Missing Man (12 page)

There was one possible stop left, Dubai. Early on, a source told him that police officials in Dubai had raided a May 2006 meeting at which Mogilevich and other crime figures were discussing a $500 million investment in Ukraine's pipeline system. Bob's source said the men were later released but insisted that authorities in Dubai retained photographs and surveillance tapes from the meeting. Bob suggested to Global Witness that he go to Dubai to try to get the evidence. It was a long shot and the group made it clear it was going to shut down the investigation if Bob came back empty-handed. Officials of the group wrote: “We don't have much money left. The Dubai trip seems to offer the best chance of getting what we need … I want to emphasize that we will need really detailed information confirming the who, where, when and exactly what was said. We would like you to ask if you can get a copy of the transcript or see a copy and make notes from it.”

Bob replied he understood and assured the group he had numerous sources in Dubai who could open doors for him with law enforcement officials there. “I know the pressure is on to try and I repeat TRY (cause in these things, you really NEVER KNOW) to get something hard for you to write about.” But Bob really didn't have any personal contacts in Dubai and he was soon scrambling to find some, reaching out to former FBI and DEA agents he knew to see if they had connections to investigators in the United Arab Emirates. One security consultant in Dubai warned him the local police were notoriously closemouthed, and he could end up in jail if he asked too many questions.

He wasn't put off. Dubai, with its ultramodern skyscrapers and man-made island in the shape of a palm tree, was a crossroads for deal makers, spies, and money launderers. It was also a major hub for smugglers and product counterfeiters. To Bob, a trip to Dubai was a chance to see a new part of the world and possibly make connections to generate future business. It was also his ticket to see Dawud Salahuddin.

For months, he and the fugitive, using Ira Silverman as their intermediary, had talked about places to rendezvous. They had for a time discussed Turkey as a possibility but then dropped the idea. Dawud kept coming back to one suggestion, Kish Island, a small spot of land in the Persian Gulf. The island was part of Iran but it had a unique visitors policy. Foreigners, including Americans, could visit Kish without applying to the Iranian government for a visa, a requirement for travelers anywhere else in the country. As a result, about one million people came annually to Kish, many of them Iranians who had fled their homeland for the United States or Europe during the Islamic Revolution and used the island as a spot to reunite with family members who remained behind. Businessmen and laborers working on short-term visas in the United Arab Emirates could take an hour-long flight from Dubai to Kish and then hop on a return flight to Dubai and get their U.A.E. visas renewed.

Ira told Bob it was clear from his conversations with Dawud that the fugitive wanted to talk. Bob wanted to meet him, too. At the FBI, he had seen how a single source could make an agent's career and how agents had coasted for years on the coattails of a key informant. Dawud could be that kind of informant for him with the CIA. All he needed was to see him for an hour or so, just long enough to be able to write up a report and send it to the Illicit Finance Group. Once Anne and Tim Sampson read it, they would have to stop and read it again—their guy had pulled off the unthinkable; he had landed a source inside Iran. It was hard to imagine that the CIA would have any more problems finding money for him. They would be begging him for work. Bob didn't know how much information Dawud had to offer, but with the right kind of stoking he might prove useful. Besides, a quick trip from Dubai to Kish wouldn't cost him much and the potential payoff was enormous.

Bob's travel plans for Global Witness put him in Dubai in the middle of February. Once he booked his flight there, he emailed Ira, telling him to let Dawud know he was available to meet him on Kish afterward: “I don't know if our friend has changed his mind or not about that meeting but I could do something toward the end of that week.”

Ira checked with Dawud and wrote to Bob: “Whatever works for you. Very clear that our guy wants to meet with you when conditions permit.”

 

7

The Black Dahlia

Chris would kill him, Bob knew, if she found out about Iran and Dawud, so he decided not to say a word about his plans. Still, he needed to tell her something. He always called her at least once a day while traveling, sometimes twice or three times. He liked to hear her voice and find out what was going on with the kids. Sometimes, while interviewing an informant, he would excuse himself, duck out into a hallway, and call home.

He planned to shut off his cell phone while on Kish so Iranian intelligence couldn't monitor it, and he needed an excuse to explain why Chris wouldn't be able to reach him for a day. He came up with a solution. About a week before his departure for Dubai, he told her that the Illicit Finance Group had contacted him with an urgent request—the CIA needed him to take a “side trip” while in Dubai as part of an important mission for “Uncle” and he would be out of contact for a day. The request was so last-minute he would have to pay his expenses out-of-pocket, and the agency would reimburse him when he got back.

Bob and Chris rarely fought, but when they did, it was usually about money. Chris knew as much about the state of Bob's business as he did. She also had more financial sense. She kept a close eye on his books, helping him out by depositing payments from clients and writing checks to pay sources. She knew their family was treading water. They had house payments, big college bills, and weddings ahead. They were also still in a hole from the lawsuit involving the Bank of Cyprus, the assignment Bob took on the “success fee” basis. A year later, the case's judge still hadn't rendered a decision and Bob's $100,000 bill remained unpaid. Before Bob could say another word about the side trip, Chris told him he wasn't going to do more for the CIA or advance Uncle Sam another dime until the agency paid him what he was owed.

Bob knew she wasn't going to back down. If he was going to meet Dawud Salahuddin, his only option was to make one final pitch to the Illicit Finance Group. He decided to send it to Tim Sampson. As head of the CIA unit, he was responsible for its budget, and if extra money was available, he was the person who could shake it loose. On February 5, Bob wrote a memo laying out what he could do for the Illicit Finance Group while in Dubai for Global Witness. In it, he abbreviated “organized crime” as “OC,” and the former Soviet Union as “FSU.” He didn't specifically mention Dawud or Kish in the memo and asked Anne to forward it to Tim.

TO:
Tim

VIA:
Anne

FROM:
Bob L.

DATE:
5 February 2007

Best wishes from Florida.

I'm leaving on 13 February to go to Geneva on behalf of Global Witness, to meet with the folks in both the Surete de Geneva and the Swiss Federal Police, relative to information about possible Russian OC funds being invested in the FSU natural gas industry.

From Geneva, again, at Global Witness request, I'm flying to Dubai, U.A.E. to meet with officials there regarding the alleged meeting of Russian OC figures in May 2006 on this same subject.

In connection with ongoing research I am conducting for an analytical report on the foreign investment of kickback and bribe monies of top Iranian government officials, an individual with detailed knowledge of this subject, with whom I have been in contact by phone and e-mail over the past year, has agreed to meet with me. This meeting will take place either in Dubai or on an island nearby and should cost about two to three thousand dollars.

I would like to know if I do, in fact, expend my own funds to conduct this meeting, there will be reimbursement sometime in the near future, or, if I should discontinue this, as well as any and all similar projects until renewal time in May.

Please advise me as soon as possible as I leave in eight (8) days.

I hope that last week's papers on clandestine ties between Venezuelan officials and FARC, the three Venezuelan banks laundering FARC funds, and Hugo Chavez' brother's racketeering activities were of interest and contributed to your shop's production.

Levinson

Over the next few days, Chris kept seeing Bob at the kitchen table hunched over the telephone. She overheard Anne's name mentioned and assumed the discussions were about money. When Bob got off one call, he looked happy. He said the Illicit Finance Group had found another $10,000 to add to his contract, enough to just about wipe out his bill. Chris couldn't argue with that.

On February 9, four days after Bob sent the Dubai memo, he and Chris drove to a Best Buy in Plantation, Florida, not far from their home. He told her he needed to buy presents for an informant he planned to meet during his trip whom he couldn't pay in cash. Two days earlier, Ira Silverman had sent him a shopping list. Over their years of correspondence, Ira had gotten to know Dawud's tastes. He liked Miles Davis, John Coltrane, the Neville Brothers, Billie Holiday, and Ray Charles. The fugitive was also a fan of the comedians Richard Pryor and Chris Rock. Ira sent Bob photographs of Dawud and him taken during his 2002 trip to Tehran. “I wish I were hitting the stores with you, to say nothing of the trip itself,” Ira wrote.

After buying a bunch of compact discs and videotapes at Best Buy, Bob and Chris went to a nearby BrandsMart, where Bob got a CD of Chris Rock performances. Bob also bought a book for Dawud that he had enjoyed reading—
The Black Dahlia
, a novel about a Hollywood starlet's unsolved murder, written by James Ellroy, an author whose own mother was killed by a man who was never caught. By the time the shopping spree was over, Bob had spent $170 on gifts and filed away the receipts so he could submit them to the CIA.

The next day, he called his travel agent and asked her to book him on a February 22 flight from Dubai to Kish Island on Kish Airlines, an Iranian airline, with a return flight to Dubai on the following day. He contacted a hotel on the island recommended by Dawud called the Maryam and reserved a room with two beds. There was one more preparation he needed to make. He needed a cover story to give Iranian authorities if they asked about his reason for coming to Kish.

In January, when Bob was in London, he had accompanied Jeff Katz, the head of the investigative firm Bishop International, to the offices of British American Tobacco to talk with company executives about counterfeit cigarette cases. One of the investigations Katz and Bob were pursuing involved a ring that was smuggling into Iran knockoff versions of a brand called “Montana,” a product made by the Iranian Tobacco Company under an agreement with BAT. At their January meeting, executives of BAT had urged Katz and Bob to continue the inquiry, saying they would send their findings to Iranian officials. Using his home computer, Bob found a facsimile of British American Tobacco's letterhead and composed a letter supposedly written by a company executive, authorizing him to travel to Iran on the cigarette maker's behalf. The letter read:

Dear Mr. Levinson

In connection with our recent meeting together with representatives of Bishop International Ltd., you are hereby authorized to travel on our behalf to appropriate locations, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, in order to conduct research and interviews, as necessary, relating to the trafficking in counterfeit British-American Tobacco brand products. Please forward the results of your efforts to our offices here in Globe House, London upon completion of this research and interviews.

Ira asked Bob if he wanted him to share his cigarette smuggling cover story with Dawud so the fugitive would be on the same page if police on Kish questioned them. “When I speak with him next, do you want me to mention BAT,” Ira wrote in an email.

Everything was set. But on February 12, the day before Bob was scheduled to depart for Dubai, a problem arose. He had been expecting to get a formal notice from the CIA showing his account credited with the added $10,000. However, nothing had come. The last thing he wanted before leaving home was another fight with Chris about money, so he decided to take preemptive action. He contacted the agency's contracting office to find out the status of the funds so he could start submitting bills. The woman with whom he spoke appeared bewildered by his inquiry, and he sent an email to Anne.

Leaving tomorrow for Geneva and Dubai. Had a brief conversation with a nice lady in contracts … Asked her if I could submit anything in writing yet and she indicated that she had no paperwork or notice at all about the additional 10. I told her that I would reach out for the person in your shop who is handling this stuff and get them to give her a call … I am grateful for the confidence everyone has shown in my act.

As it turned out, Anne already knew about Bob's call because the woman in the contracting office had contacted her.

Hey there, hope you have a safe trip! The contracts people are NOT yet looped in on the additional money and by the time the news of the money officially finds its way to her, a month will have passed. She called, baffled and we had to explain that official notification would be forthcoming. Things have to first wend their way through our office bureaucracy before it reaches the contracts office. They'll need to amend the contract, get you to sign it, etc. Anyway, probably best if we keep talk about the additional money among “us girls” (you, me, Tim, Brian) and not get the contract folks involved until they are officially notified through channels!

Bob sent her a quick apology. “Hey, sorry about that—hope I did not cause any problems … In the future, I promise to keep it between us girls until told otherwise—my bad!!!” he wrote. “NO problem,” Anne assured him. “I promise.”

Switzerland was Bob's first stop on his way to Dubai and Kish. He took a train to Neuchâtel to meet a friend, D'Arcy Quinn, an executive in the division of Philip Morris International that investigated cigarette counterfeiting. Quinn's superiors had recently told him he was going to be fired because of his reliance on aging investigators like Bob whose sources were growing old and stale. Quinn wanted to dump dirt on the company before walking out the door and told Bob he had long suspected some Philip Morris executives were profiting from the illegal cigarette trade. He also warned him to be careful in Dubai because a major trafficker there had threatened to kill a company investigator.