Rogue State



The Sunday Times published a story the other day about another Russian exile, Valery Morozov, who seems to have got under President Putin's skin with allegations of corruption in Russian politics and public life.

No wonder most of the Russian media is under state control. 

Kremlin spies tried to frame exile in Britain


By Tom Harper - The Sunday Times
Valery and Irina Morozov at home in Surrey, where they are under police protection (Dwayne Senior)

AN EXTRAORDINARY covert operation has been mounted by Russian spies in Britain in an effort to frame an arch-critic of Vladimir Putin.

Secret agents from the Federal Security Service (FSB) launched the brazen plot in London and Surrey in an attempt to discredit Valery Morozov, who claimed political asylum in the UK after blowing the whistle on Kremlin corruption.

Acting under direction from Moscow, the intelligence officers posed as investors to try to entice the property magnate into a money-laundering scheme that would have “cleaned” £30m of dirty money generated by Russian organised-crime gangs. They also tried to donate €1.5m (£1.1m) of counterfeit money to his anti-corruption foundation in Britain, which would have left him open to criminal charges in the UK courts.

Morozov realised that he was being framed by the FSB, pulled out of the deal and refused the donation. The news will raise new fears over Russia’s incursions in Britain at a time of heightened tension triggered by the Alexander Litvinenko inquiry.

Last week the judicial probe into the murder of the spy in 2006 heard explosive claims that he was killed in an “act of nuclear terrorism” on the streets of London. Hours later, British Typhoon jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian bombers over the English Channel.

Morozov, a Communist party apparatchik, fled to Britain in 2012 with his wife Irina after exposing a Kremlin bribery racket. He went public with claims that a £4m bribes scandal involving a senior Russian government official and a hotel near Sochi, the venue for the 2014 Winter Olympics, had been covered up.

In London, Morozov, 60, set up the International Anti-Corruption Committee (IACC) to find the assets of corrupt Russian officials. The project led to Morozov receiving a number of threats from Russia, which were reported to British police.

In 2012, Morozov was warned by an old contact from the Russian government that he might be the subject of “activities” by Russian intelligence agencies.

Despite his wariness, Morozov agreed to a request to meet a man who claimed to have made a fortune from selling quarries in Karelia, a province in the north of Russia. The man offered to donate to the IACC and later introduced Morozov to a Russian who said he was keen to invest in the UK property market via a trust in Guernsey.

In order to move £30m from Russia and into multimillion-pound properties in London and Guildford, Surrey, the two men tried to persuade Morozov to set up offshore trusts in his name but under their control.

“They thought they would control the trusts and the money would disappear, and I would be blamed,” he said.

“They had been given the task to embroil me in a scandal, through the creation of commercial structures associated with me which would be used to launder criminal money. My lawyer was looking at me with big eyes and saying, ‘You have to stop this’.”

Morozov says he suspected that the men were agents from the FSB (the successor to the KGB) and pretended to continue negotiations to get definitive proof. “I could not break off relations with them because then it would be obvious to them that the operation against me had failed, and they would try something new,” he said.

Morozov began recording his conversations and filing away emails. Matters came to a head when, during a Skype conversation with the men, it was suggested the deal might be helped if Morozov bribed a bank official.

“Unfortunately, at that point I gave up and snapped at them,” he said. “I said, ‘If you want to be hung by the balls, do whatever you want, but do not try to hang me. Otherwise, I will hang you by the balls myself!’”

To his amazement, Morozov says he heard another, unidentified, person chuckling at the other end of the line. “At that point, I knew there was someone else who controlled the conversation, and who understood that I was playing my game,” he said.

That game ended when Morozov shared his suspicions with an associate who, unbeknown to him, was in on the FSB plot. The prospective business partners suddenly vanished without trace.

“The British public may be shocked at all this, but I don’t think they know the reality of what goes on,” he said.

"I was not surprised this happened, I predicted it. The people who are against me in the Russian regime needed to disgrace me and ruin my name.”

The extraordinary attempt to discredit Morozov, revealed for the first time today, emerged during an immigration tribunal where Irina was seeking political asylum.

In a judgment handed down last March, an immigration judge said the Morozovs had come under “severe politically sanctioned attack” from forces loyal to the Kremlin.

“In 2012, FSB officers tried to draw the witness and his wife into committing criminal acts in the UK,” said Judge Jones. “They attempted to invest through him more than £30m belonging to criminal elements in Russia, as well as FSB companies. The same group of people tried to donate €1.5m [£1.1m] to support the work of the International Anti-Corruption Committee. The money was counterfeit and brought for the purpose from Russia to the UK.”

Despite the collapse of the first plot, the FSB tried again.

“In the summer of 2013, [Morozov] was invited to meet with a Nigerian government minister who expressed an interest in joining the board of directors [of the IACC],” the judge said.

“Despite the fact that a very small number of people knew of his intention to travel to Nigeria, he received word from his Russian contacts that the FSB were planning to detain him at Abuja airport in order to deliver him to Moscow. Since then he has cancelled all trips abroad. He and his wife are currently living under surveillance and the protection of the Surrey police.”

The judge allowed Irina’s appeal against deportation under both immigration rules and human rights grounds, adding that the “facts of this case” were not disputed and he had found Morozov and his wife to be “wholly credible witnesses”.

However, the Morozovs have now been told by the Home Office that Irina won her appeal only on human rights grounds which, it says, does not give her political asylum. She has been warned that she may have to return to Russia to reapply in about two years.

As lawyers for the couple consider a judicial review, Morozov said: “This is ridiculous. Irina has been threatened by Kremlin officials and this was recognised by the judge in the immigration tribunal. The Home Office is ignoring the decision of the judge and we cannot understand why.”

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