Posted on 08/01/2002 6:48:11 PM PDT by LarryLied
Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, the alleged Russian crime boss arrested on suspicion of trying to fix Olympics skating competitions, has no influence over Russian sports and could not have fixed the Olympic results, Russian officials said Thursday.
However, a decade of local press reports paint a different picture. He is portrayed as a high-flying socialite who has hobnobbed with the likes of Marat Safin, Pavel Bure and even Marina Anissina, the figure skater named in the U.S. criminal complaint.
Tokhtakhounov, who is better known in Russia by his nickname Taivanchik (Little Taiwanese), given to him for his Asiatic appearance, has also been linked to everything from dubious arms sales to associating with former President Boris Yeltsin's chief bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov, Yeltsin's tennis coach and Lev Chernoi, the metals magnate whom the Interior Ministry has linked to organized crime.
U.S. prosecutors are accusing Tokhtakhounov of being involved in "drug distribution, illegal arms sales and trafficking in stolen vehicles," according to their complaint filed Wednesday. He could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count if convicted.
Prosecutors said he tried to fix the skating competitions because he hoped to be rewarded a visa to return to France, where he once lived.
However, Italian police said Thursday that he already had French citizenship, as well as Israeli, German and Uzbek passports, The Associated Press reported. They described him as a senior member of a Moscow-based crime organization with about 3,000 members.
The U.S. complaint identified Tokhtakhounov as a "major figure in international Eurasian organized crime."
Leonid Tyagachyov, the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, told TVS television that it "was out of the question" that Tokhtakhounov could have influenced the results in Salt Lake City in February.
Russian Olympic Committee spokesman Gennady Shvets said Tokhtakhounov has no pull in the committee.
"Tyagachyov told me that he knew of Tokhtakhounov, but he never met him," Shvets was quoted by Interfax as saying. "The president of the [Russian] Ice Skating Federation, Valentin Piseyev, also has never had contact with the man."
Telephone calls to Piseyev's office went unanswered Thursday.
However, Shvets conceded that Tokhtakhounov is not a stranger in the world of sports celebrities.
He told the AP that Tokhtakhounov often spent time with Russian tennis players. A 1999 photograph on Ukrainian player Andrei Medvedev's web site pictures him with Medvedev and Russian stars Safin and Yevgeny Kafelnikov.
Celebrities seem to be a weakness of Tokhtakhounov's, a 53-year-old native of Uzbekistan. Reports about his warm friendship with singers Alla Pugachyova, Iosif Kobzon and Sofia Rotaru are plentiful in the local press.
"Taivanchik may be mafia to somebody else, but he is a little brother to me," Kobzon's wife, Ninel, told Profil magazine in 1999.
Tokhtakhounov was also a classmate and friend of Chernoi, according to press reports.
This is his story as told by local media:
Tokhtakhounov began his career as a professional card player and was twice convicted for petty crimes in the 1970s. In the late 1970s he moved from Uzbekistan to Moscow.
A decade later, Tokhtakhounov left Russia along with a dozen other alleged crime bosses (such as Vyacheslav Ivankov, also known as Yaponchik, or Little Japanese, who was convicted in the United States of racketeering in 1997) and formed what the world now calls the Russian mafia, according to organized crime expert Simon Mag.
Initially, Tokhtakhounov settled in Germany, where he reportedly participated in selling arms left by Russian troops to Middle Eastern countries.
In the early 1990s, Korzhakov, Yeltsin's chief bodyguard and a close confidant, introduced him to Shamil Tarpishchev, Novaya Gazeta reported in 1996, citing Boris Fyodorov, Tarpishchev's successor in the National Sports Fund.
The newspaper said Tokhtakhounov and Tarpishchev became business partners.
Tarpishchev, Yeltsin's tennis coach and a former sports minister, now heads the Russian Tennis Federation. The now-defunct National Sports Fund was a major importer of cigarettes and spirits and served as a slush fund for the Yeltsin administration.
Tarpishchev's office did not reply to requests for comment Thursday.
In 1993, Tokhtakhounov moved to Paris, where he quickly earned fame as a generous sponsor of Russian sports, culture and art.
NTV television on Thursday showed footage of Tokhtakhounov at a July 1999 party in Paris, which was thrown to mark his becoming a knight of the international order of St. Constantine the Great.
Kommersant reported in July 1999 that among the guests at the party were Anissina, Kobzon and Bure.
"I started out from a clean slate," Tokhtakhounov said in the NTV footage.
He also said European law enforcement had no cause to arrest him, although it was not clear what elicited the comment.
Russian law enforcement said Thursday that they had no interest in Tokhtakhounov. An Interior Ministry official said his name was not on any wanted list.
Then-Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo sounded a similar note in 1999, telling NTV: "Tokhtakhounov is demonized by the media. He is just a gambler."
Tokhtakhounov later moved to Italy, where he was arrested Wednesday.
Tokhtakhounov will plead innocent to all charges and fight extradition, said his lawyer Luca Salvarelli, who had not yet met with his client Thursday, AP reported.
It was not clear when he might be extradited, but the process can last more than a month, AP said.
Shvets of the Russian Olympic Committee said Tokhtakhounov's propensity for bluster and bragging could have led to the U.S. charges.
"He has a delusion of grandeur," Shvets told NTV. "He could pick up a phone and tell his friends something like 'I arranged with the judges for two medals for our guys and made sure the Canadians would come in second.'"
From the Central Africa Minerals and Arms Research Bulletin:
One version has it that Leviev was helped by his friend and eventual partner in Africa Israel, Arcadi Gaydamak, who opened doors for him in Angola.
Gaydamak, with his French partner Pierre Falcone, sold millions of dollars worth of eastern European arms to Angola and became cronies of President Eduardo dos Santos. Arcady Gaydamak purchased 15% of Africa-Israel in January 2000, a deal that was explained by a company spokesman on the following terms: "Levayev believes that the company can reach international achievements in energy, real estate, and investment assets following the partnership with Gaydamak."
Gaydamak also reportedly has close ties to Danny Yatom, a former head of Mossad and security advisor to Ehud Barak. According to the Yediot Aharonot it was actually Yatom who introduced Gaydamak to Leviev around the beginning of 1999.
More details here:
The "exceptionally gifted one of diamond" and the comrades angolais
From http://www.insideradvantage.com:
U.S. law-enforcement wiretaps, authorized by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), allegedly have been breached by organized crime units working inside Israel and the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad. They reportedly use reverse wiretaps against U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement operations.
One company reported to be under investigation is Comverse Infosys, a subsidiary of an Israeli-run private telecommunications firm. Comverse allegedly provides almost all the wiretapping equipment and software for U.S. law enforcement. Custom computers and software, made by Comverse, are tied into the U.S. phone network in order to intercept, record and store wiretapped calls, and to transmit them to investigators.
The penetration of Comverse reportedly allowed criminals to wiretap law-enforcement communications in reverse and foil authorized wiretaps with advance warning. One major drug bust operation planned by the Los Angeles police is believed to have been foiled by what now appears to be reverse wiretaps placed on law- enforcement phones by the criminal spy ring. . .
Sounds like mobsters in Hollywood way back when.
Star of David, diamonds in the costume.
Awesome.
Our FBI/CIA are chumps! Buying wire tap and computer tap stuff from a foreign power means reverse bugs are inside the stuff. Israeli intelligence and who knows else knew when Klintoon phoned Monica before her phone rang. That same equipment is in place and leaks our political and military secrets to the highest foreign buyer.
TAKHTAKHUNOV WAS DECLARED PERSONA NON GRATA IN FRANCEAfter Alimzhan Takhtakhunov left France in early 2000, French secret services issued an order prescribing to "oust him away from whatever part of the French territory he might appear in." France's DST secret service backed this decision by naming this man persona non grata because of "a palpable threat to public order" he presents.
Takhtakhunov first appeared in France in 1995, settling in a luxurious two-storied apartment in Paris's deluxe 16th quarter after leaving Germany.
DST first became interested in Takhtakhunov's personality in 1996 when it was noticed that a Soviet citizen was living in France with an Israeli passport.
Takhtakhunov's lawyers won three cases, enabling him to extend his residence permit further. Finally he had to move out to Italy where police detained him on August 1.
The FBI suspects Takhtakunov of attempts of imposing on figure skating judgement at Salt Lake City White Olympics.
French e-media believe that "the Olympics-related suspicions are just a visible part of the iceberg and the man conceals far more serious things, for DST wouldn't oust him out of the country just for nothing."
Think of Rocky and Bull Winkle. Which character, Boris or Natasha could deliver best, squirrel?
Lithuanians:Israeli ice-skaters `bought' bronze medal ^
That story dropped out of sight but I bet it comes back now. Lithuanians are not happy with Israel as it is for refusing to extradict Nachman Dushanski to face charges of crimes against humanity and genocide.
Snicker, Mr. Lied. You cannot get through one post without bringing up Jews or Israel. Sore losers often resent their betters. In skating as in life. :) I know it bothers you that the Russian skater who tried to fix the Olympics is not Jewish, but you will just have to deal with it.
PS - Many Russians who are not Jewish pretend to be to get Israeli passports. They pull similar scams to get into the US. Those Russians, some of them are just mad.
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Can’t imagine why you’d ping me, you just finished explaining you don’t talk to FreeRepublicJews (FRJ), or I presume FreeRepublicJewGentiles (FRJG-those who support Israel and think you’re an anti-semite). The FRJs are knee jerkers, use their anti-Semitic swords (I prefer the spear myself) and holocaust shields too. The FRJGs too, but they don’t get to use the weapons. Nasty folk. Oh well. I’m here. Glad they caught the guy. The world is a safer place. I didn’t know the Jews bought the bronze, but it figures, doesn’t it. Why do you think they didn’t buy gold? Cheap Jews?
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Hope the media does shift attention from them. All they have time to do is practice. They are not the story. But because our media refuses to report the Israeli story behind the "Russian Mob" they will probably continue to be the focus.
Israel is no more responsible for the Russian mob than the US is responsible for Al Queda. The Russian mob infiltrates countries all over the planet as do Al Queda members.
Poor Mr. Lied. The US media does not share your bizarre obsessions. HAHAHAHAHA.
Hopefully a lawsuit would get too far, then again, look what gets into court these days.
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