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Speaker 2: Warning, the following episode contains explicit language and sexual themes.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised. Can I ask you, when you
Speaker 2: talk about Vladimir it's different than when you talk about
Speaker 2: other targets in the past.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, it was special.
Speaker 2: And when I'm listening from my position, it sounds not
Speaker 2: just like a target, but it sounds like there's a
Speaker 2: romantic feeling when you're describing him.
Speaker 3: No, I honestly I liked him. I liked his personality.
Speaker 3: Whoever likes say to me about Vladimir that, oh he's
Speaker 3: a killer, he's a or he's a criminal. But I've
Speaker 3: seen by myself like how he he was so respectful
Speaker 3: to other people, and like, just honest, he was justice.
Speaker 2: I realized as Aleah is speaking that ever since she'd
Speaker 2: been sent to Cheeshnya as punishment for rejecting her commander's advances,
Speaker 2: she's constantly told me that she didn't want to live anymore.
Speaker 2: But suddenly she stopped saying this. Now she seems to
Speaker 2: want to live. The problem is that she's finally found
Speaker 2: her happiness on the wrong side of the law. It
Speaker 2: kind of sounds like to me like you were getting
Speaker 2: lost in the Role.
Speaker 4: You know, when I was sitting in the car with
Speaker 4: all these guys, Vladimir in front, and all of them
Speaker 4: they were armed, and they have a lot of cash
Speaker 4: in their fogets, and then the black car with this
Speaker 4: like crazy loud music, and I felt in the movie,
Speaker 4: I live another life which I never had before, and
Speaker 4: I never even knew that this life may possibly exist.
Speaker 5: To kill you, I'm really sorry I had to do that.
Speaker 5: I could on my juty away, how my God like
Speaker 5: to like you. I had to treat you versus so
Speaker 5: much for.
Speaker 2: Episode thirteen, Chapter twenty eight, Lost.
Speaker 3: In the Role, I stand up slowly so he wouldn't
Speaker 3: wake up. I didn't go downstairs because I didn't know
Speaker 3: exactly where these guys were steeping, but upstairs on the
Speaker 3: second floor.
Speaker 2: Well, Leah's mission was succeeding all too well. She was
Speaker 2: now at the home of her target, Vladimir, who had
Speaker 2: just fallen asleep. This gave her the opportunity to search
Speaker 2: his home and discover any potential evidence that could take
Speaker 2: down the drug trafficking and extortion gang that Vladimir was running.
Speaker 2: It also gave her a very good opportunity to get caught.
Speaker 3: I wanted to see what was there. One room was
Speaker 3: just a bedroom. I quickly checked the warp and everything.
Speaker 3: It was just empty bedroom. And I opened the door
Speaker 3: of another room and I saw like so far and
Speaker 3: a big wardrobe. Near to the wardrobe, they were like
Speaker 3: huge black trash bags. So I walked and I slowly
Speaker 3: opened it and I saw that it was full of cash,
Speaker 3: lots of lots of money in these black thrash bags.
Speaker 3: I've never seen anything like that. I was shocked. And
Speaker 3: then I opened the wardrobe and I saw automatic Kalashnikoff
Speaker 3: guns just like in the line. And I saw some
Speaker 3: the ten guns as well, and I kind of like
Speaker 3: even got jealous because it was expensive and the aim
Speaker 3: is just perfect. It's a perfect gun. I walked outside
Speaker 3: and I went to the door which was on the corner,
Speaker 3: and I opened the door and it was kind of
Speaker 3: like an office because it was a table. There a
Speaker 3: big map on the wall, and I saw there was
Speaker 3: like some little pins on the map of the city.
Speaker 3: They saw a lot of papers on the table.
Speaker 2: Worried that she'd been out of the bedroom too long,
Speaker 2: I might get caught searching the house, Aliyah decided to
Speaker 2: return to Vladimir's room. However, as she's about to walk inside,
Speaker 2: Vladimir opened the door.
Speaker 3: Vladimir just walked out of the bedroom and he said, like,
Speaker 3: where have you been? Like I woke up and you
Speaker 3: were not in the bedroom. I said, like, I'm so thirsty.
Speaker 3: I don't know where to find water. He said, oh,
Speaker 3: I'll bring you. Don't worry. Oh too bad, It's fine.
Speaker 3: And I was thinking, oh my god, he almost caught me.
Speaker 3: If he would walk around the house and see me
Speaker 3: in that different like doors checking and everything, she could
Speaker 3: kill me that moment. Straightway. I didn't sleep at all
Speaker 3: all night. I was thinking about what I'm doing next
Speaker 3: and what should I report exactly to my commander.
Speaker 2: Leah had discovered no doubt, much to her relief, that
Speaker 2: there was some evidentiary benefit to spending more time in
Speaker 2: Vladimir's home. In order to help ensure that she'd be
Speaker 2: invited back. That morning, she tried one last seduction gambit.
Speaker 2: In her bag, she had a small vial of a
Speaker 2: perfume that she'd learned to formulate in her seduction training.
Speaker 3: I sprayed on the pillow, so every time he would
Speaker 3: go to his and sleep there, he will remember me,
Speaker 3: like remember my smell. And I said to him, well,
Speaker 3: I have to go home because I have to study
Speaker 3: and my lesson starts very soon. And I woke outside
Speaker 3: and then his security drove me home. I came back
Speaker 3: home and I called to Sasha. I just said that Lisa,
Speaker 3: we need to meet and I will explain you everything
Speaker 3: in person.
Speaker 2: Later that day, Eliah left her apartment in case she
Speaker 2: was being followed. She walked to the university campus, where
Speaker 2: she claimed to be studying. There, she waited for her
Speaker 2: colleague in the FSKN, Sasha, to arrive. They met at
Speaker 2: a table in the student common area and she filled
Speaker 2: them in on our progress the night before.
Speaker 3: I told him everything, and he said, if he would
Speaker 3: call to you like in the night, do you understand
Speaker 3: what he would do to you. I said, like, I know,
Speaker 3: and he's like, please be careful, don't do this again.
Speaker 3: He listened. For now, just try to be close to
Speaker 3: him as you can. Listen to his conversations, listen to
Speaker 3: his telephone calls, and he said that you should start
Speaker 3: to bring more information about next places of hearing supplies.
Speaker 3: I said, okay, I'll do my best, but just in
Speaker 3: the beginning, give me some time. And I went back
Speaker 3: through the university and then I returned to my house,
Speaker 3: so just in case, I tried to make it look
Speaker 3: like I was really student there.
Speaker 2: That night, round ten, she received a text from Vladimir.
Speaker 3: He said to me, how are you beautiful? I'm thinking
Speaker 3: about you. Well, I knew that he was thinking about me,
Speaker 3: because the smell was there.
Speaker 2: He invited her out that night, but she said she
Speaker 2: needed to stay home and get her homework done.
Speaker 3: So I thought it's good that I didn't come straight
Speaker 3: away the minute he called me, because in this case,
Speaker 3: I show him that I'm not so desperate about our
Speaker 3: communication and so needy.
Speaker 2: A few days later, her colleague Sasha called. He said
Speaker 2: that the team had decided that she should try to
Speaker 2: get photos of the map and paper she'd seen.
Speaker 3: The next morning, he brought me a small, little tiny
Speaker 3: camera which I could put to my purse, and he
Speaker 3: brought me a wire as well. The wire which you
Speaker 3: basically put into the room and you can hear it
Speaker 3: on the distance, and I had to put this device
Speaker 3: somewhere where people would hang out the most. So I
Speaker 3: thought that it would be better to put this device
Speaker 3: into the dining kitchen area rather than to his office.
Speaker 2: Elia's plan was to cook dinner for Vladimir and his
Speaker 2: friends as a way to get some alone time in
Speaker 2: the kitchen and plant the bug.
Speaker 3: First of all, they say, if you want to your
Speaker 3: men fall in love, you need to cook for him.
Speaker 3: And I got some potatoes, some tomatoes, I got some meat.
Speaker 3: Then the driver came and I brought the back with
Speaker 3: the food with me, and they were finishing some conversations
Speaker 3: while I was cooking. So I searched the kitchen very well.
Speaker 3: I only found a good place, which was underneath the vase.
Speaker 3: There was no flowers or something, but there were like
Speaker 3: some kind of like decoration. So I put this device
Speaker 3: inside in the vase, is like in the very bottom,
Speaker 3: and then I put back this decoration. And then the
Speaker 3: next task was to photograph all the important papers in
Speaker 3: his office. I served the table and I call everybody
Speaker 3: and said, like the food is served, And while they
Speaker 3: were eating, I was standing and just like looking at
Speaker 3: them and thinking, okay, So if they eat it, so
Speaker 3: they trust me that I wouldn't poison them.
Speaker 2: After dinner, Vladimir took Alia upstairs. On the way, she
Speaker 2: asked for a tour of the house, so.
Speaker 3: He opened every door and he showed me, oh, this
Speaker 3: is like the bedroom. He even showed me the room
Speaker 3: where I saw there's like bags of cash, but they
Speaker 3: were not there anymore. And then he said, like, this
Speaker 3: is my office. He didn't open it, and I said, like,
Speaker 3: I would love to see the place where you work
Speaker 3: and I would love to learn more about you. He
Speaker 3: opened the door and then I said like, oh, that's
Speaker 3: why the whole magic happens.
Speaker 6: And I.
Speaker 3: Said, oh, wow, this table is so solid. Do you
Speaker 3: think it can handle us? Boss? He's like, what do
Speaker 3: you mean? And I started to kiss him, and then
Speaker 3: I went into the position where he can take me
Speaker 3: from behind, where I was leaning at the table. So
Speaker 3: in this case, I could see the map and I
Speaker 3: could see exactly where it was, and it wasn't too dark,
Speaker 3: so I could read numbers, streets, names on the papers.
Speaker 3: And when he was taking me from behind, I was
Speaker 3: looking at the table and like just trying to read these,
Speaker 3: like you know, names on it and what exactly was there?
Speaker 3: I couldn't remember everything, but I remembered some names.
Speaker 2: The next morning, Vladimir's driver brought Alia home. Shortly afterward,
Speaker 2: she walked to the university in case she was being
Speaker 2: watched and waited for a colleague, Sasha to arrive.
Speaker 3: He said, since you installed the microphone like the bag,
Speaker 3: let's just see what will happen, and then we'll give
Speaker 3: you more like details. And he asked me for pictures,
Speaker 3: which I didn't do, and I told him, like listen,
Speaker 3: I didn't do it because it was not possible that time,
Speaker 3: but I'll do it later, but for now, I gave
Speaker 3: him names, and I gave him addresses.
Speaker 2: And this team researched this information and got back to
Speaker 2: Aliyah with the news. These properties were in the exact
Speaker 2: same area that Alah had seen on her first horrible
Speaker 2: mission with the FSKN.
Speaker 3: He checked the streets and these buildings. He said, it's
Speaker 3: exactly where they were like having our operation exactly in
Speaker 3: some houses there we saw all this overdose young kids
Speaker 3: and teenagers. And there were the places where were sex, slavery,
Speaker 3: prostitution basically where also they sold some hearings at Vladimir's map,
Speaker 3: there were like three pins in that area.
Speaker 2: I asked Aleah how she felt knowing that the target
Speaker 2: she was developing feelings for was complicit and the horrible
Speaker 2: thing she'd seen, even if he was just taking protection
Speaker 2: money from the traffickers.
Speaker 3: I knew that he was my target, and I knew
Speaker 3: I was doing this for my job, my mission, my country,
Speaker 3: for those kids who were killed and overdoors and kidnapped
Speaker 3: for human trafficking. I knew all that. I just wanted
Speaker 3: to I wanted to succeed in my mission, but at
Speaker 3: the same time, I just wanted to understand is he
Speaker 3: really so much deeply involved in that?
Speaker 2: Sasha told Leah that if she wanted answers and to
Speaker 2: complete her mission, it was important to get the photos
Speaker 2: he'd ask for of all the documents in Vladimir's office.
Speaker 2: When Alee explained that she was worried that Vladimir would
Speaker 2: wake up and find her there, Sasha came up with
Speaker 2: this solution.
Speaker 3: He said, why don't you do it while he'll be
Speaker 3: sleeping like really really deep. When I said to him, like, so, Howe,
Speaker 3: I'm supposed to do it? And he said, like, just
Speaker 3: give him, just give him some sleeping pills, and I
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, which one? He said, like, I'll next time,
Speaker 3: I'll give you some good sleeping pills. It just like
Speaker 3: kills you for like ten hours straight.
Speaker 2: Chapter twenty nine, two Friends, What.
Speaker 7: City do you live in?
Speaker 2: I'm in now a Los Angeles.
Speaker 7: If I didn't like you and I found you in
Speaker 7: Los Angeles and stabbed you on the sidewalk, I would
Speaker 7: immediately have heed on me.
Speaker 2: I'm speaking with Matt Tipton, an Army ranger, veteran, and
Speaker 2: internal medicine doctor trained in chemical and radiological weapons response.
Speaker 2: I'll explain why in a second, but first let's listen
Speaker 2: a little more.
Speaker 7: In minutes, somebody's going to find you and they're going
Speaker 7: to see that you've been stabbed, and they're going to
Speaker 7: do what's called a geo fence, and they're going to
Speaker 7: look at what cell phones were in that little area
Speaker 7: at the time. So they're going to nail me. But
Speaker 7: if you have a drunken interaction when the guy outside
Speaker 7: a bar and he shoves you or coughs on you,
Speaker 7: or smears something on yourly cross, that guy's hand was
Speaker 7: wet and you don't think anything of it, and then
Speaker 7: you don't feel sick for forty eight hours, and you
Speaker 7: don't get really sick for seventy two more hours. After that,
Speaker 7: you're not going to meet you say, hey, I bet
Speaker 7: that strange guy that bumped into me outside the restaurant
Speaker 7: poisoned me. So it's a way for the spy to
Speaker 7: get into the country. Do that, and then they go
Speaker 7: to the airport, you know, decon themselves, take an antidote,
Speaker 7: if there's one needed.
Speaker 2: Aliyah has talked often about poisons, about sleeping pills, and
Speaker 2: about so called truth serums, So I decided to speak
Speaker 2: to a few experts to get a better understanding of
Speaker 2: one of the most sinister aspects of Russian intelligence is
Speaker 2: deadly use of chemical compounds to silence its enemies around
Speaker 2: the world. Why does this seem to be such a
Speaker 2: common Russian state security tactic that it's in the news
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 7: Poison sends a message, and it gives you a way
Speaker 7: to put more time between you and the victim before
Speaker 7: there's a body involved. It's a cheap way to do it,
Speaker 7: and it's also terrifying. If you're actively speaking out against
Speaker 7: Putin and you start to get a tummy ache, you're like,
Speaker 7: is this, it am I dying. It's a psychological warfare
Speaker 7: aspect to it, and it's cheaper than a predator drone
Speaker 7: with a satellite guided missile.
Speaker 2: As an example of the intimidating psychological effect that Matt
Speaker 2: Tipton is talking about, this is journalist Amy Knight, author
Speaker 2: of several books critical of the Putin regime, most recently
Speaker 2: The Kremlin's Noose.
Speaker 8: In the early two thousands, I wrote for the Globe
Speaker 8: and Mail fairly regularly, and I was terribly, terribly critical
Speaker 8: of mister Putin. And at some point Russian embassy phoned
Speaker 8: up the Globe and Mail and said that they were
Speaker 8: going to kick their journalist who was in Moscow out
Speaker 8: of the country, and they were going to do all
Speaker 8: sorts of repercussions if Amy Knight didn't stop writing about Putin.
Speaker 2: Amy Knight was eventually banned from entering Russia. But before that,
Speaker 2: while she was in Moscow, something strange happened to her
Speaker 2: that she still wonders about.
Speaker 8: I was writing about Boris Nimpsov. I spoke with him.
Speaker 1: Russian politician Boris Nimptsov, a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin,
Speaker 1: is shot dead on a bridge in the shadow of
Speaker 1: the Kremlin.
Speaker 8: Second last day that I was there, I had lunch
Speaker 8: with my research assistant who was Russian at the hotel,
Speaker 8: and about three hours later I got so violently ill
Speaker 8: that I just couldn't do anything, just you know, ter
Speaker 8: stomach issues. And I was able to get myself on
Speaker 8: the plane a couple days later, but that stomach thing
Speaker 8: took a long time to go away, and they couldn't
Speaker 8: figure out why I had this terrible stomach thing. And
Speaker 8: I was thinking to myself that, you know, it unlikely
Speaker 8: that it was like standard food poisoning in a very
Speaker 8: upmarket hotel like the Marriotte with lots of foreign tourists.
Speaker 8: And after that, I wondered whether somebody had slipped something
Speaker 8: into my food, not to kill me, but to warn me.
Speaker 2: So poisoning doesn't just work for eliminating a specific political target.
Speaker 2: It also creates fear and uncertainty in every other enemy
Speaker 2: and potential enemy.
Speaker 8: I haven't really mentioned that in any of my writings
Speaker 8: because it's speculative, and you know, it could have just
Speaker 8: been bad luck, but I do wonder.
Speaker 2: Poisons, of course, have been used throughout history for political ends,
Speaker 2: taking down kings, emperors, religious leaders and philosophers. But why,
Speaker 2: I asked journalist Samy Knight, does Russia seem to employ
Speaker 2: this method more than any other country in modern times?
Speaker 8: In Russia, this seems to be the method of choice
Speaker 8: if you want to assassinate someone, either within the country
Speaker 8: or abroad. The Russian started way back when in the
Speaker 8: Soviet period what they called a secret poison lab. They
Speaker 8: have a technical expertise that has continued and been passed on.
Speaker 8: And the original poison lab was set up under Stalin's
Speaker 8: secret police, and it continued on through the KGB, and
Speaker 8: now of course there are secret laboratories that belong to
Speaker 8: the FSB.
Speaker 9: The poisoning of Russian disson and Alexi Navolney has taken
Speaker 9: an even more bizarre term. A Russian agent sent to
Speaker 9: tail opposition in a leader Navolney, has accidentally revealed how
Speaker 9: he was poisoned. In August. The agent, a member of
Speaker 9: an elite tocsins team in Russia's FSB security service, said
Speaker 9: the lethal nerve agent Novachak, was planted in Avalney's underwear.
Speaker 9: You're that right underwear.
Speaker 2: One of the experts who's perhaps been the closest to
Speaker 2: an actual poisoning is doctor Yuri Thalshtinsky. We'll get into
Speaker 2: that exact story in the next episode, but for now
Speaker 2: I called doctor Falshtinsky, a leading Russian historian and author
Speaker 2: to better understand why literally part of the core curriculum
Speaker 2: for an FSB agent is learning the use and concealment
Speaker 2: of poisons.
Speaker 6: Now, drugs, of course have a great advantage now one
Speaker 6: and this is extremely important. It gives you time to escape.
Speaker 6: And for example, with take recent poisoning some case of
Speaker 6: Lithuanianka who was poisoned and in case of Scripwall who
Speaker 6: was poisoned.
Speaker 2: Both of these are former FSB agents who were poisoned
Speaker 2: in England for betraying Putin. One survived along with his
Speaker 2: daughter who was also poisoned. The other didn't.
Speaker 6: Those people who poisoned him had time to escape back
Speaker 6: to Russia, while for example, mister Krasikov, who killed a
Speaker 6: Chichen military leader in Berlin in the middle of the
Speaker 6: day using gun, was arrested. Or those people who killed
Speaker 6: former President of the Chechen Republic William han Jin Darbiev
Speaker 6: in Katar using bomb. They successfully killed him, but they
Speaker 6: were arrested. So you see this is the advantage when
Speaker 6: you poison a person. But number two, it is not
Speaker 6: always known that the person is poisoned. Know some of
Speaker 6: course in some cases, but in some other cases who knows.
Speaker 6: Maybe we even do not know why is a person
Speaker 6: was found dead. And there are some questionable death in
Speaker 6: London as well, where we still do not know why
Speaker 6: the person actually left his life and was found dead.
Speaker 6: So this is the advantage. That's why they using it successfully.
Speaker 2: Considering all these poisonings. Not to mention shootings and bombings,
Speaker 2: and we didn't even mention the Putin critic who fell
Speaker 2: to his death out of a hotel window. I tell
Speaker 2: doctor Falshtinsky that this is a lot of assassinations. His answer,
Speaker 2: to my surprise, is to explain to me that it's
Speaker 2: the law the.
Speaker 6: Russian parliament was the law which allowed Russian special services
Speaker 6: to kiel anymess of the state abroad.
Speaker 2: I asked doctor Falshtinsky how the Russian government determines whether
Speaker 2: someone should be assassinated without a trial or arrested and
Speaker 2: put on trial. And here's his answer.
Speaker 6: They kill, I have to say in three cases. The
Speaker 6: first case is when the person commits treason. From the
Speaker 6: point of view of the government, and this is the
Speaker 6: case of both Lithuanianka and Scripal. For example, the same
Speaker 6: was true about that a helicopter pilot who was recently
Speaker 6: killed in Spain. Prior to this, he defected to Ukraine
Speaker 6: with his helicopter. Case number two, when people are competing
Speaker 6: for power against putting, and in these cases they kill preventively,
Speaker 6: and this is an order. For example, Boris niaimself, who
Speaker 6: was killed righted the walls of Kremlin, and the same
Speaker 6: is true of course about Alexei Navalni, who was killed
Speaker 6: because he was competing for presidential power. And the third case,
Speaker 6: I think when it's connected to big money, then we're
Speaker 6: probably going back to the mafia aspect of political life
Speaker 6: in Russia. But yes, when the mournia is involved, we
Speaker 6: see usually some killings.
Speaker 2: Clearly, Russian intelligence is a deadly world that operates by
Speaker 2: its own rules, which sound a lot closer to the
Speaker 2: code of the Vori, the mafia than that of an
Speaker 2: elected government. Even Aliyah, who was working on what she
Speaker 2: felt was the right side of the law, had already
Speaker 2: been involved in a possible poisoning. We'll go deeper into
Speaker 2: Russia's poison factory next episode. But for now, let's return
Speaker 2: to Alia's experiences with these chemical agents. Aliyah had just
Speaker 2: been asked to administer sleeping pills to her target. Vladimir
Speaker 2: read to the mission, but first ask for more time
Speaker 2: to build trust with Vladimir and his gang before taking
Speaker 2: the risk and potentially blowing the operation. After all, the
Speaker 2: FSB agency poisoned boll Me has supposedly been following him
Speaker 2: for years.
Speaker 3: I said to Sasha, I said, I need more time
Speaker 3: to just like literally become his right hand, and I
Speaker 3: would need like at least a months to do that.
Speaker 3: He said, like, well, you have time as long as
Speaker 3: you give us places of the distribution. There is like
Speaker 3: one technique which agents use sometimes when they try to
Speaker 3: infiltrate like you know, big circles. The technic calls like shadow.
Speaker 3: So in this technique you had to be really invisible
Speaker 3: for everyone. But if like Vladimir needs something, I'm there,
Speaker 3: always ready to do what he wants. So I had
Speaker 3: to make myself to be like a shadow of Vladimir,
Speaker 3: so everybody would start to feel that. Okay. So whereas Vlaiemir,
Speaker 3: there's his girl.
Speaker 2: But as a Liah spent more time with Vladimir and
Speaker 2: as fellow gang members. There was one person she couldn't
Speaker 2: win over, Vladimir's old friend, the gangster who was always
Speaker 2: looking at her in the club with cold, dispassionate eyes.
Speaker 3: Even I knew some techniques and allp techniques and everything,
Speaker 3: for me, it was super difficult to establish connection with him.
Speaker 3: I just couldn't and he was always remaining silence, and
Speaker 3: he always gave me this very kind of like disgusting feeling.
Speaker 3: And then through the conversation I understood that he was
Speaker 3: the one who was controlling the whole distribution all these
Speaker 3: tones of heroines coming from Afghanistan to Russia. That time.
Speaker 2: As the weeks passed and Aliyah and Vladimir began to
Speaker 2: go on proper dates and even take short trips together,
Speaker 2: he began to trust her and open up more. Eventually
Speaker 2: Aliyah was able to find out more about this silent,
Speaker 2: ominous friend.
Speaker 3: Eventually, slowly, slowly, but he opened up and he told
Speaker 3: me his story. So he was sent to Afghanistan war,
Speaker 3: and it was a moment where he met this guy
Speaker 3: with sharp eyes, this cold guy, and apparently they were
Speaker 3: in the same troop and that's how they met, and
Speaker 3: he said to me that I trust him so much
Speaker 3: because he literally saved my life.
Speaker 2: After leaving the army, Vladimir's friend became part of an
Speaker 2: operation smuggling heroin from Afghanistan to Russia on military airplanes. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Vladimir joined the police, where like Aaliyah, he was disappointed
Speaker 2: to find extensive corruption and very few financial opportunities for
Speaker 2: a low ranking officer. Soon he found better opportunities on
Speaker 2: the other side of the law.
Speaker 3: So when Vladimir started to go to the gym and
Speaker 3: he met some of criminal members of the gang at
Speaker 3: that time, and then eventually Vladimir just basically was recruited
Speaker 3: into the same gang. He said that I wanted to
Speaker 3: help my mom, she was sick. My father was like,
Speaker 3: you know, just drinking every day. And he started from
Speaker 3: the very low position, kind of like a soldier in
Speaker 3: the gang, but he gained a lot of respect from
Speaker 3: others and eventually he was actually crowned to becoming a
Speaker 3: boss of others. Then his army friend approached him again
Speaker 3: and he said, listen, I have one business which your
Speaker 3: criminal gang would be happy to collaborate. And that's how
Speaker 3: he brought the hearing supplies from Afghanistan to the gang.
Speaker 2: As she spoke with Vladimir about this, Eliah struggled to
Speaker 2: reconcile the seemingly kind, charismatic man she was developing feelings
Speaker 2: for with a drug trafficking gang leader she was there
Speaker 2: to bring down.
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 3: Laying and bad and I looked into his eyes and
Speaker 3: I asked him. I said, like, do you really know
Speaker 3: what's happening, you know, with these trucks? And he's like, like,
Speaker 3: what do you mean? And I said, like, did you
Speaker 3: know that so many young people dying because of like
Speaker 3: bad quality of trucks. He said, well, I don't know
Speaker 3: anything about it, but I'm not responsible for this part
Speaker 3: because my army friend, he is controlling the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Like I'm more focusing on businesses like factories and more
Speaker 3: like government businesses in.
Speaker 2: Other words, probably protection, money, bribery, money laundering, and who
Speaker 2: knows what else.
Speaker 3: And when I said, like, why don't you just check
Speaker 3: it out and just know it yourself, I wanted just
Speaker 3: him to understand that one of the businesses which he
Speaker 3: was doing it was just like killing other young innocent
Speaker 3: people who were really just children.
Speaker 2: Vladimir totally that he actually wanted the gang to get
Speaker 2: into more legitimate businesses anyway where people maybe lived a
Speaker 2: little longer and easier.
Speaker 3: And because of that they had some kind of like
Speaker 3: arguments with the army friend. He felt that it's becoming
Speaker 3: too risky.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Leah continued delivering information to her colleague Sasha until
Speaker 2: he told her they were ready to make a move
Speaker 2: and raid some of the addresses that Aliah had given him.
Speaker 2: When the operation happened, Sasha asked Aliyah to stay close
Speaker 2: to Vladimir, so she made up an excuse to go
Speaker 2: shoe shopping with.
Speaker 3: Him, and only when he sat into the car, he
Speaker 3: noticed that he has so many missed calls from his
Speaker 3: army friend, and he called him back and he said, look,
Speaker 3: like what's going on? And I heard that hiss an
Speaker 3: army friend who never really gave any emotions that moment.
Speaker 3: I heard him screaming or something about like where the
Speaker 3: hell were you? I couldn't reach you, like the hell
Speaker 3: you're doing. And Vladimir was like upset, but I think
Speaker 3: like he was more upset because of his partner screaming.
Speaker 3: And he said to me, sweetheart, I have to deal
Speaker 3: with something right now. Let's go to the club a
Speaker 3: little bit later, okay, and he dropped me home and
Speaker 3: I texted Sasha. I said, like, I said everything okay,
Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, you did a great job. I will
Speaker 3: give you only permission when I will see you in person.
Speaker 2: As a Leah tells a story, I asked her if
Speaker 2: it seemed too risky to bust Vladimir's drug operation while
Speaker 2: she was still undercovering the gang and also relatively new there.
Speaker 2: Was it sloppy at all for them to act on
Speaker 2: the information that's accessible in the house while you're still
Speaker 2: maybe in the relationship and be while this is happening,
Speaker 2: for you to do something that breaks your normal pattern
Speaker 2: of what you do with him. Was he risking the
Speaker 2: asset at all? The asset being you me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, nobody cares about Okay. I did explain this in
Speaker 3: the beginning, but like you can fail and you can
Speaker 3: be killed, but nobody really cares because the whole mission
Speaker 3: is the most important. As a human being, you're nothing,
Speaker 3: and Sasha was just a good professional agent, even risking
Speaker 3: my life.
Speaker 2: At our next meeting with Sasha, Leah asked him how
Speaker 2: the operation went.
Speaker 3: He said, like it was one of the big places,
Speaker 3: which was distributing drugs. So I wrote the report to
Speaker 3: a commander the want to read it. I'm like, wherever
Speaker 3: I trust you. So he's like, okay, so just behave
Speaker 3: as normal and do everything you do just like in
Speaker 3: the same way. Just nothing happened.
Speaker 2: So Leah continued to get closer to Vladimir, planning specific
Speaker 2: kinds of dates to the movies and the beach.
Speaker 3: I wanted to bring him to that memories, to that
Speaker 3: period of his life where he was happy boy, without
Speaker 3: knowing that it will be Afghani war or him becoming
Speaker 3: criminal gang leader. That's how I established that trust.
Speaker 2: However, it's hard to tell. Sometimes Leah speaks who was
Speaker 2: seducing who. It's also interesting to think that this was
Speaker 2: her first relationship with someone she actually liked. She shares
Speaker 2: many memories of this time, including a trip to the countryside.
Speaker 3: He said, this is my lent, this is my mother land.
Speaker 3: I was born here, I will die here. I belong here,
Speaker 3: and it's very sad what's happening right now in my country,
Speaker 3: and I want to do right, you know. And I
Speaker 3: looked at him. I thought, like, you know, he speaks
Speaker 3: exactly like my dad. But he was exactly on the
Speaker 3: opposite side from my father.
Speaker 2: Aliah would soon find out that maybe these two worlds,
Speaker 2: the military and the mafia, weren't so different after all.
Speaker 3: I might Sasha on Monday, and he was completely lost.
Speaker 3: He said, So I came to the department and I
Speaker 3: found out that instead of these like four killers of
Speaker 3: the heroine, they're only like just a few grums left.
Speaker 3: So apparently the whole report which Sasha provided to have
Speaker 3: a commander was changed by him, and the whole report
Speaker 3: was giving to the upscale commander that Sasha's group only
Speaker 3: confiscated just a few grumps.
Speaker 2: Of hearing, Sasha went down to tell Alia that he
Speaker 2: just checked the evidence locker and almost all the heroine
Speaker 2: was gone, just a small bag remained.
Speaker 3: And I was like having this kind of like you know,
Speaker 3: like when your brain basically stuck and you just cannot
Speaker 3: accept the information. And after a couple of minutes, to said,
Speaker 3: do you think that he actually reported instead of like
Speaker 3: four killos, just a few grums because he basically took
Speaker 3: this heroine for himself. Asha said, well, I just don't
Speaker 3: understand what to do, and you know, like do you
Speaker 3: think we should we should spy on our commander. I said, well,
Speaker 3: if you can't do it, do it from your side,
Speaker 3: because I'll do from my side what I can do
Speaker 3: with Vladimir. Then just it will be between us. And
Speaker 3: I left with this kind of like understanding that it's
Speaker 3: something shady. There's the whole big thing going on just
Speaker 3: behind our eyes which we don't know. And I couldn't
Speaker 3: obviously speak and ask Vladimir even though I really wanted,
Speaker 3: But I decided that that night I really need to
Speaker 3: put him to sleep to find out what the hell
Speaker 3: is in these papers.
Speaker 2: Elia's story continues in episode fourteen.
Speaker 3: Sasha was the first who entered as the commander of
Speaker 3: the team. He was the one who received the first bullet.
Speaker 2: To Die For is a production of Tenderfoot TV in
Speaker 2: association with iHeart Podcasts. The show was hosted and written
Speaker 2: by me Neil Straus, with additional writing assistants by Tristan Bankston.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are myself, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay. For
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Matt Frederick and Alex Williams.
Speaker 2: Lead producer and editor is Tristan Bankston. Additional editing by
Speaker 2: Miles Clark and Christian Brown, supervising producer Tracy Kaplan. Consultants
Speaker 2: include Nushin, Valiza Day, Chelsea Gooden and Jamie Albright. Artwork
Speaker 2: by Byron McCoy, original music by Makeup and Vanity Set
Speaker 2: mixed and mastered by Dayton Cole. Our theme song is
Speaker 2: Killer Shangli Law by Psychotic Beats featuring Pattiamore. Special thanks
Speaker 2: to Aorn Rosenbaub and the team at Uta Beck Media
Speaker 2: and Marketing, Aren Siegel, Becky Jensen, the Nord Group, Meredith Stedman,
Speaker 2: Rose Baruk and Alex Bespustad