Money Out Of Spies

Initially, cases of the "scientists-spies" were useful for the career promotion by FSB officers. And later they learnt to get net profits out of it.

 

Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogan

 

"Spy cases" are one of the signs of the Putin's epoch. Seeing the examples of journalist Pasko's case and diplomat Moiseev's case, the FSB high ranking officers and foot soldiers realized quickly that such cases could be a great career promotion for them. As a result, the real system was created for organizing such cases, which has been used during last ten years. Today, however, priorities have been shifted from getting the new posts to sharing out the property. Respectively, the system was transformed: those steamrollered got to be suspected not of espionage, but of illegal export of technologies and of economic crimes. Now the persons accused of being involved were directors of the research institutes with large budgets and profitable international contracts.

 

Beginning of the spy passions

 

Criminal case of a military journalist Grigory Pasko from the city of Vladivostok was the first swallow in 1997. As Mr. Pasko collaborated with a Japanese TV station and got his fees from the foreigners, he was an easy target for espionage accusations. A loud case was urgently needed by UFSB of Pacific Ocean Fleet headed by the late German Ugryumov. It was needed to distract attention from the scandals related to selling our aircraft carriers abroad with knockdown prices.

 

The outcomes of that legal persecution surpassed expectations: Pasko was put behind the bars while German Ugryumov got promotion and a post in Moscow where he became the deputy director FSB and headed the counter-terrorism department.

 

Less ranking officers from that case were promoted too, like Alexander Egorkin, who was the head of the investigative group. Afterwards, he followed his high ranking patrons and was moved to Moscow either, where he headed the military counter-intelligence division at the FSB Investigative Department.

 

So estimating the career development by Mr. Ugryumov, the special officers from Primorye Territory were the first to realize that the spy trials are a really worthy thing.

 

In the late 90's the city of Vladivostok became the leader in terms of catching the imaginary spies. In July 1999 searched were the apartment and the laboratory of the oceanologist professor Vladimir Soifer. That was justified with the grounding that his ecological research posed a real threat for the country's security. Having frayed professor's nerves greatly, the case was dismissed finally only due to an amnesty, in spite of the fact no crime had been found in the act. The professor did not give up and appealed the amnesty. In May 2001 the UFSB for Primorye Territory had to dismiss the case. But by that time the man, who initiated the case, that-time head of UFSB for Prymorye Territory, Verevkin-Rakhalsky, had moved to Moscow and he retired in 2005 from the post of the head of the Federal Service for economic and tax crimes having reached the rank of Lieutenant General.

 

Naturally, the career progress by the counter-intelligence officers from Vladivostok were noticed by their colleagues in Moscow and the spy passions began to run high. The case of Valentin Moiseev, former deputy director of the First Foreign Ministry Department for Asian countries, helped the investigators from the "spy" division of the investigative department of FSB to become the heads of the whole department.

 

Moiseev was accused of passing the secret materials to the South Korean intelligence service. The evidence was so poor that 5 judges had to be changed during the trial, as they failed to deliver the "right" sentence. Finally, the Supreme Court canceled the sentence of the Moscow court – that was 12 years of prison – and the term was reduced to three times as little.

 

The choice of investigators on the Moiseev's case caused scandals too. One of them turned out to be the son of that-time director of the Lefortovo Prison where Moiseev was kept. Other investigator, Yuri Plotnikov, took part in investigation of the Edmond Pope case, who was charged with espionage, while his father Oleg Plotnikov, was the prosecutor at the court proceedings. Both investigators got promotion after Moiseev's case was over.

 

Nikolai Oleshko, that-time head of the "spy" division in the investigative department FSB, who headed the investigative group on the Moiseev's case, turned out to be the main beneficiary of the trial done. He has the reputation of the master of falsification of the "spy" cases, which secured him brilliant promotion, despite the fact that people accused by him were rehabilitated after 20 years. In 2003 he reached the position of the deputy head of the Investigative Department of FSB. In 2003 he headed that department and up to the date he keeps that post in spite of his venerable age.

 

The system of control and managing

 

Having gone up the career ladder, the "spy hunters" began to adjust the system for themselves.

 

By 2004 Nikolai Oleshko had managed to change the system of investigation the spy cases all over the country and put his own people in control over such investigations.

 

Investigative department of FSB is one of the most important sections of this special service. It investigates all the criminal cases within the competence of FSB and so it is responsible for most loud trials in the country. The structure of this department practically repeats that of the whole central FSB apparatus consisting of divisions of counter-intelligence, economic security, struggle against terrorism etc.

 

Along with that, all the regional branches of FSB are featured with their own investigative divisions that used to be supervised by special 4th Department. Nikolai Oleshko, using his connections with the FSB deputy director Vyacheslav Ushakov, managed to convince the leadership of FSB to put his "spy" department in charge of all the regional branches. That increased the significance of the department and the importance of the "spy" area within the organization.

 

Probably, that was done to avoid the failures like those that happened during trials on the Danilov's case and Sutyagin's case.

 

Transformation of the system: forget the espionage

 

Finally, the scandals accompanying each "spy" trial made FSB look for solution to the side effects problem. FSB found out that it was better to give up the Articles from Criminal Code for espionage and state secret divulging. The charges of economic crimes were used instead, which gave even more preferences. The new technology was tried in the case of the director of Institute of the problems of superplasticity of metals, Oscar Kaibyshev, who attracted FSB attention in 2005. Initially, the 65-year-old scientist was charged with state secret divulging, but then his colleagues, academic community, journalists and the general public stood for him with a loud campaign.

 

Soon, however, the state secret article disappeared from the Kaibyshev's case, being replaced with the one dealing with commercial illegal schemes and export of the double-purpose technologies. In August 2006 Mr. Kaibyshev was sentenced for 6 years on parole, while FSB took that "useful" experience into account.

 

In October 2005 the Lefortovo inter-district court gave sanction for arrest of the academician Igor Reshetin, general director of TsNIIMASh-Export, his first deputy for economic matters Sergei Tverdokhlebov and his deputy for security matters Alexander Rozhkin. FSB investigators did not accuse them of espionage or state secret divulging. Instead they got charged with embezzlement and violations of the export control rules. Later they were accused of passing the double-purpose technology to China and of smuggling.

 

In December 2007 the court delivered the sentence and the accused got 5-11 years of prison. A few days later a letter by one of the convicted was published saying that "If our director had agreed for dialog with the law enforcement bodies, there would have been no terrible consequences, while his personal position and that by his firm would have strengthened in the market of the space technologies. The firm would have got protection presented by the economic security service of FSB". FSB did not prevent publishing of that letter probably hoping that the future involved persons would take that advice into consideration.

 

That way the system of organizing similar trials was completed.

 

Published in Novaya gazeta 16.04.08