English translation
A RDX TRACE: Was the murdered FSB agent involved in the Moscow apartment bombings?
Source: Novaya Gazeta
Date: 10th November 2003
In March, Novaya Gazeta published a transcript of an interview with Achemez Gochiyaev, one of the prime suspects in the Moscow apartment bombings. As we previously reported, his testimony formed the basis for the theory that the secret services were involved in the tragic events of the autumn of 1999.
Today, a new twist has emerged in the "Gochiyaev case": according to historian Yuri Felshtinsky, who is conducting his own independent investigation into the Moscow terrorist attacks, the involvement of Russian secret services in their organization can be proven using accessible electronic databases.
After Batchaev's murder and Krymshamkhalov's arrest on December 7, 2002, Achemez Gochiyaev remained my only contact. As I previously reported, repeated attempts to obtain additional information were met with financial difficulties: Gochiyaev's control was demanding money. The situation was at an impasse: we weren't going to pay for the information, and Gochiyaev's acquaintances were becoming quite irritated by our intransigence.
On May 7, 2003, shortly after yet another tedious conversation about money in exchange for film, a message in Gochiyaev's familiar handwriting arrived on my home fax in Boston. Here is the note (original spelling and punctuation preserved):
GOCHIYAEV'S NOTE
"There is one person, an active FSB officer. He can come to you and testify in this case. But he needs 100% guarantees of safety. You yourself understand that after this, he cannot return. If you can provide him with guarantees of safety, help him with shelter, and resolve his financial situation, then a person will come to you for negotiations. After your conversation with this person, where you discuss all the terms and guarantees, this person will come.
I also want to tell you that I contacted Sergei Yushenkov through my friends. After a meeting between my friends and Yushenkov, who wanted to give him my tape, Yushenkov was killed exactly one week later. This is something for you to think about. I can make a video recording where I'll tell you about this incident as well.
Everything I've suggested above can only be resolved when you resolve what you still haven't resolved. Without that, no further dealings with you will work out. By the way, I know BAB (Berezovsky); we met in Moscow when he was still the director of Logovaz, and we later met when he was a State Duma deputy from our republic.
Believe me, I can find people to deal with who will give me a lot of money; I don't even have to look for them; they're looking for me themselves, and they're more interested in you than in mine.
(Terrorist Gochiyaev with his children. He sent a photograph as proof he's alive.)
If what I'm writing interests you and you're comfortable with my proposals, then call me within three days of receiving the letter—you have the number. If you don't call within that time, this will be your answer.
Sincerely, Achemez."
Clearly, it was blackmail. I forwarded a printout of this note to the very individuals Gochiyaev had in mind, and whom the Russian intelligence services, for some reason, are even more interested in than he himself: Boris Berezovsky and Alexander Litvinenko. Frankly, we didn't even discuss this note. We simply forgot about it. It all seemed so absurd that it was awkward to make a fuss about it in the media.
I wouldn't have done it today if the opportunity hadn't presented itself to recall Gochiyaev again. And I recalled him because I was analyzing data on legal entities registered in Moscow. Electronic directories are an objective source. And this source points to the involvement of the well-known FSB officer Max Lazovsky in the terrorist attacks in Russia in September 1999.
Core Values
So, having checked the database "Legal Entities of Moscow," I discovered that the director of Lazovsky's company "Lanako" since 1997 was a certain G. N. Kosna (variants: "Kasna" and "Kosia"). In addition, G. N. Kosna was also the director of the company "MAM-1," registered in Moscow at the address: Shokalsky proezd, building 17, tel. 928-81-72, 928-50-39.
This same telephone number was also listed as the telephone number of the environmental organization NPO "Priroda," registered at the address: Furkasovsky pereulok, building 3. NPO "Priroda" is still located at this address today, but with a different telephone number: 924-42-14. The deputy head of NPO Priroda was Andrei Evgenievich Mamchits, a resident of Mytishchi. The name "MAM-1" is apparently a composite of the first three letters of Mamchits's last name.
The legal registration of Kapstroy-2000, founded by A. Gochiyaev and Aleksandr Yuryevich Karmishin (who, unlike Gochiyaev, was not put on the FSB's wanted list), was handled by a certain "Business Company," registered at 17 Shokalsky Proezd—the same address as MAM-1, headed by G.N. Kosna. As a reminder, Kosna had, since 1997, managed both Lanako, a company owned by Lazovsky, and the aforementioned NPO Priroda.
In addition, on June 23, 1998, another company was established in Moscow: Lantana-L, registered at the address: Stremyanny Lane, Building 31/3, but having the same telephone numbers as the companies Delovaya Kompaniya, MAM-1, and NPO Priroda, namely, numbers: 928-81-72 and 928-50-39.
It's also clear that the name "Lantana-L" is composed of the first three letters of Lazovsky's company, Lanako—LAN—and the letters of the name of Lazovsky's wife, Tatyana Lazovskaya: TATYANA. "L" is the first letter of both Lazovsky's and his wife's surnames. The resulting name is LANTANA-L. However, it could have been a different "Tatiana," but more on that below.
The founder of the NPO Priroda was Ekaterina Markovna Bykhovskaya, who lived in the same building as Lazovsky's wife, Tatyana, which in this case can hardly be considered a coincidence. Therefore, given that the "Open Letter of Yu. Krymshamkhalov and T. Batchaev" also names Lazovsky as one of the organizers of the terrorist attacks, Lazovsky's involvement in the 1999 tragedy can be considered formally proven.
NOVAYA GAZETA FILE: Maksim Yuryevich LAZOVSKY
Maksim Yuryevich LAZOVSKY was a crime boss known by the nicknames "Max" and "Khromoy." According to some reports, the criminal group he led had close ties to members of the Chechen criminal community and Russian intelligence agencies. Lazovsky's group's base was the firm "Lanako," which traded oil and petroleum products.
Among other things, Lazovsky's gang was suspected of organizing the murder of Vasilenko, director of the Tuapse oil refinery, the kidnapping of State Duma deputy Petrov, and the murder of banker Kantor. Furthermore, law enforcement agencies had every reason to believe that Lazovsky was directly involved in a series of terrorist attacks.
For example, on November 18, 1994, a railway bridge over the Yauza River was blown up in Moscow. The body of a certain Andrei Shchelenkov was found at the scene of the attack. Forged documents of a Russian army officer and an employee of Lazovsky's firm, Lanako, were found on him. In December of that same year, 1994, a No. 33 bus was blown up at the VDNKh bus stop in Moscow. Soon after the attack, Moscow Criminal Investigation Department officers discovered the saboteur—retired Colonel Vladimir Vorobyov, associated with Lazovsky's group.
In 1996, Lazovsky was arrested on suspicion of organizing these and other crimes. It is known that an active officer of the Moscow FSB, who effectively served as the gang's security chief, was also detained along with him. During a search of Lazovsky's apartment, counterfeit FAPSI, Ministry of Defense, and police identification cards were confiscated.
Despite the evidence gathered by the investigation, the court dismissed most of the charges against Lazovsky. Nevertheless, in 1997, he was convicted of drug and weapons possession and sentenced to two years in prison, including a year of pretrial detention. Lazovsky was released in 1998. The possible involvement of Lazovsky's group in the preparation of the apartment building bombings in Moscow in the fall of 1999 remained unproven: in April 2000, he was shot at the entrance to the Assumption Cathedral in the village of Uspenskoye, Odintsovo District, Moscow Region.
Incidentally, Furkasovsky Lane is the rear of the main FSB building; building 3 on Furkasovsky Lane is opposite, 20 meters away. Let's consider this a fact of no significance....
A Combat Girlfriend
But that's not all. On October 10, 1999, the Kommersant newspaper published an article by Yuri Syun, "The Explosion on Kashirka Might Not Have Happened." It follows that, several hours before the terrorist attack, security services detained 26-year-old Tatyana Koroleva, an employee of the law firm "Business Company" and the lover of one of the main suspects in the apartment bombings, Achemez Gochiyaev.
As a Kommersant correspondent writes:
"...KGB agents contacted Tatyana Koroleva while investigating the terrorist attack on Guryanova Street. They determined that the bomb that destroyed the building had been planted in the office of the company 'Brand-2,' which was located on its ground floor. Brand's founder was listed as Mukhit Laipanov, a resident of Karachayevsk. He was immediately placed on the wanted list, but it soon became clear that the man being sought was dead. Laipanov died in a car accident back in February of this year, and his passport is being used by his fellow countryman, Achemez Gochiyaev.
At the Moscow Registration Chamber, security officers were told that the firm 'Business Company' had been preparing the documents for the registration of 'Brand-2.' But when the task force arrived at its legal address on Volgogradsky Prospekt, the office was closed.
After sifting through a huge pile of junk in the trash bins in the backyard, the security officers found scraps of paper. These scraps revealed that the company was planning to re-register. They also managed to establish its new name: 'Lantana-L Agency.'
The agency said that Tatyana Koroleva had prepared the documents for Laipanov, although she had registered 'Brand-2' through a third legal entity, 'Consul-Business.' \<…>
While interrogating employees of the former 'Business Company,' security officers learned that Koroleva not only handled Gochiyaev's paperwork but was also his mistress. She had come to Moscow from Volgograd and rented an apartment there, even without registering. Koroleva was detained on the night of September 13th. But when law enforcement officers arrived at her home, Gochiyaev was no longer there. Apparently, he was on Kashirskoye Highway at the time, in the very building where the bomb was planted. They decided to continue the interrogation the following day, and Koroleva was sent to a detention center. But that morning, a few hours after the explosion on Kashirskoye Highway, she was somehow released. \<…>
Currently wanted, Koroleva is believed to be in a mountainous region of Chechnya, according to intelligence. The Gochiyaevs are also hiding there…"
A Thousand and One Firms
Let's leave the lack of explanation for Koroleva's sudden release from police custody to the FSB and Russian investigative agencies. However, the author's assertion that Koroleva was wanted by investigators, disappeared from Moscow, and fled to Chechnya is most likely untrue. Judging by online databases, at least twenty-eight commercial firms headed or founded by Tatyana Viktorovna Koroleva have been registered in the capital since 1999. This means she continued to practice law in Moscow until at least June 20, 2000.
Thus, from December 1999 to January 2000, a certain Tatyana Koroleva founded such companies in Moscow as Unifikon-Stroy, Trans-Mega, UTK Spetsremonta, Remkomplekt-99, Dasti-Tour, Unifikon-S, Dial-Kont, and Dekont-Servis. Moreover, most of these, and all the other enterprises founded by Koroleva, share not only the same address and telephone number, but also the same director's surname. The fact that several of the aforementioned firms are registered on Malaya Lubyanka and Maly Kiselny Lane, in the building adjacent to the Moscow FSB Directorate, is again considered a mere coincidence.
All that remains is to draw our own conclusions:
- Conclusion one: Gochiyaev's so-called "mistress," Tatyana Koroleva, may have been a co-owner of the company "LANTANA-L" along with Lazovsky, and it was she, not Lazovsky's wife, Tatyana, who provided the four letters "TANA" for the second part of the company's name.
- Conclusion two: Lazovsky himself, killed in 2000, was directly involved in the 1999 terrorist attacks.
- Conclusion three: Koroleva's release from the police detention center where she was placed was no accident, and it wasn't random individuals from the Russian secret services who were holding her. These individuals may have had some connection to the 1999 terrorist attacks. Koroleva herself may have been, like Lazovsky, an employee of the Russian state security agencies and directly involved in the terrorist attacks: that's why she wasn't put on the wanted list either in September 1999 or later.
- Conclusion four: Gochiyaev's partner and co-founder of the firm Kapstroy-2000, Alexander Yuryevich Karmishin, was not put on the wanted list for the same reasons.
I'm confident that the reader will be able to draw all the other conclusions, so to speak, of a general political nature, independently.
Yuri Felshtinsky — for Novaya Gazeta
From the editor:
Historian Yuri Felshtinsky began his own investigation into the Moscow bombings almost simultaneously with the Russian secret services. Some of his conclusions are controversial and therefore require serious verification. Such an investigation presents no particular difficulty: it suffices to identify the most vulnerable aspects of Felshtinsky's theory. We have found several.
For example, the information that the director of FSB officer Lazovsky's firm, Lanako, was a certain G. Kosna, who was directly involved with Kapstroy-2000, founded by Achemez Gochiyaev, needs to be verified. It is also necessary to determine whether Tatyana Koroleva, a close acquaintance of Gochiyaev, was a co-owner of Lazovsky's firm, Lantana-L. And can we be certain that it was Koroleva, and not her full namesake, who founded several Moscow-based commercial firms after she was released by the law enforcement officers who detained her and evaded the investigation?
Of course, the answers to these questions are unlikely to resolve the protracted investigation into the Moscow terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, the editorial board of Novaya Gazeta believes that everyone involved in these crimes, in one way or another, should be held accountable, just like the immediate perpetrators.
We believe that for any intelligence agency handling a case of this magnitude, Yuri Felshtinsky's information warrants an immediate investigation.