The Red Syndrome by Haggai Carmon Read Free Book Online

brown file. On its top was a large-font red stamp: TOP SECRET:
EYES ONLY. He recorded my name and other details on the inside cover
and said, "I hope you understand that you cannot make copies, take notes,
or remove anything from this file."
    "Sure," I said, with mounting curiosity. I signed a confidentiality statement and was finally handed the file.
    A summary of the contents lay on the top. A Cincinnati field office
special agent had received a tip from informer GFir2-00 that Gregory
Lermontov of Evanston, Ohio, was running a home printing facility. A
search had turned up eleven blank U.S. passports, fifty-four blank Alien
Registration Cards (better known as green cards), and 122 blank social
security cards. The FBI forensics lab concluded that the forged passports
were almost perfect. Lermontov was arrested and later released on
twenty-five thousand dollars' bail.
    I went through all the documents, which included several lab reports
and affidavits from FBI agents. I paid special attention to a top-secret
memo from the assistant special agent in charge in Cincinnati to the
assistant director of the FBI. During his interrogation, Lermontov agreed
to give up the names of individuals who routinely purchased forged U.S.
travel documents from him. In return, he demanded immunity from
prosecution and placement in WITSEC, the U.S. Marshals Service's witness protection program. Further investigation by the FBI had unearthed
strong ties between Lermontov and Russian mob figures in New York.
    In the attached envelope was an FBI internal memo that named
Lermontov's main clients: Boris Zhukov and Grisha Grigorev. The same memo went on to note that Lermontov had disclosed the names in an
oral interview, but had refused to sign a statement until the immunity
agreement was finalized.

    The file also described Zhukov's and Grigorev's criminal activity in the
United States. It described them as the leaders of two major rival mobs,
based in New York, that controlled significant portions of organized
crime activity in the Northeast. The report concluded with a recommendation to classify the information because it concerned "two of the most
brutal crime gangs in U.S. history."
    So that was the basis for the ultrasecrecy: organized crime. The reasons
why the mob would need a fresh supply of U.S. passports and other official documents were obvious: smuggling prostitutes, hiding the identity
of couriers carrying drugs or cash shipments, and opening anonymous
bank accounts, to name just a few opportunities.
    Another report tied Zhukov and Grigorev to three additional individuals: Igor Razov, Alexei "Lonya" Timofeev, and Nikita Arkhipov, known
members of a Russian gang in New York. The current whereabouts of
Timofeev and Arkhipov were unknown; they may have been using forged
travel documents. Igor Razov was infamous because of his ruthlessness
and his wont for following orders without hesitation. Razov was Zhukov's front man for mob-related financial transactions from which
Zhukov wanted to keep a safe distance. He was currently being held in a
German maximum-security prison in Stuttgart, awaiting extradition to
his native Belarus.
    I memorized these names and quickly wrote them down on a small
piece of paper as I left the FBI building, heading back into the busy DC
streets. The Treasury Department agent's first instinct - supported by
David Stone - that this was more than just a violation of banking laws
was gaining momentum. I had a hunch it went beyond money laundering. Were the movements of huge amounts of money into and out of
Eagle Bank just routine transactions made by a bona fide corporation in
the normal course of its business? Were they illegal proceeds of crime
deposited in an unsuspecting bank? Or did the Russians have someone
inside the bank paving their way - or even the bank itself on their side? Why? Were they maintaining their huge credit balance for a major crime
still on the drawing