These Cigarette Smugglers Are On The Frontlines Of Russia’s Spy Wars
TALLINN, Estonia Russia is recruiting smugglers on its western frontier to work as spies and informants in an attempt to destabilize its neighbor Estonia, a gateway to the European Union and NATO, a BuzzFeed News investigation can reveal.
At least five men have been arrested in the last two years and convicted of spying on behalf of Russia. canada goose store Their cases reveal how the Russian secret service, the FSB, operates across the canada goose uk shop border into a country that has a long and complicated Canada Goose Parka history with its eastern neighbor.
Each of the five men was a known smuggler, of anything from people to cigarettes, and the FSB was able to force them to work undercover in exchange for avoiding lengthy sentences in Russian prisons. Once they had been recruited, they were tasked with passing on information about everything from Estonian military bases to details about patrols run by guards manning the border.
«They are an easy target for FSB recruiters,» Aleksander Toots, the deputy head of the Estonian Internal Security Service, known by its acronym, KAPO, told BuzzFeed News. Toots, who oversees KAPO’s counterintelligence arm and who has been personally involved in the investigation of all five men, said uk canada goose outlet that it was virtually impossible to say no buy canada goose jacket cheap to the recruiters. «If you choose to decline, you might get into trouble because the FSB knows that you are a smuggler and are crossing the border illegally. The threat of ending up in a prison in Russia isn’t appealing. On the other hand, if you accept, you could hope for protection from the FSB in your criminal Canada Goose Coats On Sale activity.»
The Russian tactic of turning petty criminals into spies on the ground mirrors a key feature of Russia’s cyber tactics: blackmailing criminal hackers into doing the government’s bidding. It is the latest illustration of a style of Russian intelligence operations that has caught the United States and its allies flat footed, one that draws no clear line between traditional espionage, open criminality, and ambiguous business transactions.
Estonia, a small country of just 1.3 million people, has been grappling with its neighbor for decades. In 2007, it suffered a wave of debilitating cyberattacks suspected of having been carried out by Russia to protest Estonian plans to move a Soviet era monument. Now, Canada Goose sale in a tactic revealed in detail for the first time here, Russia is seeking lower level spies to spy on its neighbor. The revelation will likely feed concerns of Russian meddling in Estonia, which already grew in the wake of Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, marking a new stage in Russia’s approach to what it still considers its backyard.
Until recently, canada goose uk black friday Estonia operated under the belief that it had US backing in the face of Russian aggression. In the wake of Crimea, then president Barack Obama traveled to the capital, Tallinn, to assure the Baltic countries that the US, and NATO, was on their side. «You lost your independence once before. With NATO, you will never lose it again,» he said. Now, with Obama gone and replaced by a canada goose president under investigation for his suspected ties to Russia and marred by ambiguous statements about his commitment to collective defense, the landscape has changed.
Now Russia is testing new methods Canada Goose online at first close to home, and then, inevitably, further abroad. As the world focuses on Russia’s capabilities in the realm of cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns, is it missing Russia’s ability to develop new methods of good old fashioned on the ground spying?
All five men signed a written agreement Canada Goose Jackets of cooperation with the FSB and got cash for the tasks they carried out, according to Toots. The payment may have cheap Canada Goose been as little as 2,000 rubles, or $35. But they didn’t do it for the money. The choice these men faced was simple: either go to prison in Russia or remain free and boost their criminal career with the knowledge that Russian border guards would turn a blind eye to their smuggling and they would also get some extra money from canada goose uk outlet the FSB.
The effort appears highly organized, according to people involved in the investigations. Three different investigators from two institutions the Police and Border Guard Board and the Tax and Custom Board, which investigates smuggling told BuzzFeed News that they hadn’t seen any effort from the Russian side to stop and catch smugglers along the border for years now. «I am certain that it isn’t only buying off one or two Russian border guards. The links must go much higher,» one of the sources said.
There is also little, if any, risk at all for the FSB when hiring the smugglers. In Estonia they are known as prgikala, or «trash fish» they are disposable, too small to matter. If any of them is discovered, the FSB doesn’t lose a valuable asset that they spent years training, as they do with officers who work their way up through the system. And they can always hire a replacement. There are dozens of smuggling gangs operating along the 80 mile border between Estonia and Russia, and the 130 mile border between Russia and Latvia, another Baltic neighbor.
Pavel Romanov, 44, was one canada goose black friday sale of the five men caught spying for Russia. on an unusually hot Friday in the late spring of 2014 when he decided to pull his car uk canada goose over near a team of border guards patrolling a crossroad near the border.
«I had held a party for fellow villagers last night. After a breakfast and shower I felt sober. I only wanted to double check if I was ok to drive,» Romanov told BuzzFeed News, reiterating what he had canada goose coats told investigators about why he pulled over. To this day, Romanov isn’t quite sure why he pulled over, and he kicks himself for it.
Romanov was visibly drunk when he stepped out of the car, according to the statements of the four border patrol officers who saw him. And the https://www.canadagoose-online-shop.co.uk/ border guards recognized him canada goose clearance immediately. They had long suspected Romanov of being a smuggler. It was a badly kept secret in the canada goose coats on sale area, but aside from some minor crimes including a breach of public order and a case of illegal border crossing, for which he was fined, and failure to pay canada goose clearance sale child support, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison they hadn’t been able to prove anything. Now they could at least charge him with another crime. His breathalyzer test showed a criminally high level of alcohol.
Romanov was an experienced smuggler his main business was smuggling tobacco, and he was very good at it. He led a gang of 10 people and gave each of them a specific task. His right hand man, a smuggler named Vladimir, was responsible for buying the cigarettes in Russia and arranging transport to the border. Three other men, including Romanov’s 19 year old son, Mihhail, stood guard to detect approaching border guards. There canada goose factory sale were drivers to take the contraband away and others who were positioned a couple of miles ahead to provide intelligence. Canada Goose Outlet Romanov himself commissioned the buyers in Estonia.
Romanov was known to treat everyone fairly. He and everyone else on his team earned 500 euros apiece for each operation, which consisted of two different trips over the border carrying 20 cigarettes cases 400,000 cigarettes into Estonia. In a part of the country where unemployment is soaring and the average monthly wage is as low as 800 euros, that was good money.
The border guards were happy to have nabbed him. Little did they know, however, that drinking and smuggling were the least of Romanov’s secrets. He had been a spy working for the FSB for 20 years.
Romanov was recruited by the FSB while working in Russia back in 1994, around the time Russia’s war in Chechnya was about to break out, Toots told BuzzFeed News. cheap canada goose uk In an interview with BuzzFeed, Romanov said he was buying used Western cars from Germany and Finland at the time and selling them in Chechnya, a mainly Muslim republic that would fight two separatist wars in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. At the time, Russians needed help with local knowledge. Romanov boasted of being close friends with the Chechen rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev at the time (though BuzzFeed News could not independently verify this), saying he knew the general well through the general’s daughter Dana Dudayev had served in the Soviet military in Estonia in the the late ’80s and early ’90s. Now Dudayev was fighting on the other side, with the Chechens against Russia.
When war broke out in Chechnya, Romanov returned to Estonia but continued working for the FSB. He carried out tasks for the FSB as well as for FSB’s border intelligence unit, according to Toots. He gathered information about Estonian border guard tactics, their patrol times, and locations of surveillance cameras, Toots said.
He was also tasked with gathering information about military and security structures in southeastern Estonia, like the Snna warehouse of the Estonian Defence League, which is similar to the US National Guard, and the Kuperjanov Infantry Battalion base near the town of Vru. He also provided the FSB with information about officials in the various Estonian security agencies like the police, the border guards, and KAPO including their habits, interests, and weaknesses.
The border guards didn’t arrest Romanov for drunk driving that spring day, though he was forced to give them a statement. But they did, nearly a year later, decide to go after his smuggling operation.
By early 2015, investigators finally felt confident they had enough evidence to bust the gang. It would require an elaborate operation that included tax and customs officers assigned to KAPO.
The team chose the night of February 10, 2015, to make its move. Romanov’s gang was preparing for another smuggling run across canadian goose jacket the border. The temperature had dropped Canada Goose Online as low as 14 degrees Fahrenheit, the ground was covered in snow, and a bone chilling wind was blowing. Someone stood watch at Romanov’s house, which was off the only road to the border. Closer to the border, the rest of the smuggling team was prepping in rented sheds.
Finally, the team of officers made its move, surprising Romanov and his cohorts when they were on their snowmobiles, driving multiple tracks through the snow to make it harder for anyone to trace where they were really going.
Investigators were surprised by what they found. When they were caught, the investigators found they were carrying a sophisticated cache of surveillance and smuggling equipment, from camouflage suits and masks to specially built rope harnesses to make it easier to move the heavy cigarette cases, night vision goggles, thermal cameras, radio jammers, and cameras that had been set up on trees to warn buy canada goose jacket them when the border patrol was approaching. One night vision device was a military one, with its registration numbers scraped away. «You can’t buy things like that anywhere in Estonia,» one investigator said.
The team arrested Romanov immediately, and he quickly admitted to running smuggling operations.
Investigators proved that Romanov’s group had crossed the border illegally 13 times, smuggling more than 2.5 million cheap untaxed cigarettes and earning 80,000 euros (around $95,000). A customs officer involved in the investigation said that Romanov was ecstatic the officer said he «clapped with joy» when he realized what 2018 canada goose black friday investigators would argue as the real size of his business had, in fact, been much larger.
As the court case got underway, Romanov decided to take a plea deal. On May 26, he was convicted of smuggling and sentenced to five years in prison.