollar
cases that combined my legal and investigative skills and training - and
most importantly assured complete independence in my international
work. Not to mention a supportive boss.
Now I was being presented with a job that required me to work with
others. And even if I were to protest, David wouldn't be responsive.
But why was this matter so complex that it required a task force? I
could think of only three reasons, although I was sure there were more.
First, the sums involved aroused suspicions of an unusual international
spread of criminal activity. Second, the risk to the stability of an
American bank was great. Finally - and most strikingly - there was the
identity of the front-runner suspect, Boris Zhukov.
The names of Boris, Misha, and Yuri were highlighted on the legal pad
resting on my lap while I rode the Amtrak Metroliner back to New York.
I knew these guys only too well. We'd never met, at least not yet, but I'd
already made close acquaintance with their FBI files. I closed my eyes,
shutting myself off from the squeaking of the train on the rails. What I
had read about Zhukov's life story began to roll through my mind.
Boris Zhukov felt he'd made it - and with some justification. He'd
climbed from a childhood in a penniless family in poverty-stricken
Belarus to become a major player in international crime. Belarus, just
west of Russia, has always been Russia's poor relative. There Zhukov
became a heavyweight. Not in boxing, or maybe that too. Now, resettled
in the United States, he was controlling assets exceeding three hundred million dollars. Zhukov didn't like to flash his money, but he still couldn't
avoid some of the absolutely necessary trappings: a blond wife flaunting
too much gold jewelry, a few diamond necklaces and rings, sables, a black
Mercedes S6oo with a uniformed chauffer, a penthouse on Central Park
West, a 15o-foot yacht, a winter retreat in the Florida Keys, and of course
a double chin. But Zhukov didn't consider this too lavish. Grisha
Grigorev, his former-partner-turned-rival, had a private island in the
Caribbean, two mistresses, a triple chin, and an additional thirty pounds
of avoirdupois, not counting the gold chain and the diamond ring on his
pinkie. Zhukov didn't mind. Ever since he and Grisha had come to terms
on how to divide the huge territorial cake they were controlling, things
had been calm. Grisha went into prostitution, fuel smuggling, and extortion, while Zhukov liked to be regarded as a banker, money launderer, and
facilitator for legitimate American businesses that needed a guided tour
into the new world of old Russia. Why worry?
In fact Zhukov had good reason to worry, but he wouldn't realize this
until faced with the results of my investigation.
The following morning I went to 26 Federal Plaza in downtown
Manhattan, just opposite the federal and New York courts, for my first
day on the task force. Some forty people were gathered in a windowless
conference room. "All efforts should be made to obtain sufficient evidence to indict Zhukov," said Robert E. Hodson - head of the FBI's
New York field office and assistant director in charge - as he addressed
the task force members for the first time. Hodson was a tall and heavyset
man in his late fifties. He had a full head of white hair, a pinkish face, and
an authoritative demeanor. People listened to him.
As I glanced around the room, some of the faces I saw were familiar
and some were new. One unfamiliar but intriguing face, as I was later to
find out, belonged to Laura Higgins, a green-eyed, red-haired Homeland
Security agent who called to mind a jungle feline. There was something
tantalizing in the way she walked, the way she moved, even the way she
slowly raised her long lashes. This woman is out hunting, I thought, but I
had no idea what or whom she saw as prey. Bored as usual in the crowded, good-for-nothing meeting, I ogled her as she meticulously wrote down
everything that was said. She must be new on the job, new in town, or
both.
Bob Hodson raised his voice. "Boris Zhukov dips his hands into anything profitable, legal or not. This is a'big-business guy."' He waggled his
fingers to illustrate virtual quotation marks.
"Unlike the traditional mobsters on the retail end of crime - prostitution,
loan sharking, protection, extortion - Zhukov aims high. His favorite area
is international banking, money laundering, and megafraud. Holding himself above common criminals kept him out of the street fights and the city
lights and gave him entree into boardroom struggles. But he doesn't use
proxy battles for hostile takeovers; he brings his old comrades from Belarus
instead. Of course, their culture of speedy trial is different from ours. Some
say it means taking your enemy for a nice long ride, accusing him, trying
him, convicting him, and then carrying out justice by dumping him out of
your speeding car."
There was a roar of laughter in the crowd. The twenty-five team members and additional fifteen or so support staff looked more like a gung-ho
army than a group of legal professionals. All too often guys like Zhukov
wriggled out of indictments either by using seasoned lawyers or by taking
off. They also took advantage of a public that doesn't perceive whitecollar criminals in the same negative light as drug dealers and rapists.
That helps when a jury listens to defense teams depicting their clients as
honest businessmen who've made a silly mistake or two.
Still, I couldn't help but feeling annoyed at the whole meeting: Instead
of cutting to the chase, it was little more than a pep talk. All the pertinent facts had already been included in the encyclopedic EYES ONLY file
we'd each received; the FBI had clearly done its homework on these.
Ever since I'd handled genuinely top-secret documents during my
Israeli Mossad service, I'd learned to appreciate what was really secret and
what was merely an extension of the document author's ego. Zhukov's
case was not mislabeled, however; it was truly a confidential matter. A
breach of security could risk not only the success of the operation, but
also human lives. Although there was no admissible evidence linking them to any violent activity in the United States, Zhukov's gang was
known to be ruthless. Their only law was whatever Zhukov decreed. No
questions asked. Oh, yes, once there was a guy in Brooklyn who had a
question concerning profit sharing ... may he rest in peace. Meantime,
for lack of living witnesses, Zhukov had never been indicted or convicted
of any crime in the United States.
Maybe the time had finally come.
"We are dividing the task force into four major teams," rumbled
Hodson. "Each team will have an office in this building. On each
working day, we'll have a morning briefing session at eight o'clock with
one representative of each team attending." Hodson read out the names.
I was assigned to the international money-laundering group. With me
were Jim Lion, the postal inspector who'd already helped me in tracking
down Sling & Dewy; Laura Higgins from Homeland Security; and Peter
Vasquez, a clean-shaven IRS agent brought up from Miami.
We walked to our assigned office on the same floor. It was decorated
DMV-style with five metal desks, office chairs that had seen better days,
and three file cabinets. Still, the view from the window was spectacular; I
could see across the East River into Brooklyn. There was no rush for the
desks, all standard government stock - that is to say, junk.
I chatted briefly with my team. Laura and Peter reminded me of kids
on their first day of summer camp: uncertain and timid, yet rushing to
make new friends and claim the top bunk. Before leaving for the day, I
put my FBI folder into a desk drawer, but took out the pass provided to
allow easy entry into the heavily secured federal building.
I then returned to my midtown Manhattan office to wrap up some
other pending cases. None was as urgent as this one. It seemed 26 Federal
Plaza would be my headquarters for a few months.
Unlike the shabby government offices so often seen in the movies
(good PR for the law enforcement agencies vying for increased budgets),
some government offices have, in fact, become quite comfortable of late.
Mine was on the twenty-fourth floor of a high-rise with a doorman,
fancy elevators, and good-quality carpets, next to a small law firm and an
advertising agency.
A sign on my office door read TAT INTERNATIONAL TRADE, INC. I
used to joke that the acronym stood for "Thieves and Thugs," but the letters had simply been chosen at random. International trading is a favored
front for intelligence and law enforcement agencies when they need to
conceal covert activity - even when it takes place in their own country.
Ironically, such covert activity sometimes truly does involve international trading - albeit of information and secrets. My Mossad service,
including a lengthy training, had shown me how widespread the trade in
information is among governments. Bartering, we used to call it, because
no money ever changed hands. Still, it was merchant trading, not the
intelligence gathering I'd expected. My Mossad teammate Benny Friedman was particularly good at it. Whenever he thought that a foreign government might be holding information that we needed - clues to the
whereabouts of Israeli MIAs, for instance - he made proactive efforts to
secure intelligence that he could offer up in trade. The best opportunities
had arisen during the Cold War era. The thousands of Jews who'd emigrated from what was then the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries
were a fountain flowing with information.
Contrary to popular belief, espionage is not limited to stealing information on an enemy's abilities, capabilities, and intentions. Intelligence
means obtaining all sorts of information about a rival: the mood,
economy, political undercurrents, and weaknesses of the country and its
leaders. If, during the Cold War, the CIA had wanted to know the train
schedule between Moscow and Arkhangelsk, an immigrant who'd
worked for the train service could provide it without even knowing why.
There were two main sources for information: debriefing U.S. visitors
such as asylum seekers, and bartering with foreign intelligence services.
The debriefing was always subtle. Rarely was there a direct question that
could reveal sensitive planning details. Instead, a query might be posed as
a challenge to the person's truthfulness. "I don't believe you ever lived in
Arkhangelsk. Prove it. Tell me, for example" - a pause - "what time did
the daily train to Moscow pass by?" In fact, Arkhangelsk had been an
important Russian seaport - a center for scientific marine research as
well as the space-launching site Plesetsk, the nuclear shipyards in Severodvinsk, and the Russian nuclear polygon on the Novaya Zemlya.
Hence, the great interest the West had in this city.
Another immigrant might pass along the name of someone who
worked in a restaurant frequented by a particular scientist, perhaps creating an otherwise nonexistent opportunity. If the British M16 wanted to
know the layout of the main spigots in the oil supply from Siberia to the
Sea of Japan, someone who'd worked on the pipeline could be helpful.
These and other, similar pieces of information might seem completely
benign, even insignificant, to a nonprofessional, yet be crucial to analysts
trying to fill gaps in the intelligence puzzle.
Such trade in intelligence was only a by-product of the rigorous
screening process Israel had adopted when thousands of new immigrants
arrived from the Soviet Union in the 1970s - a way to prevent the infiltration of communist agents posing as devout Jews. The process of
debriefing the new immigrants was kept top secret; Israel did not want the
Soviets halting Jewish immigration, which is what might have happened
if they'd found out how much intelligence was being collected as a result.