World's Most Wanted (2020) s01e04 Episode Script

[bell tolling]
[siren wailing in the distance]
[man speaking Czech]
The Swat team was supposed to storm
the main hall of the restaurant.
We were not serene.
In these moments, it's an adrenaline rush.
We do not think.
-[sirens wailing]
-[indistinct chatter]
It was a big organized crime confab,
almost like out of a Hollywood movie.
They were all gonna get together
at a big restaurant.
[man 1 speaking Czech]
We went in at half past seven,
so the party was still at the beginning.
[officer shouting in Czech]
Police! Don't move!
[screaming and shouting]
[officers shouting]
[man 1 speaking Czech]
We pulled all the people out.
About 200 people,
including 50 prostitutes.
[man 2 speaking Czech]
Everyone was arrested.
Everybody except the guest of honor.
The guest of honor, Semion Mogilevich.
[reporter 1] CNN Prime Time begins now. 
[reporter 2] This may be the most powerful
man you've never heard of.
Semion Mogilevich was your typical,
like you see in the movies
Russian gangster.
He's been compared
to the character Keyser Soze
in the movie The Usual Suspects,
as this mystery man
that almost no one has seen.
He had hundreds of people
that worked for him
that did smuggling operations,
human trafficking operations,
trafficking in weapons.
[speaking Russian]
Mogilevich is a very cruel man.
He has ordered the killings
of hundreds of people.
[distorted male voice speaking Russian]
Mogilevich is very smart.
He is always a step ahead.
[speaking Italian]
Mogilevich is an evil genius
but he also represents the dark side
of the Russian state.
He is protected.
[reporter]
Semion Mogilevich has a reputation
as the Russian mafia's godfather.
[man] Mogilevich is a very high profile
international organized crime figure.
[man 2] In those days,
we still did not know
all of the activities that he had.
We hadn't heard about him yet.
At that point we hadn't really done
anything against him.
My name is Thomas Fuentes.
Former special agent
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
I ran the FBI's worldwide
organized crime program.
During that time is when I first heard
the name of Sermion Mogilevich.
Mogilevich had that nickname
of the Brainy Don.
He's brilliant enough
that he could have been a legitimate
wealthy business person.
But he couldn't help himself.
This was prepared by the organized crime
section at FBI headquarters.
And, in this case, they're doing a study
of the Mogilevich organization.
It's summarizing the key countries
where he had major financial operations,
illegal operations, so
Italy.
United Kingdom.
Canada.
Hungary.
Budapest was a very attractive location.
Mogilevich was setting up
his worldwide illegal empire there.
Doing a wide variety of typical
racketeering activities.
[man] While he was in Budapest,
Mogilevich had his own arms factory.
And these were not small handguns.
These were anti-aircraft guns.
[man speaks Hungarian]
[Unger] In his arms trading,
he was dealing on a massive global scale
that included with the Camorra in Italy.
He would have access to all the arms
in the world that he wanted.
And he was making so much money,
he had to launder the money.
Well, what is the best way to launder
millions and millions of dollars?
One of the best ways is to diversify,
and he had interests all over the place.
He had a textile company in Israel,
an import export company in Los Angeles,
a basketball team in Russia.
Uh, he had a Japanese restaurant
in Prague,
an oil firm in Bulgaria,
a crude oil corporation in the UK.
So he even had the first
funeral society in Moscow.
[crow squawking]
That time in the mid 90s,
there was a proliferation
of Russian organized crime groups.
And they began competing
with each other for control,
and supremacy,
and they competed violently.
[sirens wailing]
[Fuentes] Mogilevich,
it's in his DNA to do smuggling.
To do street violence.
To do killings.
And hire all of these
black leather jacket gangsters
to intimidate people.
That's part of his being a gangster.
[man speaking Russian]
The orders came directly from Mogilevich.
Then we would honor the killing contracts.
I spent seven years in jail.
I was 18 years old when I joined
the organization
of Semion Mogilevich.
My name is Leonid Roitman.
I am ready to testify.
So that the people can hear the truth.
He would destroy entire rival groups.
He would first get rid of the leaders.
Then, he’d take care
of the new leaders replacing them.
This would generally last until
the entire group was destroyed.
He ordered the killings of hundreds.
[journalist] Have you ever killed
or executed someone for Mogilevich?
[speaking Russian] Unfortunately,
I cannot answer this question.
If I did, in the case of a trial,
this could be used against me.
By '94, '95,
among the top competing organizations,
the number one criminal Russian
organized crime group we identified
was Soltsnevo.
And Soltsnevo was being run by Mogilevich.
So he had everything going for him.
He was making lots of money.
It was perfect. Except he got greedy.
[sirens wailing in the distance]
[Fuentes] In 1995.
I'm thinking,
"Okay, he's expanding his empire."
Semion Mogilevich decides that
you're not really the most powerful
gangster in the world until you learn
how to suck money
out of the United States.
What separated Mogilevich though
from the rest of the clientele
of gangsters worldwide
was his financial knowledge
of how to penetrate
the global financial network.
When we talk about Mogilevich being
sort of a financial whiz,
you can see it in various scams.
One of which was known
as the YBM Magnex case.
The FBI is investigating a wide-scale
money laundering operation
suspected of cleansing billions of dollars
in illicit profits.
[reporter] Mogilevich is accused
of swindling Canadian and US investors
out of 150 million dollars in a complex
international financial scheme.
[man] YBM Magnex
was the first case in which
people from the former Soviet Union
were engaged in securities fraud
in North American markets.
Supposedly, YBM Magnex
was producing industrial magnets.
[indistinct chatter]
[Winer] YBM Magnex was valued
at a billion dollars.
We looked at that and saw that
as a potential stock fraud case.
So then eventually we get
to the point where
we decide to conduct the search
at the YBM facility in Pennsylvania.
[reporter] It's quiet now, but last week
this Philadelphia industrial park
was swarming with FBI agents.
[police radio chatter]
[Fuentes] We discover, you know,
that much evidence about the operations.
Except one problem,
they don't make the magnets.
From beginning to end, everything
about YBM Magnex was a fraud.
The second that we began the search
of the facility in Pennsylvania,
Mogilevich transfers 300 million dollars
almost instantly.
People were defrauded of hundreds
of millions of dollars eventually.
Mogilevich may have made
a really very serious mistake
with the YBM Magnex case because, uh,
for one thing, he was very much
on the FBI radar screen after that.
The FBI has come to reveal
the newest names
on their most wanted list.
There was only one spot empty
on that list until tonight.
Semion Mogilevich is accused of swiping
millions of dollars from Americans.
But the FBI says his crimes
go a whole lot further than that.
[Fuentes] He may not have had any clue
how much attention it would attract.
So, he immediately flees
with legally obtained passports
from other countries in Europe.
He had a Greek passport. He had Israeli.
He had several passports.
He sometimes used
one of his wife's last names.
Galina Telech.
And he used the name Schneider,
who was another wife actually.
The FBI was deeply concerned about
what Mogilevich was doing.
[police siren wailing]
We needed to find people in Eastern
and Central Europe we could partner with.
So, I immediately fly to Budapest.
And it was decided
that there would be the construction
of an academy in Budapest.
We're very honored that,
uh, the [inaudible] countries have
a task force housed within
the Hungarian national police.
[camera shutters clicking]
[man 1] And by all
[Fuentes] The task force is the first
of its kind in the world.
[man 2]
to counter international criminal
[Unger] The Budapest task force
was a very unusual operation for the FBI,
but they were working
with Hungarian officials and the idea was
this is transnational crime,
and they need local cop cooperation.
Mogilevich really was
their primary target.
[Fuentes] These officers from
all of the Eastern bloc countries
could go to that academy
and learn how to be police officers.
[speaks Hungarian]
This is how we conduct searches.
This is how we gather intelligence
This is how we document it.
This is how we conduct
crime scene investigation.
[man on screen]
Put your head down! [shouts]
[trainer] See his hand?
He's got a pistol under his shirt.
What you have here is two guys
delivering some machine guns
in exchange for, uh, cocaine.
We wanted to gather as much information
and conduct electronic surveillance,
uh, and see if we can intercept Mogilevich
who's sitting in Budapest.
There was advanced intelligence
that Mogilevich
was going to be at a summit meeting
with various mobsters.
[Fuentes] We get to the point where,
"Okay, we're ready."
So, that's when we decided to conduct
the major operation in Budapest.
[man speaks Hungarian]
[Fuentes] But he just happened
to not be there when that happened.
We arrested a number of people
in his organization.
[man] The FBI was trying to infiltrate
his organization.
But Mogilevich seemed to have
a sixth sense when
a member of his organization might be open
to working with law enforcement.
A man named Tamas Boros, who was
a restaurateur and mafioso in Budapest.
And he had to pay off the Russian mafia,
uh, and he was sick of it.
[speaks Hungarian]
[Unger] So, he became an informant
for the police.
And he was secretly being recorded.
And they were talking about Mogilevich.
[speaking Hungarian]
I have only seen him once.
He's a big fat man with a big belly.
As far as I know,
he's the main link outward.
He's unapproachable.
And I think that he's involved in scams
right up to this very day.
People I know have been
to his office on many occasions,
but I've never taken part
in any of the meetings.
I knew they brought away with them
sums like a million dollars, 1.2 million
seven hundred thousand dollars.
Well in doing that,
he really put his life at risk.
And once that was discovered,
suddenly a bomb went off.
It was a massive explosion.
[loud explosion]
[siren wailing]
[Unger] And, uh, the informant,
Boros himself, was killed.
[indistinct chatter]
[sirens wailing]
[reporter speaking Hungarian] Someone
placed five kilos of TNT in a Fiat Polski
and they blew it up in a street
where Tamas Boros was passing every day.
[sirens wailing]
In addition to him,
three passersby died and 22 were injured.
[indistinct chatter]
There were lots and lots of bombings,
hundreds of them in Budapest,
and, supposedly,
that was Mogilevich's signature.
[officer over megaphone]
[bell tolling]
[man speaking Czech]
We had no idea where he was.
-We only knew he was in Prague.
-[train bell rings]
Semion Mogilevich was looking
for a place in Europe
where he could set up his headquarters.
My name is Milan Mikes,
I worked in the police.
Semion Mogilevich has influenced not only
my life but the life of my whole family.
So the U Holubu restaurant
was his headquarters.
I knew that
from several operative sources.
I transmitted it to my superior,
which was Zdenek Machácek at that time.
[speaking Czech]
We learned through insiders
that they were going to meet
at their restaurant
to celebrate one
of their leader’s birthday.
So, we decided to intervene.
We assumed that we were going up
against heavily armed men
who didn't really care about anything.
[siren wailing]
[Mikes speaking Czech] The raid proceeded.
[officer shouting in Czech]
Police! Don't move!
[shouting and screaming]
[Mikes speaking Czech]
All the "bosses" who were present
had their armed bodyguards.
At first, they were surprised.
The mobsters started clapping,
thinking it was some kind
of a birthday surprise.
[speaking Czech] And there was
a huge shark ready to be eaten
an enormous cake in the shape of the sun,
the emblem of their Solntsevo clan.
[man speaks Czech]
[speaking Czech]
They were all lined up here,
facing the wall, handcuffed.
We didn't manage to arrest Mogilevich.
[siren wailing]
[Mikes speaking Czech] The raid was leaked
by someone from the police.
Mogilevich had contacts
within the Czech police.
Probably even within our own department.
So, we missed Mogilevich by 10 minutes.
According to our information,
his car was at a crossroads next door.
A few weeks after, came a request that
Semion Mogilevich would like to meet us.
[speaking Czech]
We were considering for a moment, uh,
whether to agree to it or not.
[Mikes speaking Czech]
So, a meeting was arranged in Poysdorf,
a small town in Austria,
right at the border.
I didn't even have my gun.
The meeting in the restaurant
was supposed to start at one o'clock.
At 1:30 p.m., still no sign of Mogilevich.
For a moment,
I thought that it was all a joke.
Then, two guys got out from a Mercedes,
went in the restaurant,
they looked at us, they walked
through the room up to the bathroom
Those were the longest
five minutes of my life.
A black limousine pulled in
and Semion Mogilevich got out of it.
[speaking Czech]
He looked exactly like the photos.
[Mikes speaking Czech]
Beside the fiddler cap,
what I won't forget
is that he reminded me of Lenin.
He was wearing a Rolex on his hand,
but had dirt under his nails.
[indistinct chatter]
[Mikes speaking Czech]
After the formalities,
he asked me directly why we did the raid.
“Do you think you can compete with me?”
"You can't mess with me."
His basic request was that we revoke
the prohibitions of stay.
[speaking Czech] Uh, and he, in return,
would be willing to give us
some information
about, uh, the Russian organized crime.
Um, it was an unacceptable offer for us.
[speaking Czech] So, Mogilevich called me
two days after the meeting.
He only answered
that he regretted our decision,
but that we would regret it even more.
The consequence was the following:
my colleague Zdenek Machácek and I
were arrested.
[Machácek speaking Czech]
Well, the case was, of course, fabricated.
The court ultimately ruled
that we were innocent.
Some people who participated in this
were in connection with Mogilevich,
and they used this to take revenge on me.
[speaking Czech]
I decided to leave the police.
If I hadn't investigated Mogilevich,
we wouldn't be sitting here now,
I would have my wife,
I wouldn't have white hair.
It has changed my life
in a significant way.
[Fuentes] At this time,
Mogilevich has finally been located.
We knew where he was.
We knew where he lived.
So, the FBI had a warrant
and they were planning
with the Hungarian authorities
to arrest him.
[shouting and screaming in Hungarian]
[Fuentes] The Hungarian national police
conducted a major raid,
which he just happened to escape.
[chatter in Hungarian]
[man speaking Hungarian]
These gang leaders are allegedly close
to Semion Mogilevich,
wanted by Interpol and FBI.
[Fuentes] Mogilevich immediately flees.
Now, Mogilevich was well aware
that the United States and Russia
do not have extradition agreement.
So he knew he'd be protected from that,
as long as he stayed in Moscow.
[breaking news music]
Russia, birthplace
of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy,
of the Tsars, of Lenin and Stalin,
of revolution and huge political ideas,
has found itself a new icon:
Semion Mogilevich.
Mogilevich, camera shy
and not a little intimidating,
now seeks to set the record straight
in his first ever British interview.
He's doing interviews and claiming
the FBI's been spying, the FBI's no good.
The FBI's making all this up,
I'm a great guy.
What is your business?
[speaking Russian] For the past few years,
I have been selling wheat and flour.
When someone like Semion Mogilevich
gives an interview to the BBC
it tells you he feels safe.
Nobody bothers him.
[interviewer]
Let me quote from the report.
You are said to be a financier
who runs prostitution,
gambling, and money laundering.
One of the top crime bosses in Russia.
Why do people pick on you?
[speaking Russian]
It's because I smoke too much.
Davidoff cigarettes.
They're saying these things exist.
How can you prove they don't?
How can I prove it? These things
don't exist. None of it happened.
These are just words.
They don't have documents proving that.
Uh
whether it's true or not,
they keep accusing me.
[Mangold] Although Semion Mogilevich
insists on his complete innocence,
he has achieved international notoriety
as one of the significant
Russian crime figures.
Semion Mogilevich may have begun to set
the fashion for the new Russian bad guy,
but that confident swagger
could be a front.
He's in a protected state,
but he didn't pay off every key person
he should have in Moscow for protection.
He made somebody angry.
[reporter] This could be the end
of the criminal case of the decade.
One of the most wanted people
around the globe
was finally arrested by Moscow police.
[Unger] Mogilevich was leaving
the World Trade Center in Moscow.
[siren wailing in the distance]
And it was a spectacular show of force.
-[sirens wailing]
-[man speaks Russian]
[Unger] There were, uh, dozens and dozens,
well over 50 Moscow policemen there.
[sirens wailing]
[man speaking Russian] The police have
a lot of questions for Semion Mogilevich,
who has been wanted
by several countries for 15 years.
[camera shutters clicking]
[woman speaking Russian]
Mogilevich and his partners are accused
of a 50-million-rubles tax evasion scheme.
I remember hearing about it
and being somewhat surprised.
It was definitely a warning shot
by the Kremlin.
Before Mogilevich was arrested in 2008,
he took control
of the Ukrainian energy trade,
which is very, very lucrative.
Essentially, this was a scam
that was taking money away
from the Ukrainian people.
These were their natural resources.
So this became a real international issue.
[clapping]
[Unger] He was actually sued
by Julia Tymoshenko,
who was the Prime Minister of Ukraine.
It's very unusual for a Prime Minister
to sue a Mafia boss.
[speaking Ukrainian]
Gas supply is a political issue
not only for Ukraine
but for Europe as well.
Stability and security cannot be achieved
when such a shady structure
is involved with such huge volumes
of gas supplies.
We have no doubt whatsoever
that the man named
Semion Mogilevich
is behind the whole operation.
Moscow was not terribly happy
with Mogilevich at that point.
When he was arrested,
I took it with a grain of salt
because I thought, "Okay, we'll see."
[speaking Russian] He is such a big fish
that he will be harder to keep
than to catch.
Crime lord Semion Mogilevich
has been released by a Russian court
after his detention period expired.
Mogilevich has also been wanted
by the FBI
in connection with
an Eastern European crime syndicate.
But Moscow has refused
an extradition request from the US.
He wasn't tried.
It wasn't like witnesses showed up,
and they held hearings,
and had days and days of testimony.
That's not what happened.
[Fuentes] And after all this time,
we did not know exactly where he was.
We knew he was in Moscow.
But, uh, we can't go everywhere
in the world and extradite people out.
He's a serious criminal.
Clearly he's being protected.
I don't know who is protecting him.
But somebody is.
[man speaking Italian] Mogilevich is not
protected by the Russian authorities.
He is a Russian authority.
He is the head of the Russian Mafia,
but he also represents the dark side
of the Russian state.
I've met a major source
who has important information
about Mogilevich,
especially about his villa
in the Moscow area.
I am Mario Scaramella.
I am a consultant on security
and intelligence matters.
I investigated
the Mogilevich activities.
Mogilevich, I was directly investigating
him because
he had connections
with the Italian organized crime.
And we were working on it
with the anti-Mafia section.
This is how I got in contact
with Alexander Litvinenko,
a major source,
one of the most important figures
in the history of espionage.
[speaking Russian]
My name is Alexander Litvinenko
[man translating into Italian]
I am an ex-agent of the KGB and FSB,
the Russian secret services.
[Scaramella speaking Italian] Alexander
Litvinenko was a lieutenant colonel,
the man who was spying on powerful people.
He was the ears of Moscow.
[speaking Russian]
I ask this recording to remain secret.
[man translating into Italian]
[speaking Russian] It must only be used
as part of your secret investigation.
You know, Russian special services
kill people only to seek revenge.
[man translating into Italian]
[Scaramella speaking Italian]
He tells us everything he knows.
Litvinenko then decided to leave Russia
and then found refuge in the UK.
His files about Mogilevich
were the most concrete.
Here is one of the tapes
I have recorded with Litvinenko
talking about Mogilevich.
[Litvinenko speaking Russian on tape]
Semion Mogilevich,
one of the most wanted fugitives
of the FBI
has close relations with
the highest officials of Russia.
This is why the FBI
cannot arrest Mogilevich.
Everything Mogilevich does
is with the approval
of the Russian secret services.
[Scaramella speaking Italian]
We were surprised by such an accusation.
It was a historical moment
that exposed him a lot.
Litvinenko will never be forgiven
by the Russian authorities.
Shortly after, Alexander Litvinenko
met two Russian guys in London.
[reporter] The police believe
the main poisoning occurred
in the bar of the Millenium hotel
as polonium levels are so high there.
[speaking Italian] They poisoned him
with radioactive polonium
mixed in a cup of tea.
He died after a 23-day agony,
in unthinkable and atrocious suffering.
I miss him. He really was
an extraordinary person.
Before his death,
we had recorded
hours and hours of discussions.
Listening to these recordings,
you can find very important information
about the villa of Mogilevich.
[Litvinenko speaking Russian on tape]
Semion Mogilevich now lives
in a villa in the Moscow suburb.
His house is right next to Ziouganov,
the head of the Communist Party in Russia.
It’s a highly secured place where only
the Russian senior officials can live.
[distorted male voice speaking Russian]
He used to live there.
But according to my information,
he has moved out.
Well, Mogilevich is very smart.
He is always a step ahead.
That’s why we call him “The Brainy Don.”
Mogilevich never registers
his addresses in his name.
But I have found several addresses
in Moscow that are linked to Mogilevich.
VISHNEVSKOGO, N°9, UNIT 1, APARTMENT 40
[Mr. X speaking Russian]
His first address is
in a very classical district of Moscow.
A quite standard neighborhood.
PETROVKA STREET, 24, APARTMENT 61
[Mr. X speaking Russian]
The second address is located
in a very prestigious area
in the center of Moscow.
On Petrovka street,
right next to the Moscow City Council.
The other address I have
is a house in his wife’s name.
And I know for a fact
that there are dogs barking.
[dog barking]
[speaking Russian] But the last time
Mogilevich was seen was in a public space.
It was in this church,
which is not an ordinary church.
It's located right next to the residence
of the patriarch,
the head of the Russian Orthodox church.
[speaking Russian]
In a cemetery of the capital,
a luxurious funeral just took place
with unprecedented security measures.
[Mr. X speaking Russian]
Some footage show the beautiful funerals,
uh, of one of the leaders
of the Solntsevo criminal organization.
[vocalizing]
[Mr. X speaking Russian] That confirms us
that Mogilevich seems like a man
who’s alive and well.
He enjoys his wealth
in absolute impunity.
I really find it unfair.
[journalist]
This is Mogilevich. Right here.
That reminds him of mortality.
That he's not gonna live forever.
[church bell rings]
[Fuentes] In a way,
Russia's a big country. It's a big house.
But it's still house arrest.
So he's not in a position, I know he has
a relative living in the United States.
And I think potentially a grandchild
in the United States.
So he has relatives in other countries,
other places he would like to visit.
He can't.
And if he tries to, we'll become
aware of it and he'll be arrested.
[Roitman speaking Russian]
Mogilevich is my enemy today.
He has prepared my assassination.
I would like him to be judged
for all his crimes.
So then, he would spend
the rest of his life in jail.
There's nothing that prevents
the Russian government
from arresting Semion Mogilevich and
having him face trial in other countries.
Starting with the United States.
But I wouldn't hold my breath.