WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR HUNTERS?



From FSB to MI6


After his 1998 press conference – telling the world that Russia’s FSB had been taken over by the Mob, Alexander Litvinenko was jailed. His story from there is remarkable.


Litvinenko turned to the man whom he was once ordered to assassinate. Prior to his press conference, Litvinenko was ordered by his mobbed-up superiors to murder one of the original seven oligarchs – a banker named Boris Berezovsky, who was a competitor to Alfa Bank. Instead, Litvinenko warned Berezovsky to run. That assassination order was what prompted the press conference.


In between Litvinenko’s trials and prison movement, Berezovsky managed to get Litvinenko and his family (wife and son) out of Russia and into the United Kingdom.


Finding safe exile in London, Alexander Litvinenko continued working to hunt Mogilevich’s mob. In our opinion, the very best journalism on Litvinenko’s journey from the FSB to MI6 is done by Luke Harding. We highly recommend his book, “A Very Expensive Poison.”


In Harding’s book, we learn of Litvinenko’s work with MI6. He was instrumental in the arrests of key members of the Tambov Gang (SEMION'S PARTNERS), who were hiding out in Spain.


In late 2006, at the peak of his hunting, and perhaps due to a dossier he co-wrote that landed in the wrong hands, Litvinenko was assassinated. It was a gruesome murder that was meant to send a signal: he was poisoned with radioactive material, that was under the control of Vladimir Putin’s regime. Polonium.






Litvinenko’s death was slow enough for him to identify who he believed had murdered him and how. In these last interviews he gave from his hospital bed (as detailed in Harding’s book), Litvinenko was visited by his MI6 handler – a man with the code name “Martin.”


Harding surmises that “Martin” would have been fluent in Russian. Due to the dates when Litvinenko and “Martin” were known to be working together at MI6 (2003-2006), we cannot help but wonder if “Martin” is Christopher Steele – who handled the Russian Desk at MI6 from 2004-2009 and participated in the investigation into Litvinenko’s assassination.


In our bibliography under Alexander Litvinenko is the official finding by the British Court on his murder (“The Litvinenko Inquiry”). Vladimir Putin is directly named.


But we go back to that press conference because that is what haunts us personally. We believe that what Litvinenko warned the world about is happening again – here at home.


After the firing of James Comey, Donald Trump named Christopher Wray the new Director of the FBI. Prior to this recent appointment, Wray spent over a decade working for King & Spalding - a small law firm (on the scale of how large firms can be) whose primary clients are GAZPROM and ROSNEFT. Although Wray was at the FBI before his years at King & Spalding, those years at the FBI were also at a time when Semion’s mob was infiltrating intelligence communities world-wide, to compromise the LE agencies who hunted him. All of this has us more than concerned.


Even more concerning is Donald’s nomination for running the ORGANIZED CRIME UNIT at the DOJ (as in, the men and women who specifically hunt the mob) - Brian Benczkowski. As of the time we are writing this, Benczkowski has yet to be confirmed by the full Senate. Why does he concern us so? Benczkowski is Alfa Bank’s private attorney.


We will leave it there.




The Final Tip

2006 was an ominous year. Litvinenko was murdered in November. Five months earlier, in June, U.S. intelligence reached out to Bob Levinson for help.


The CIA International Financial Crimes Group had a case that required someone with a specific skill set. They needed a master hunter with a certain history. They needed Bob Levinson.


Levinson had officially left the FBI by this point and had established his own firm, working as a consultant for the private sector. He specialized in cases that drew on his contacts/ sources and expertise from his years hunting Semion. These included corporate espionage work for Philip Morris - tracking cigarette counterfeiters (one of Semion’s profit specialties, as identified in that 1995 intelligence report), foreign nationals seeking better relations with the United States, and even work for the Bank of Cyprus – helping them with some money-laundering issues they were having.


There is mixed reporting on whether or not Bob was ONLY an independent contractor at the time the CIA reached out to him. Some suspect that Bob had never left the FBI. Either way, the CIA needed help – and Bob Levinson was the hunter they hired.


We do not have a clear answer from the CIA, to this day, on exactly who they sent Bob off to hunt. So, we are left to discover this in the way that Bob Levinson would have: by following the trail of men.


First, you should know that this was the last hunt that Bob was ever on. The “official” story from US intelligence has shifted over the years, so we started with that big question: Who was the target? Who?


Who could have pulled Bob Levinson back into a hunt? Do you think it would be just any old criminal?


Levinson has a family who loves him. A happy life. Who could it have been? Who was so important to capture, that a CIA operation was launched? Who warranted Bob’s special knowledge, over using active intelligence agents?


What case – what criminal - warranted our master hunter?


To find the name of the man he was hunting on that operation, we went digging. What we’ve discovered is that Bob did two critical things before he left for his hunt:


1) He told others he was off to hunt cigarette smugglers. Remember that. Remember cigarettes.


2) He went to see one of his long-held contacts, Boris Birshtein. Birshtein is a known associate of both Donald Trump and Semion Mogilevich.






Birshtein is the father-in-law of the oligarch Alex Shnaider, Donald’s business partner on Trump Toronto hotel. Birshtein is also a named consigliere of the Russian Mafia. He organized a meeting between Semion and several Bratva members in Israel in 1995 – right around the time of that first, big international intelligence report on Semion.


From what we can surmise, by the time Bob contacted Birshtein in 2006, Birshtein had been unable to obtain a visa into the U.S. because of his association with Semion’s organization. This provided Bob with the perfect carrot to offer Birshtein for helping the CIA.


“While tracking possible Rafsanjani money in Canadian 2006, Levinson also met Lithuanian-born Boris Birshtein, believed by U.S. authorities to be connected with Russian and Israeli organized crime.”

[“Where is Bob Levinson” by Philip Giraldi, American Conservative -Dec 31, 2013]


Here is where we tell you what happened to Bob Levinson. You may have recognized his name, but the old footage of him – in his healthy, happy life as a husband, father, and professional - may not be the image you know.








Bob Levinson was kidnapped during his final hunt on the island of Kish, Iran. He is now the longest held American hostage in history.


There is much you can read on Bob’s capture, but we want to bring you this final stunning detail. Among the attempts to recover Bob, the CIA reached out to another notable name, OLEG DERIPASKA.


Now, it is unclear to us, actually, whether the CIA reached out to Oleg, or Oleg reached out to them. What IS clear is that, like Birshtein, Deripaska needed a visa. Like Birshtein, Deripaska’s links to Semion’s mob were preventing his entry into the U.S. And, like Birshtein, he was someone that seemed to know Bob Levinson.


Agents involved in Bob’s recovery believed that Deripaska knew of his whereabouts. WHY? Why would the CIA believe that Deripaska, of all people, would know who was holding Bob?


Because of all of these details – because of all of this circumstantial evidence that we cannot ignore, it is our belief that Semion Mogilevich arranged for Bob Levinson’s capture with the Iranians – whom he had been in business with for years.


Bob Levinson walked into a trap.




CITIZEN JOURNALISTS CONSORTIUM