Dec 28 2006

More Clues To The Litvinenko Puzzle

It is interesting how the media swarm on the Litvinenko incident as died way down. I keep wondering what in the world caused the about face (besides competing stories on the modern Ripper). But some interesting new clues are slowly coming out, and I think everyone has decided to take a deep breath and stop jumping to wild conclusions and assassination theories. Well some are at least. I begin with a Boston Globe article which starts out with the implausible concept that Litvinenko was poisoned in the Millenium Bar, at the end of a 3 week long Polonium Trail that follows Litvinenko and Lugovoi to three hotels and numerous rooms at each hotel, to the offices of two UK security firms wanting to do business in Russia (named Erinys and RISC), to the Ishu sushi bar and a meeting with Scaramella, and to the offices of Boris Berezovsky. In between are trails left on planes between Moscow and London, and follow a third man through Hamburg Germany – Dmitri Kovtun. None of this extensive, earlier Polonium 210 trail is explained in the reporting by the Boston Globe:

With its warm oak paneling and imposing grand piano, the Pine Bar, tucked inside the Millennium Hotel in fashionable Mayfair, is a good place for a late-afternoon drink.

But it was here, in one of the most convivial corners of London, that police believe Alexander Litvinenko , a former Russian spy, was poisoned. Police believe that while Litvinenko met with some other Russians on Nov. 1, someone slipped him a radioactive substance, possibly into his cup of tea. Twenty-three days later, he was dead.

If police seem to know where Litvinenko was poisoned, they are still puzzled over why, and by whom.

The Boston Globe, or its sources, are woefully behind the reporting on this story. Which just underlines the fact that what is being reported as fact is actually very shakey when viewed in the whole context of information out there on the Polonium trail. But I did not want to dwell on more abysmal reporting by the mainstream media (no news there), but the real news that is being overlooked because the media’s baised preconceptions:

In a series of interviews, British police and intelligence officers explained the difficulties they are facing as they try to determine who poisoned Litvinenko and why. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, they expressed frustration at trying to sort out criminal, political, and business interests in Russia.

Perhaps just as Litvinenko’s killers hoped, British authorities suspect the use of such an exotic poison seems almost too obvious, meant to steer investigators in a particular direction.

As one police official put it, “Why not just shoot him in the head?”

But British authorities don’t accept that only those in the Russian intelligence services would have access to polonium-210, or the willingness to kill someone in such a chilling fashion. Indeed, the Kafkaesque confluence of spooks, both former and present, organized crime, and big business in Russia presents British officials with their biggest challenge.

Authorities are clearly not wedded to the assassination theory. It has many, many problems that cannot be easily knitted into a reasonably strong case. The admission that Polonium-210 is accessible to a broad range of suspects, not just the state, is a huge change in the dynamic of this case. The media is too wedded to their assassination theories to accurately reflect this sea change, but the actual quotes by authorities (ignoring the Globe’s editorializing in between quotes) is showing a big change of view.

What is coming to the fore is the under reported role of all these UK and Russian security firms. Firms that provide security for people and property that is travelling – many times across borders. The best cover for a smuggling operation that involves small quantities of valuable materials would be a security firm. And now the security firms are showing up in spades in a lot of reporting:

A former US Marine now working for an international security firm said Litvinenko was on the payrolls of at least two security firms. The former Marine, speaking on the condition he was not identified, said Litvinenko and other former KGB and FSB officers sell themselves as consultants able to guide legitimate companies through the Byzantine business world in Russia where the legitimate and illegitimate merge.

Larisa Alexandrovna did some fine reporting on which security companies Litvinenko worked for, and one of them was Erinys which is also a site of Polonium-210 contamination:

Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-FSB officer who was recently murdered in London, was working for a British security firm at the time of his death, two well placed British sources who wish to remain unidentified tell RAW STORY.

One of the 12 to 24 polonium contamination sites in the Piccadilly area of London identified by British authorities was the office of the security and risk management company Erinys International Ltd.

Two separate British sources who, given the security risk, asked to not be identified in any specific way, have confirmed that Litvinenko was working on contract for Erinys

These sources further explained that the reason Litvinenko was meeting at Erinys’ offices around the time of his contamination was to broker a deal of some sort with a Russian security startup being created by two former FSB agents, Andrei Lugovoi and his business partner Dmitry Kovtun.

Larisa goes on to present a list of activities that involved Erinys, Litvinenko, Lugovoi and Kovtun. The fact Erinys is a location on the Polonium 210 trail cannot be dismissed, since it either happened on November 1st after Litvinenko met with Lugovoi and Kovtun as reported early on, or it was contaminated 2 weeks earlier around Oct 16th and a distinctly different portion of the Polonium path. In fact, Larisa reports on why the Polonium path is so important, and why a smuggling activity is probably the underlying reason for the Polonium trail:

“The ongoing investigation into the death of Mr. Litvinenko precludes providing background details about his activities and location prior to his death,” said Johnson. “To do so might seriously compromise the police investigation and any criminal prosecution which might be undertaken.”

What most authorities in Britain and elsewhere have told RAW STORY is that Litvinenko’s assassination involves an overlay of several possible criminal activities, making the waters quite muddy. What those activities are and who they involve is not elaborated on, nor are details provided.

More curious is all the ties these people have to Alex Goldfarb, and by extension to Boris Berezovsky. Goldfarb is now trying to deflect interest from Leonid Nevzlin, just as he did with Scaramella and Lugovoi:

Alex Goldfarb, a friend of Litvinenko’s active in London’s community of Russian expatriates and Kremlin critics, called the charges against Nevzlin a “clumsy effort” by Moscow to shift blame from itself.

“This is sheer nonsense,” he told the AP. “Everybody knows that all evidence points to Russia. The way the Russian government, the Russian prosecutors are handling it is only adding to that suspicion that it is the Russian government behind this.”

The “clumsy efforts” seems to be those by Goldfarb/Berezovsky to divert attention from their comrades in arms. Is there something to the Nevslin connection? Apparently there may be. What is arising is a Mercury trail that overlays the Polonium trail – and may lead right to Litvinenko:

Prosecutor General’s Office announced yesterday that it is investigating a possibility that former co-owner of YUKOS Leonid Nevzlin might be involved in the poisoning of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-210, and an assassination attempt against his business partner Dmitry Kovtun in London. The Office claims that investigators established connection between this crime and a certain attempt at poisoning by means of mercury. The Office says that mercury vapors “were found in cars, apartments, country houses, and offices both in Moscow and in London”.

It is not accidental that mercury vapors appeared in the case. Former head of MENATEP bank’s investment management Alexei Golubovich, arrested in Italy this spring, gave testimony that there was an attempt to poison him and his family with mercury which was left in his offices, home, and car. Golubovich said that Nevzlin might be interested in poisoning him, because YUKOS shareholders and CEOs were then arguing over who would control foreign property and funds of the company. Some time later, London witnessed a scandal when a Scotland Yard officer handed over information on extradition to Russia of London-based Russian citizens to British security agency ISC Global. The agency was part of MENATEP, and Nevzlin, among others, used its services. Polonium trace was discovered in November in the office of former ISC Global, which is now called RISC Management. According to Scotland Yard, Litvinenko and his business partners, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, visited the office.

So now we have a Mercury trail and a Polonium and the nexus is one of these security firms which Litvinenko and/or Lugovoi visited. It should also be noted that RISC Management, a contaminated site, is apparently not located near any of the previously known areas, but is at Cavedish Place in Oxford Circle about a 12 minute walk from Picadilly Circus. And where would we be without the ubiquitous Goldfarb to respond to the possible connections in the Kommersant article:

Lugovoi said yesterday that he does not know anything about Nevzlin’s connection to Litvinenko’s death. Litvinenko’s friend, political emigrant Boris Berezovsky thinks that such suspicions are “groundless”. Head of the Foundation for Civil Rights Alex Goldfarb believes that anti-Nevzlin accusations is an attempt to “shuffle off the blame for Litvinenko’s murder from those guilty on to those who are not”: “We all know it was done by Russian special service agents who brought polonium from Moscow”.

Well there is possibly much more to the RISC Management company than the fact Nevzlin used the company and it had access to documents on Russian exiles. It is clearly possible that Nezvlin owned RISC Management:

Kommersant reported investigators connection between Nevslin and Litvinenko was a British security firm that previously belonged to the Yukos concern.

Shortly before his fatal poisoning, Litvinenko met with the security firm’s managers, Russian businessmen Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun.

Scotland Yard had detected traces of radioactive polonium 210 in the rooms of the business.

This last reporting is unique in its claims of ties between all these players. Nevzlin was number 2 at Yukos, which apparently owned RISC Management. Is this accurate? Who knows. Could be bad reporting or my misintrepretation. But it is clear that as this plot unravels, every single player seems to have ties to Berezovsky and has PR mouthpiece Goldfarb – at least initially. Lugovoi’s support from Goldfarb disappeared when it became evident Lugovoi and Kovtun may have worked out a plea agreement with Russian prosecutors.

And I should note another site that has surfaced with regards to Litvinenko, Polonium and consulting. Laris Alexandrovna linked to this earlier Financial Times Article (at bottom of this link) which mentions 3rd company whose offices had been closed down due Polonium contamination (better link here):

In its turn the Financial Times has learnt that Litvinenko was paid as a consultant for information on Russian businesses, by Titon International, a London-based business intelligence company. Titon’s website says it “provides a wide range of bespoke security and intelligence services to the commercial world”. A senior executive with Titon International told The Financial Times that Litvinenko had worked for the company and that its offices in London had been closed by police after traces of polonium-210 radiation had been found. There is no suggestion that Litvinenko was poisoned in the building, paper adds.

Titon is apparently run by the same CEO that runs Erinys (H/T to Justin Raimondo). Though earlier reporting seemed to have Erinys and Titon as distinct companies:

The Mayfair building near the Millennium Hotel contains a business intelligence company, Titon International Ltd. – whose CEO was a former U.K. Special Services director, and Erinys UK Ltd., an international security and risk management company.

Erinys confirmed that Litvinenko had visited the office “on a matter totally unrelated to issues now being investigated by the police,” but declined to elaborate. None of the staff who had contact with him have reported any ill effects, the statement said.

Whatever the actual case may be, I think the key to all of this is the security firms. We have at least three in the UK (Erinys, RISC Management and Titon International) with contamination and we have two Russians who represent Russian security firms (Lugovoi and Kovtun) contaminated. The only common denominator in all of these contaminations is Litvinenko, and Berezosvsky to some extent. How did all these elements fit together into a smuggling ring and/or assassination plot. Given the Polonium trail and the financial benefit it would seem this is too broad a group to be dealing with assassination.

25 responses so far

25 Responses to “More Clues To The Litvinenko Puzzle”

  1. Gotta Know says:

    Goldfarb seems to be rapidly becoming the pivotal player in this drama. And thank goodness he can’t shut up.

    Everything he says and does seems to deflect attention away from Berrezovsky. He seems much too interested in events to be who he should be if he has nothing to do with it: A disinterested bystander.

    And of course, the only person Goldfarb would be beholden to is Berezovsky. It looks to be a purely Berezovsky operation. Whether or not Litvinenko was assassinated or died by accident would appear to be more or less inconsequential to the main event, the smuggling of Polonium.

    The more pieces are found, the more it leads to smuggling. Scaramella is a perfect case in point, he is a sort of smuggling counter-counter-counter intelligence shadowy figure whose presence can almost certainly not be a coincidence.

  2. crosspatch says:

    Need to be careful not to read too much into polonium-210 contamination of the security firms as it appears that this group of three people were shedding polonium contamination everywhere they went. Any and all places visited by these guys in the normal course of their business would have the potential to be contaminated and finding some at any given place might not signify any role in the polonium itself other than the fact that one of these three guys visited that place.

    That they shed so much of this stuff in so many places, though, is significant because it implies handling of the material itself. The quote in your posting, AJ, is correct in that information about contaminated locations, dates of visitation by the players, and the exact nature of that contamination (a polonium chloride salt from sweat or metallic polonium particles from clothing) will be tightly held until information is officially released.

    I would also assume that places visited by Litvinenko alone before November 1 would have been tested so authorities probably have a much better picture of the contamination trail than we do. The places noted so far by police have been places that the players themselves have spoken about in public statements. They could have tested other locations and asked the people involved to refrain from speaking about it until a later time. In other words, people who have had contact with Litvinenko prior to November 1 may have come forward and had their locations tested with results that are still unknown to the press at this point in time.

    It is possible Litvinenko was killed by someone he was attempting to blackmail. It is possible he was used and killed when his utility was at an end and he could better serve his killers as some sort of martyr. It is possible he simply had an accident and shed a particle of raw polonium from a sleeve into a cup of tea. It is possible he was killed to cover a smuggling operation that had an accident and contaminated the players involved risking exposing the operation with their sickness. It is possible that the entire group of them was targeted by some secret group of former KGB who wanted to kill the “traitorous bastards” What I am quite convinced DIDN’T happen is Putin killing Litvinenko to send any “message” to Russian expats. I am also not convinced that Litvinenko received all of his polonium dosage on November 1.

  3. Gotta Know says:

    Crosspatch is there any conclusion to be drawn by the supposed presence of mercury, ie is mercury used in polonium extraction or in the modification of the form of polonium, eg some sort of weaponization? Or is it more logical that two “poisons” were at work independently?

  4. Gotta Know says:

    And also, an open question to whoever would like a shot, if we suppose some sort of smuggling operation run / financed by Berezovsky, a man so rich he need not be motivated by money alone, what would he want to do with polonium? Do we know about his political leanings apart from a supposed hatred of Putin? Would he be a supporter of Israel, as Scaramella was alledged to be?

  5. Barbara says:

    Why in the world has everyone said Litvinenko was in need of money if he worked for three security firms and also Bereszovsky?

    I think this whole debacle is larger than we thought. Maybe more oligarches are involved than just Bereszovsky. After ll, the kitty is very, very large. Maybe they are all in it together to overthrow the Russian government through the Chechens and maybe even more dissident countries. All would have a lot to gain. Return to Russia and the certainty of more money and power. There is a lot of this to go around. The news has stated that Bereszovsky backed Putin to his office. Maybe Putin betrayed Bereszovsky. Well, if he did back Putin, we know he betrayed him. So maybe a little revenge is also added to the soup.

    I still think the polonium (and mercury) was sent by Iran through Germany. I think Kovtun picked up the shipment in Hamburg and brought it to London on Nov l. I think that is the reason he kept an apartment and ties there. Not many people spend the night in their ex-wife’s apartment where she is living with her boyfriend and her two children who are not Kovtun’s nevermind his ex-mother-in-law’s apartment especially when they had an apartment of their own. And for what purpose did he go to Hamburg in the first place? He only stay about 3 days.

    Litvinenko visited Nevzlin in Israel recently. Why? Has anybody ever found out? This has to tie him to the conspiracy. Maybe keeping him abreast of the status of the conspiracy. I haven’t seen anything about this but was poloniium tracked to Isreal also?

    If the polonium did not come from Iran but from Russia then chances are that the FSB or someone else in the Russian government might have found out about the smuggling and sent leaky containers so that all this would come out and expose the oligarches’ plans and maybe kill some of the smugglers without the Russian government being involved. Or so they thought. They might not have taken into account the Berezovsky PR machine. This theory would also point to a bigger operation than was first thought.

  6. Gotta Know says:

    I see that Berezovsky is an Israeli citizen:

    http://www.counterpunch.org/weir02172005.html

    From the article:

    “Almost all of these oligarchs, it turns out, have significant ties to Israel. In fact, Berezovsky himself has Israeli citizenship a fact that caused a scandal of Watergate proportions in Russia in 1996 when it was exposed by a Russian newspaper. [6]

    Do Berezovsky’s dual loyalties really matter? Yes. In the realm of global dominance, Israel’s interests and Russia’s are considerably divergent. It is in Israel’s interests to bring to power a regime in Russia friendly to Israel, rather than the current one under Putin, which Israeli leaders feel is supportive of its enemies. Not long ago, for example, Putin met with Syrian leaders an action highly disturbing to Israel.

    Having an Israeli citizen at the highest levels of the Russian government is ideal, from Israel’s point of view. In Berezovsky they had such a man. The Jerusalem Post article mentioned above is revealing. It describes Berezovsky as “the Godfather of the Oligarchs’ and Kingmaker of Russia’s Politics'” and reports Berezovsky’s statement that “Putin’s Russia is dangerous for Israel.” Berezovsky goes on to assert that Putin “supports terror” in the Middle East through Russia’s previous relations with Iraq and current relations with Iran. [7]”

  7. Gotta Know says:

    Nevzlin is also an Israeli citizen:

    http://www.russiablog.org/2006/07/post.php

  8. Gotta Know says:

    I can’t see how Iran would wittingly supply Israeli citizens with polonium.

  9. crosspatch says:

    If it were going to go to the Chechens?

  10. crosspatch says:

    Or a dirty bomb in a Western capital?

  11. crosspatch says:

    “Or is it more logical that two “poisons” were at work independently?”

    Anything is possible. Notice that I don’t believe the article says exactly whose cars, homes, etc. this mercury was found in. Some of those other players could have made other enemies at other times. I would imagine that competition in Russia is “dog eat dog” and it could even be a business competitor, ex wife, anything. I wouldn’t assume they are connected nor would I rule it out.

  12. Gotta Know says:

    It seems risky that Iran would supply the Chechnens with polonium for a dirty or nuclear bomb. If it were traced, Iran would be in very, very deep…and let’s not forget, Russia supplies Iran with much of its conventional weapons, and recently was contracted to install a very sophisticated air defense system for Iran, operational in about 6 months from now.

    A fact that cannot be lost on Israel.

  13. crosspatch says:

    Trouble is that it pretty much can’t be traced. The only way you are going to trace it is if you discover and roll up the network. At that point the jig is up anyway.

    Actually, Russia is wanting the Iranians to have a larger influence in the Southern regions. Russia would like Shiia Islam to be established as a counter to the influence of the salafist Sunni Islam that the radicals practice there. In other words, they see Shiism as the lesser of two evils and knowing that the culture is Muslim, they want to provide and alternative practice.

    So yeah, on balance it doesn’t appear that the Iranians would want to harm the Russians but the Iranians aren’t exactly playing with a full deck lately. Iran would, however, love nothing more than to see a dirty bomb in London or the US.

  14. crosspatch says:

    There are only a couple of potential customers for polonium. Manufacturers of anti-static devices who can obtain their supplies legally, and someone who wants to use it for terrorism. I can’t think of any other possible markets for it.

  15. Gotta Know says:

    So we have a clear axis going…Iran-Russia vs Berezovsky-Israel. I just don’t think that Iran would do anything to harm Russia unless, in tandem with the Chechnens, it thought it could overthrow the place. Seems too ambitious to me. For all intents and purposes, I think Russia and Iran are allies, and rather solid ones at that.

    I think though that we can’t rule out a sophisticated operation in which one team were to incite action through operations against itself, similar to what Russia was accused of doing–and seems to have done–in blowing up a series of Russian apartment buildings and then blaming it on the Chechnens. If so, an attack against the US or Britain, designed to implicate Russia and/or Iran, doesn’t seem implausible.

  16. Gotta Know says:

    “There are only a couple of potential customers for polonium. Manufacturers of anti-static devices who can obtain their supplies legally, and someone who wants to use it for terrorism. I can’t think of any other possible markets for it. ”

    Don’t forget the many alledged suitcase nukes that would supposedly be operational but for a bit of polonium for the triggers.

  17. Barbara says:

    I don’t know about the security companuies not being involved. I thought at first that their involvement could ruin their companies if caught but if they got a foothold in security in the new government then it would be worth it. After all, Russia is a country that thrives on security of one type or another. Everyone seems to fight to the death literally in most cases. Dangerous place. It takes a lot of cajones or maybe no sense of survival to go against this government and the people in it.

  18. crosspatch says:

    A security company doesn’t need to be told anything. You hire them to carry a briefcase or envelope from Moscow to London.

    Now if they were later to find out that their courier was contaminated by polonium, they might be a little upset.

  19. Gotta Know says:

    I hate it when that happens. So annoying.

  20. Ydef says:

    Earlier Crosspatch provided a half dozen very dubious hypothetical scenarios of what ‘may’ have happened that we can’t absolutely rule out since we have too little information at this point, although he concludes his babbling diatribe oddly opining that:

    “What I am quite convinced DIDN’T happen is Putin killing Litvinenko to send any “message” to Russian expats. ”

    Uh … Ok. But in your haste to rationalize Putin as neither stupid nor unstable enough to have ordered Litvinenko’s death as the means of ‘sending a message’, you deliberately choose to ignore at least half a dozen much more pragmatic or even personal reasons Putin could have wanted an expeditious Litvinenko disposed of immediately and at all costs, even with the stakes so high.

    Instead, there seems to be an unmistakable stench here playing spook and trying to make us connect the Israeli dots to Mossad boogey-men rather than focusing on what we do already know and have.

    I found curious Litvinenko’s present state of affairs prior, and the super fasttrack that his death sentenced seemed to command attension needs

    Also, several postings here have tried to make the unequivocal claim that family spokesman Alex Goldfarb is the only link to everyone involved, which imples in fact the true voice behind Litvinenko’s choice words against Putin delivered on his deathbed. Yet all attempts to confirm the veracity of these claims are met with confounding silence or denials reminiscent of the Putin’s Propoganda Team, whom by the way MUST be competing with his Toxicology team at the moment for coming in at all works for .