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Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition politician and former deputy prime minister, has been shot dead in central Moscow, the Interior Ministry said early on Saturday. Nemtsov, 55, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, had been due to take part on Sunday in the first big opposition protest in months in the Russian capital. He was shot four times late on Friday night, not far from the Kremlin in the centre of Moscow. Police cars blocked the street where he was shot. An ambulance was also nearby. "Nemtsov B.E. died at 2340 hours as a result of four shots in...

Death of a ProsecutorPosted By Kenneth R. Timmerman On January 21, 2015 @ 12:35 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments Alberto Nisman, the Argentinean prosecutor who indicted top Iranian regime officials for the July 1994 AMIA Jewish Center bombing in Buenos Aires, was found dead by gunshot in his apartment on Sunday night, in what initially was called a suicide.Nisman was scheduled to address members of parliament the next day to reveal new information about alleged efforts by Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her foreign minister, Hector Timerman, to cover up the responsibility of the Iranian regime...

A retired Border Patrol officer outraged over the influx of illegal aliens entering the country this year has recorded an interview that reveals chilling information about the current situation at the U.S.-Mexico border and the long-term hazards it holds for the country as a whole. zacharytaylor0723In the self-produced interview, former Border Patrol Agent Zachary Taylor talks about a variety issues facing the Border Patrol the general public might not expect. He speaks of immigrants with various diseases coming into the U.S., how the Russian mafia is using Mexico as a base of operations and the concept of “asymmetric warfare” as...

The holiday data breach at Target Corp. appeared to be part of a broad and highly sophisticated international hacking campaign against multiple retailers, according to a report prepared by federal and private investigators that was sent to financial-services companies and retailers. […] Parts of the malicious computer code used against Target’s credit-card readers had been on the Internet’s black market since last spring and were partly written in Russian, people familiar with the report said. Both details suggest the attack may have ties to organized crime in the former Soviet Union, former U.S. officials said. …

The ObamaCare website is a Russian Mafia dream come true. Think about it. A completely UNSECURE website with the personal and financial information of thousands of highly gullible people. Gullible because the website is known to be UNSECURE and yet they STILL entered their personal info. Think the Russian Mafia won't take advantage of this HUGE payday for them? Of course not. And WHO are the gullible people to so readily hand over their info to the Russian Mafia? Mostly liberals or idiots and since they are not mutually exclusive, make that liberal idiots. One of those liberal idiots...

Nearly two dozen defendants were arraigned last Friday in a Manhattan federal court for their alleged roles in a gambling ring for the fabulous people but missing from the crowd was reputed Russian mobster Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov who remains a fugitive as reported by Richard Behar for Forbes: "The feds call him a 'major figure in international Eurasian Organized Crime' who has been involved in 'drug distribution, illegal arms sales and trafficking in stolen vehicles.' In the current gambling case, he's accused of using his status as a thief-in-law (or vory v zakone) -- a select group of the highest-level criminals...

Hillel "Helly" Nahmad, the art dealer and playboy whom federal prosecutors allege was involved with an illegal gambling and money laundering ring tied to the Russian Mafia, has retained criminal defense lawyer Benjamin Brafman who insists on his client's innocence as reported by Vivian Yee for The New York Times: "Mr. Brafman, who is representing Mr. Nahmad with another lawyer, Paul Shechtman, said in a statement after the hearing, 'We do not believe that Mr. Nahmad has knowingly violated the law.' He also said, 'We anticipate that he will be fully exonerated.'" Nahmad "is keeping himself out of jail by...

Former FBI agent missing in Iran photographed in Guantánamo jumpsuit By Barney Henderson 8:44PM GMT 08 Jan 2013 The family of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran in 2007, have released pictures of him dressed in an orange jumpsuit like a Guantánamo Bay prisoner, as they continue to hold hope that he is still alive.

The 43-year-old died in November 2006 after he was poisoned with polonium-210 while drinking tea at a meeting in LondonAnd at the time of his death he was about to reveal details of links between the Kremlin and Russian organised crime, a pre-inquest hearing was told. The former KGB man, 43, was poisoned with polonium-210 after allegedly drinking tea at a meeting with former Russian colleagues Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, central London. Files submitted by the Government were yesterday said to indicate Russia had a “prima facie” case to answer over his 2006...

Former FBI agent missing in Iran By PAT MILTON, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK - An American who disappeared in Iran while on a business trip is a former FBI agent in New York and Florida known as a meticulous investigator and an expert in busting Italian and Russian mobsters. The retired agent was identified as Robert Levinson, 59, of Coral Springs, Fla., a U.S. official familiar with the case told The Associated Press on Tuesday. He was last heard from around March 11 while in a coastal area of southern Iran, where he was working for an independent filmmaker,...

NEW YORK — Christine Levinson's husband vanished while on a business trip to Iran. Five months later, she's going there to try to bring him back. The mother of the couple's seven children is planning her own trip to Iran in search of husband Robert Levinson even though she's been advised by the State Department not to travel to Iran because of the risk. "I am positive he is alive," Christine Levinson told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday from her home in Coral Springs, Fla. "If he were hospitalized or had been killed, we would have known by...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A U.S. senator revealed Tuesday that he believes a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran nearly two years ago is being held in a secret prison there. Sen. Bill Nelson shed new light on the disappearance of Robert Levinson during a confirmation hearing for Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington. Levinson, of Coral Springs, Fla., was last seen on Iran's Kish island in March 2007 where he had gone to seek information for a client of his security firm.

AFP - Spain has expelled two Russian diplomats in a move that triggered a tit-for-tat reaction from Moscow, the foreign ministry said Tuesday. The two Russian embassy staffers were asked to leave the country for having "engaged in activities incompatible with their status," the ministry said in a statement. In diplomatic language, the phrase is usually taken to mean spying. The statement said the embassy was notified of the decision "about a month ago." "In retaliation," Russia expelled two Spanish diplomats from Moscow, the ministry said. "The two governments believe the incident is closed," said the written statement read by...

5. (S) Rahmonov added, "Actually, It's the Russian special services who cause trouble here....it's coming from the Kremlin, and some of it comes from the top. We can never forget that Putin himself is a 'chekist' (career intelligence officer) at heart." 6. (S) Rahmonov said, "I want to tell you a secret why I insisted that the Russian Border Guards had to leave Tajikistan. You know they're part of the KGB. I had credible information they and (jailed General Gaffor) Mirzoyev were plotting a coup against me. ....Only after I moved against Mirzoyev did Putin finally understand that their game...

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Belarus, Georgia, Russia and Ukraine are already or are swiftly becoming 'mafia states' according to a senior Spanish prosecutor cited in US diplomatic cables. The appraisal, given by Spanish prosecutor Jose 'Pepe' Grinda Gonzalez to US diplomats in Madrid in February this year, noted: "He considers Belarus, Chechnya and Russia to be virtual 'mafia states' and said that Ukraine is going to be one. For each of those countries, he alleged, one cannot differentiate between the activities of the government and OC [organised crime] groups." Mr Grinda added that Georgian citizens play key roles in criminal...

The disclosure of State Department cables by Wikileaks reveals that "senior US officials . . . fear that Russia's notorious mafia has connections at the heart of the government" as reported by Andy Potts for The Moscow News. The cables detail "allegations that Russia and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations, with one cable reporting that the relationship is so close that the country has become a 'virtual mafia state'" as reported by David Leigh for The Guardian.

Dubai's police chief plans to seek the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of the Mossad over the killing of a Hamas leader in the emirate, Al Jazeera television reported on Wednesday. Dahi Khalfan Tamim "said he would ask the Dubai prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for ... Netanyahu and the head of Mossad," the television said. It did not give details. Tamim has said he is "almost certain" Israeli agents were involved in the killing of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at a Dubai hotel in January, calling for Mossad's boss, Meir Dagan, to be arrested if...

GENEVA (AP) - A killer - or killers - may be on the loose in Europe after a Hamas operative was slain last month in Dubai. European nations, however, seem to be in no rush to find him, her or them. The spotlight is falling on those countries where police say the alleged assassins' trails begin and end: Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Authorities there have either declined to say whether they are investigating, or told The Associated Press they have no reason to hunt down the 26 suspects implicated in the Jan. 19 killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh....

Da boy in Dubai. Or, more accurately, da dead boy in Dubai. Da boy is Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a leading Hamas operative who habitually boasted of killing two Israeli soldiers and was renowned as an arms supplier for various Palestinian groups in Gaza. He who lives by the Kalashnikov tends to die by the Kalashnikov. It’s a tragedy that violence still occurs in the world, but it would be equally tragic if we singled out one nation for condemnation. There is a very good chance that some branch of Israeli intelligence killed the man. The Mossad is often mentioned, but historically...

Israel is facing uncomfortable questions regarding senior Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was found dead in a Dubai hotel room on Jan. 20. Dubai police say al-Mabhouh was assassinated, but in his chosen profession, his fate really was the result of workplace-related injuries. Dubai has named 26 suspects in the case, and has evidence including credit card records, flight itineraries and closed-circuit television footage supposedly showing the accused assassins stalking their quarry. Much of the furor over the case has arisen over the apparent fraudulent use of British, Irish, French, German, Australian and other passports. The British government said...