Speaker 1: Something strange is going on. Who is killing Russian billionaires?
Speaker 1: Another Russian oligarch has been found dead. Reports suggests that
Speaker 1: he hanged himself, fell out of.
Speaker 2: A window, slashed his wrists, was poisoned, murdered his whole family.
Speaker 2: Last year, more than a dozen Russian oligarchs died in
Speaker 2: the space of nine months. Many of the debts are
Speaker 2: suspicious with links to the Kremlin. This is sad Oligach,
Speaker 2: an investigation into these recently dead Russian billionaires. It's created
Speaker 2: by me Jake Hanrahan and my colleague Sergey Slipchenkov. Sad
Speaker 2: Oligarch is a H eleven production for Kulso Media and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: This case concerned someone a bit different. He died in Washington.
Speaker 2: He was anti Poutine, he had connections to both US
Speaker 2: political parties, and he's actually not e and Russian. He is, however,
Speaker 2: dead and the circumstances around his death are really strange.
Speaker 2: On August fourteenth, twenty twenty two, Latvian born Dan Rappaport,
Speaker 2: fifty two, was in his luxury apartment in Washington, DC.
Speaker 2: He lived in the city's West End, an upmarket area
Speaker 2: with the finest restaurants hotels and condos.
Speaker 1: Naturally, Rappaport was rich.
Speaker 2: He made his money in a number of different ways,
Speaker 2: including financial investments in which he oversaw large international projects
Speaker 2: concerning US Russian oil cooperation. That evening, police in DC
Speaker 2: got an alert on their patrol car radio.
Speaker 1: There's been a jumper in the West End.
Speaker 2: As they pulled up to the scene, a man was
Speaker 2: found lying in a heap on the floor. He'd fallen
Speaker 2: out of the window of his fancy apartment, plummeting nine
Speaker 2: stories onto the pavement.
Speaker 1: It was Dan Rappaport, of what was left.
Speaker 2: Of him, He'd fallen around ninety feet to the concrete.
Speaker 2: That's a serious fall. Around ninety nine percent of people
Speaker 2: who fall that distance don't survive. Dan Rappaport was no exception.
Speaker 2: He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital and
Speaker 2: his pockets was two six hundred and ten dollars in cash,
Speaker 2: a broken phone, and the lanyard with a key attached.
Speaker 2: An autopsy report released in November twenty twenty two stated
Speaker 2: that Rappaport died from multiple blunt force trauma injuries as
Speaker 2: a result of the fall. However, his cause of death
Speaker 2: was ruled as undetermined. His wife said he showed no
Speaker 2: signs of depression and doesn't believe it was a suicide.
Speaker 2: They'd made plans for the following day and Rappaport had
Speaker 2: several business meetings scheduled. Police closed the case, but they
Speaker 2: said they're open to further investigate if any tips come
Speaker 2: in or further evidence appears. So, who was done, Rappaport
Speaker 2: and why would you have any connection to the dead
Speaker 2: Russians mentioned throughout this series. Let's start with the Soho
Speaker 2: Rooms Rappaport nightclub. The Soho Rooms was a high end
Speaker 2: nightclub in Moscow. It was opened by Rappaport in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven. Within a few years of its launch,
Speaker 2: the club became somewhat of a mecca for Russia's rich,
Speaker 2: cosmopolitan party scene. Situated in a trendy building that's a
Speaker 2: mix of Art Deco and Soviet brutalism, the Soho Rooms
Speaker 2: was the place to be if you wanted to flow
Speaker 2: in your money and indulge in expensive taste. Reserving a
Speaker 2: single table cost one hundred thousand rubles, which is over
Speaker 2: one thousand US dollars. That's the average monthly wage for
Speaker 2: your everyday Muscovite. International musicians performed regularly the Soho Rooms,
Speaker 2: including Johnny Depp and his awful band Hollywood Vampires. It
Speaker 2: became the go to club for it girls, politicians, and businessmen.
Speaker 2: If you like fine dining, strong drugs, and expensive liquor,
Speaker 2: the Soho Rooms was the place to be. It became
Speaker 2: synonymous with Russia's party elite. It was very well known.
Speaker 2: If you weren't there on Friday or Saturday night, he
Speaker 2: didn't matter. Rappaport himself was by no means a silent
Speaker 2: partner in all of this. He loved the nightlife, the
Speaker 2: seeing the money. By all accounts, he basked in the
Speaker 2: glory of running a club for the elite. According to
Speaker 2: a Russian journalist familiar with the culture of the Soho Rooms,
Speaker 2: Rappaport knew everyone that mattered, and everyone that mattered knew him.
Speaker 2: It was a legend in Russia's party scene. The Soho
Speaker 2: Rooms expanded with franchises across Russia and won in Dubai. Naturally,
Speaker 2: the club turned over big profits. Rappaport lived a lavish
Speaker 2: lifestyle and apparently he owned several million dollar apartments around Moscow.
Speaker 2: Clearly life was good, or at least it was until
Speaker 2: Rappaport had to flee Russia due to his anti pootin activity. However,
Speaker 2: how serious him fleeing was at the time is up
Speaker 2: for debate, as Rappaport allegedly returned to Russia several times
Speaker 2: after being apparently forced to leave. He continued to build
Speaker 2: what was considered a cult following amongst the party scene
Speaker 2: until the Soho rooms was closed down in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: At this time, the Russian ruble was at one of
Speaker 2: its highest values. Rappaport was making a killing four years later,
Speaker 2: though he'd wind up dead on a DC pavement. Nightclubs
Speaker 2: is not how Dan Rappaport first got rich stock. He
Speaker 2: got his start in economics, as Me and Surgery discussed.
Speaker 3: He grew up in the US and he got his
Speaker 3: really from Houston, Texas. From there he went into an
Speaker 3: investing firm, Fibro. They focused like raw materials, so any
Speaker 3: kind of oil, just mining things like that. I think
Speaker 3: he graduated somewhere in the early nineties and he started
Speaker 3: working at Fibro and they were working on a project
Speaker 3: in Russia, one of the first like oil extraction projects.
Speaker 3: The company basically got three stakes in three different oil
Speaker 3: fields and they were trying to develop those.
Speaker 4: They were one of the.
Speaker 3: First companies to go in and they were one of
Speaker 3: the first companies to actually set up shop like they
Speaker 3: were I think by nineteen ninety one nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 3: they were already pumping oil and selling it.
Speaker 2: And so a familiar pattern emerges. This is yet another
Speaker 2: wealthy businessman with heavy ties to the Russian oil and
Speaker 2: gas industry who's died in mysterious circumstances. This guy even
Speaker 2: fell out of a window. When Rappaport first entered this
Speaker 2: industry in the nineties, big money was made immediately, and
Speaker 2: the Russian government quickly stepped in to increase their cut.
Speaker 3: I think it was around twenty k years dr day.
Speaker 3: It did slow down. That project kind of fizzled out.
Speaker 3: It was kind of killed off by the Russian government
Speaker 3: because they were they were really getting a hang out
Speaker 3: of the whole capitalism thing, and they were putting a
Speaker 3: bunch of taxes on from what it seems like everything
Speaker 3: you know, on the transport of oil, on companies operating
Speaker 3: in it, then forcing them to pay and extremely devalued ruble,
Speaker 3: which kind of just I guess, kind of killed that obviously,
Speaker 3: other companies to cover and you know, now oil is massive,
Speaker 3: but at that time, like that project called White Knights
Speaker 3: didn't exactly work out.
Speaker 2: The White Knights project was the first joint Russian American
Speaker 2: operation designed to open up more oil fields across Siberia.
Speaker 2: White Knights was actually conceived before the collapse of the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union, when the UA SSR was opening up to
Speaker 2: foreign investment in the late eighties. As Sergey said, White
Speaker 2: Knights began turning over twenty thousand dollars a day within
Speaker 2: just a few months of its launch. By nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 2: though the project collapsed. Rappaports stayed in Russia after White
Speaker 2: Knights ended. He had experience in both the USSR and
Speaker 2: the US, having grown up in Soviet Latvia but also
Speaker 2: getting educated in America, a very useful set of credentials
Speaker 2: in the banditry period of post Soviet Russia.
Speaker 4: From then on he stayed in Russia.
Speaker 3: And you know, being from a Russian family, they escaped
Speaker 3: from Latvia like Ussar Latvia to the US.
Speaker 4: He's like a US citizen. He can be the middleman.
Speaker 3: You know, he speaks Russian, of course, and he became
Speaker 3: this middleman for investors and the New Russia. That's kind
Speaker 3: of you know how they say selling out, They're kind
Speaker 3: of everything that was once government owned is now going
Speaker 3: to private owners. And he was this middleman looking for
Speaker 3: American European investors, helping them make these deals of purchasing
Speaker 3: these massive facilities, anything that can be sold, basically that
Speaker 3: was being sold any industry that the USSR had. He
Speaker 3: was kind of making those deals.
Speaker 2: After this, Rappaport went on to work at an investment
Speaker 2: firm Center Invest, essentially doing the same things he'd been
Speaker 2: doing before, working as a fixer or a middleman for
Speaker 2: Western companies looking to capitalize on the collapse of the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union. Bleed it dry, ignore the people profit. By
Speaker 2: the two thousands, Rappaport was the manager at sent To Invest,
Speaker 2: with offices in both Moscow and New York. Over the decade,
Speaker 2: he went from wealthy to very wealthy. This is when
Speaker 2: Rappaport made the bulk of his money, enabling him to
Speaker 2: invest in more exciting ventures like the Soho rooms in Moscow.
Speaker 2: Rappaport opened that in two thousand and seven, but then
Speaker 2: the following year he hit a roadblock. The US government
Speaker 2: puts sanctions on him.
Speaker 3: It seems like the charges were a securities fraud and
Speaker 3: even though he you know, is sanctioned, he was kind of.
Speaker 4: In trouble with the US government.
Speaker 3: Five years later, all the charges were dropped and he
Speaker 3: returned to the US.
Speaker 2: So Dan Rappaport was accused and charged with securities fraud.
Speaker 1: But what is that.
Speaker 2: Well, basically, it's high tier white collar lying. It's also
Speaker 2: referred to as stock fraud or investment fraud, and it's
Speaker 2: a serious crime. Basically, it involves misrepresenting a deal by
Speaker 2: either omitting certain details or just outright lying to urge
Speaker 2: investors to make decisions. Stockbrokers, brokerage corporations, and investment banks
Speaker 2: are often involved in securities fraud in some way, most
Speaker 2: of them get away with it. That Rapperport's charges were
Speaker 2: dropped after five years doesn't mean much in my opinion
Speaker 2: either way. He made his money capitalizing on the downfall
Speaker 2: of post Soviet Russia, skipping back and forth between New
Speaker 2: York and Moscow as your average Russian near staffed pretty
Speaker 2: much standard Oligach behavior.
Speaker 3: It seems like he has businesses all over Russia and
Speaker 3: like spread throughout the world. But there's nothing like one
Speaker 3: big business. That's kind of like pointed out, he just
Speaker 3: had multiple incomes from different things.
Speaker 2: Whilst we've seen Rappaports sometimes painted as a separate entity
Speaker 2: to the other oligachs we've looked into, probably because of
Speaker 2: his open anti Putinism, he very much came up in
Speaker 2: the same scene of the post Soviet free for all
Speaker 2: as they did.
Speaker 3: That would be the majority of his money from that
Speaker 3: ten year period, consulting and kind of directing investors into
Speaker 3: Russia and then the stock management. He was pretty much
Speaker 3: a fixer. He's I guess, like you know, he spoke Russian.
Speaker 3: He he got kind of an inn with the White
Speaker 3: Knights project. I'm assuming he built connections, kind of figured
Speaker 3: out how things work, and then he went from there
Speaker 3: and started, yeah, like being a fixer kind of finding
Speaker 3: Like somebody wants to sell something, He's like, okay, cool,
Speaker 3: I'll go find you know, a rich American, a rich
Speaker 3: European to come and buy it out.
Speaker 2: What was the story is spun that Rappaport had to
Speaker 2: flee Russia due to anti pootin activity. He first left
Speaker 2: because he owed the Russian government tax and they charged
Speaker 2: him for not paying it. It wasn't even that much money,
Speaker 2: not for him anyway. It was around forty thousand US dollars.
Speaker 2: But for whatever reasons he was charged, he left the country.
Speaker 3: It's pretty well documented that, first of all, in the
Speaker 3: nineties it was very like shady dealings anything that was
Speaker 3: being sold off. You know, we've covered previously how everything
Speaker 3: was being privatized and people kind of used different, maybe legal,
Speaker 3: but kind of underhanded ways of getting wealthy. I mean,
Speaker 3: some things are anecdotal, somethings are recorded where you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of crime organizations were in charge. And my
Speaker 3: guess would be as if he was doing any kind
Speaker 3: of like consulting that we talked about as finding businesses
Speaker 3: to sell to rich investors, I would assume he had
Speaker 3: to deal with the government and with people who were
Speaker 3: in this organized crime kind of figuring out who to
Speaker 3: talk to, who's selling, and where to find you know.
Speaker 3: So I'm guessing he was involved in this. I just
Speaker 3: think you can't avoid it. At that time period, it
Speaker 3: just so involved, you know, the government is kind of
Speaker 3: especially I mean maybe not at the time, it wasn't
Speaker 3: as involved with everything, but it all kind of led
Speaker 3: to the government taking over and they were still in charge,
Speaker 3: so like he absolutely had to be involved with the
Speaker 3: States too, for Saul work on oil and then from
Speaker 3: them to you know, sell off essentially state industry, like
Speaker 3: he'd have to be at least to some degree.
Speaker 2: It's clear that at one point Rappaport was cozied up
Speaker 2: to the Russian government enough to at least do business
Speaker 2: with them back and forth between the US, which would
Speaker 2: make both parties a lot of money. At some point
Speaker 2: he hit a snagdough, as we mentioned, with the tax problems.
Speaker 2: Before this, Rappaport had several companies in Russia, though his
Speaker 2: fingers were in many different pies. He was a human piroshki.
Speaker 2: He owned the Russian company selling and trading raw materials
Speaker 2: such as precious metals. He owned the Russian real estate company.
Speaker 2: He owned the Russian catering business. He was into all
Speaker 2: sorts until the Russian government shut him down citing various
Speaker 2: legal violations. They then took control of all his companies
Speaker 2: and liquidated them. The money was theirs. To suspect that
Speaker 2: this is what made Rappaport anti Putin as opposed to
Speaker 2: any specific humanitarian issues, but that's just a personal hunch.
Speaker 2: Sergio andmy tried to find more specific information on Rappaport's
Speaker 2: anti Putin activity, but there wasn't actually that much, not
Speaker 2: from the time when it apparently happened.
Speaker 3: I tried to look back at like more like articles
Speaker 3: at the time, you know, kind of what was going
Speaker 3: on at that time, instead of him saying recently, like
Speaker 3: in the last year, that he was a huge anti
Speaker 3: Putine critic.
Speaker 4: I couldn't find too much.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess the biggest thing is that he
Speaker 3: was working with Navalney, not the Valny, but like the
Speaker 3: opposition and then eventually Navalny, and that kind of that's
Speaker 3: pointed as the biggest like he was anti Putin, he
Speaker 3: was working with like the opposition, But I can't exactly
Speaker 3: find that he was such a huge, like outspoken person
Speaker 3: against Russia or Putin again until until he went back
Speaker 3: to the US.
Speaker 4: Then he was more kind of active, I guess in that.
Speaker 3: But at the time that he left, you know, the
Speaker 3: government was saying that it's because of the taxes. He
Speaker 3: claimed there was because he was being threatened for supporting
Speaker 3: the opposition. I mean, you can see both sides, like
Speaker 3: maybe he doesn't want to admit to you know, wrongdoing
Speaker 3: in terms of taxes, and the government doesn't want people
Speaker 3: to think that it's because they're, you know, threatening someone.
Speaker 2: But that said, it is actually a tried and tested
Speaker 2: method of Putin to create wrongdoing around political opponents in
Speaker 2: a bid to crush any opposition. I think it's likely
Speaker 2: this happened to Rappaport. Sure he did all the Kremlin
Speaker 2: tax but to a multimillionaire the equivalent of forty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars is hardly something he couldn't resolve. Maybe it's a
Speaker 2: case of two birds one stone. Rappaport is rich and influential,
Speaker 2: with strong ties to the US, and he's helping the
Speaker 2: Russian opposition parties. So let's get rid of him and
Speaker 2: just say it was because of this loose end of
Speaker 2: oad taxes. Let's not look too crazy, not yet anyway. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying Rappaport didn't genuinely want a new Russia
Speaker 2: one without the iron fist of Putin and his squad,
Speaker 2: but he did also make a lot of money under
Speaker 2: it until the heat got too close.
Speaker 3: He was more than happy to work and Russia Putting
Speaker 3: was ready in power for at least a decade at
Speaker 3: that point. He was more than happy to be there
Speaker 3: throughout everything, you know, when they were kind of when
Speaker 3: all these aligars were making their money in the nineties,
Speaker 3: it wasn't through the most I don't know, not in
Speaker 3: the most honorable ways, not the most not the cleanest way,
Speaker 3: you know, So like he knew what he was doing.
Speaker 3: I think he was more than happy to profit while
Speaker 3: you know, while he was making money, while he wasn't
Speaker 3: kind of threatening anyway. I think it's like, I think
Speaker 3: maybe he definitely supported the opposition, you know, but I
Speaker 3: highly doubt he would have risked his wealth and his
Speaker 3: happy life for like to create a putting kind of thing.
Speaker 3: I think maybe he truly, you know, he did support
Speaker 3: like the opposition and stuff. But at the minute the
Speaker 3: US raised their sanctions from two thousand and eight, he
Speaker 3: was gone. He was back in the US, back in
Speaker 3: the US. Rappaport continued his pursuit of political influence. In
Speaker 3: twenty twelve, just as his US sanctions evaporated, Dan Rappaport
Speaker 3: began working with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was running
Speaker 3: against Obama. Rapperport was an advisor, specifically working on parts
Speaker 3: of the campaign that focused on putting more US political
Speaker 3: pressure on Putin and Russia. Romney lost Obama one, and
Speaker 3: then fast forward to twenty sixteen, Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Arrived Gidbriyan jail. What was There are.
Speaker 2: Various nonsense conspiracy theories about Trump being a literal Russian agent.
Speaker 2: It's no secret that he often spoke fondly of Putin.
Speaker 2: Trump complimented Putin dozens of times before and after he
Speaker 2: was elected president in twenty sixteen. Who was particularly excited
Speaker 2: that Putin had said he was great and smart, going
Speaker 2: on about it several times.
Speaker 1: It got weird.
Speaker 2: It was like a child impressed that the teacher complimented
Speaker 2: its drawing.
Speaker 5: I think when it calls me brilliant, I'll take the compliment, Okay.
Speaker 2: Then it got really dark. After Putin launched the Russian
Speaker 2: invasion of Ukraine in twenty twenty two, which has so
Speaker 2: far led to the deaths of ten thousand civilians, including
Speaker 2: over five hundred children. Trump said Putin was a genius
Speaker 2: for doing this.
Speaker 5: I said, this is genius. Putin declares a big portion
Speaker 5: of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh that's wonderful.
Speaker 5: So Putin is now saying it's independent a large section
Speaker 5: of Ukraine. I said, how smart is that? And he's
Speaker 5: going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That's the
Speaker 5: strongest peace force we could use that on our southern border.
Speaker 5: That's the strongest peace force I've ever seen. There were
Speaker 5: more army tanks that I've ever seen. They going to
Speaker 5: keep peace? All right?
Speaker 2: But what does this all have to do with Dan Rappaport,
Speaker 2: the now dead American Russian citizen businessman who made his
Speaker 2: fortune jumping back and forth between New York and Moscow. Well,
Speaker 2: as you can probably guess, Rappaport was not a fan
Speaker 2: of Trump. With all the Putin PDA, Rappaport came out
Speaker 2: in criticism of Trump and his presidency. He didn't like
Speaker 2: that Trump was friendly with Putin, and he made that
Speaker 2: very clear publicly. Around this time, in twenty seventeen, Rappaport
Speaker 2: was living very nicely with his then wife. He owned
Speaker 2: a six bedroom mansion in Washington, DC. And guess who
Speaker 2: his neighbors happened to be? The Obamas. Yeah, Rappaport lived
Speaker 2: next door to the Obama family, or released as close
Speaker 2: as you can get to next door in such an area.
Speaker 2: The Obama house was eighty two hundred square foot. You're
Speaker 2: hardly sharing a war. Like Russian politicians, American politicians make
Speaker 2: themselves filthy rich throughout their careers. Take US Representative Nancy Pelosi,
Speaker 2: for example.
Speaker 5: Let us remember what President Reagan said, don't bother me
Speaker 5: with a question like that.
Speaker 2: She's worth an estimated one hundred and fourteen million dollars.
Speaker 3: When is this?
Speaker 5: When is this?
Speaker 2: Strangely enough, her husband, Paul Pelosi, has made several lucrative
Speaker 2: stock trades that coincide with the US government legislation in
Speaker 2: the technology sector, coincidentally, a sector Rappaport had a business in.
Speaker 2: Nancy says, all the lucky stocks of her husband is
Speaker 2: all just a coincidence. It's nothing to do with her.
Speaker 2: It's definitely not insider trading.
Speaker 3: Really really, okay.
Speaker 2: Politicians are politicians. They used their positions to do business
Speaker 2: to benefit themselves. Dan Rappaport knew this better than anyone.
Speaker 2: He'd been moving and shaking within the ven diagram of
Speaker 2: international politics and corporate profit for decades. Let's be honest,
Speaker 2: this is how we ended up with a six bedroom
Speaker 2: mansion in DC. The mansion in question was sold later
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen, when Rappaport and his wife got a divorce.
Speaker 2: It sold for five point five million dollars and who
Speaker 2: was it sold to? The Trump family. Dan Rappaport, an
Speaker 2: outspoken critic of Trump and his friendliness towards Putin, sold
Speaker 2: his house to Donald Trump's daughter and her husband, Ivanka
Speaker 2: Trump and Jared Kushner. Whilst this is notable, I don't
Speaker 2: think it's that unusual. People working in politics, in my
Speaker 2: experience as a journalist, often focused on international affairs at least,
Speaker 2: generally will fall down in the wind. That is, once
Speaker 2: money and power are involved, all bets are off. In politics,
Speaker 2: profits almost always comes above integrity. Now, to be fair
Speaker 2: to Dan Rapperport, he told a journalist at the time
Speaker 2: that the sale of the house was actually nothing to
Speaker 2: do with him. He said the money was split between
Speaker 2: him and his ex wife and she was the one
Speaker 2: selling it personally, though I find out hard to believe.
Speaker 2: They also owned a one point five million dollar apartment,
Speaker 2: a second three point five million dollar home, and Rappaport's
Speaker 2: parents live in a one million dollar Florida beach house.
Speaker 2: That Rappaport would just pay no attention to the sale
Speaker 2: of his most expensive property seems highly unlikely.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 2: After the divorce, Dan Rapperport moved to Ukraine. He lived
Speaker 2: in a fancy in Kiev. Now remember this was five
Speaker 2: years before the full scale invasion. I myself was in
Speaker 2: Kiev around this time, as was Sergy. The war was
Speaker 2: only in the east of the country then, which was
Speaker 2: very far away from Kiev. Everything was completely normal in
Speaker 2: the capitol. It's not unusual that someone might move to Kiev,
Speaker 2: not then, especially if they have a lot of money.
Speaker 2: You could live comfortably there on a normal Western wage,
Speaker 2: and if you were rich, you could live like a king. Rapaport, though,
Speaker 2: as we know, could live like a king anywhere. He
Speaker 2: was worth a fortune. So why are Ukraine well? It
Speaker 2: seems this was all part of another business venture. He
Speaker 2: set up a residential investment firm, putting money into new
Speaker 2: apartments in Kiev. You also got remarried and had a
Speaker 2: baby daughter. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: Rappaport's new equally comfortable life was upended. He took his
Speaker 2: family and flew back to the US, living once again
Speaker 2: in Washingrington, DC, where he'd later die after falling from
Speaker 2: the apartment window. Before his death, Rappaport was openly supportive
Speaker 2: of Ukraine's resistance to the invasion, and even donated himself
Speaker 2: to various Ukraine war efforts, as well as encouraging others
Speaker 2: to do so on his social media. So what do
Speaker 2: we think actually happened here? This is a tricky one.
Speaker 2: There are many potential leads that all end up merging together.
Speaker 2: So was Rappaport pushed out of a window by a
Speaker 2: political or business rival? Did he jump or did he
Speaker 2: just accidentally fall? Personally me at the start, I was
Speaker 2: beginning to think this might be the case where really
Speaker 2: a cigar is just a cigar. Okay, Rapperport was involved
Speaker 2: in all this politics and business, but maybe he did
Speaker 2: just fall. He didn't seem hard enough target to warrant killing. However,
Speaker 2: there's a lot more to this case than it first appears.
Speaker 2: Even now after all of this, as we know, Dan
Speaker 2: Rappaport died from falling out of a window. There are, however,
Speaker 2: several unusual details I'm yet to mention as I didn't
Speaker 2: want to bias the listener. From the start, Dan Rappaport
Speaker 2: owned the Soho Rooms club with a business partner named
Speaker 2: Sergei to Kachenko, also known in Russia as Sergei Jeff.
Speaker 2: Sergei Jeff died in January twenty seventeen. He died in
Speaker 2: Moscow after falling out of the window of his luxury apartment,
Speaker 2: the same way his business partner Dan Rappaport would die
Speaker 2: just five years later, an incredible coincidence. There were even
Speaker 2: more bizarre parts of this case we yet to look into.
Speaker 2: Rappaport's dog was allegedly found wandering around in a park
Speaker 2: near his apartment after he'd fallen out of the window
Speaker 2: and died. Strapped to the dog's collar was a supposed
Speaker 2: suicide note and for some reason cash. If that wasn't
Speaker 2: weird enough, there's even more. Rappaport is alleged to be
Speaker 2: the man behind a pretty popular but fake senior Pentagon
Speaker 2: Russian analyst known online as David Duberg. Du Berg was
Speaker 2: regularly quoted by the opposition in Russian and Ukrainian media,
Speaker 2: and he was cited as a professional analyst, but he
Speaker 2: didn't exist, and Rappaport is not an analyst. I believe
Speaker 2: Rappapault was behind a team that were actually the true
Speaker 2: identities of the people writing under the pseudonym David Duberg.
Speaker 2: The plot thickens. We'll be looking into all of this
Speaker 2: in depth in the next episode of sad Oligach. Sad
Speaker 2: Oliger is a H eleven production for Cool Zone Media
Speaker 2: and iHeartRadio, hosted, produced, researched, and edited by me Jake
Speaker 2: Hanrahan and Sergey Slipchenkok co produced by Sophie Lichtman. Music
Speaker 2: by Sam Black, artwork by Adam mcdoyle, soundmix.
Speaker 1: By Splicing Block.
Speaker 2: Go to Jakehanrahan dot com for more information.