9) The Taste of Poison
2024-06-04 00:40:15
<p>Imagine you were a fly on the wall at a dinner between the mafia, the CIA, and the KGB. That’s where this unprecedented story begins. A journey through the dark world of Russian intelligence where, for the first time, a professed “sex spy” tells her story. All of it. </p> <p>Host Neil Strauss (Rolling Stone, The New York Times) brings listeners into the dangerous world of sexpionage, where enemies of the State are not the only victims. So too are the spies themselves, brainwashed to believe that their bodies belong to Russia and meticulously trained to become “the perfect weapons.” Who is Aliia Roza? From the creators of the hit podcast series To Live and Die in LA, this is To Die For.</p>
I'm John Walczak, host of the new podcast, Missing in Arizona.
And I'm, Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world.
We cloned his voice using AI. Come on over, let's sing. In 2001,.
Police say I killed my family and rigged my house to explode.
Before escaping into the wilderness. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. Join me. I'm going down in the cave. As I track down clues.
I'm going to call the police and have you removed.
Hunting.
One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world.
Robert Fisher.
Do you recognize my voice?
Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories. First-hand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind.
Listen to Betrayal weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Warning. The following contains graphic descriptions of violence and sexual assault.
that may be too intense or triggering to some listeners. Discretion is advised.
One of my friends asked me, have you ever been in love?
And I said, yes, of course, every single time. And he said, no, really.
Because of my trainings, I feel that sometimes every single man in my life, even for the romantic relationship or something, I still look at them as my targets.
I have different targets in my life at different periods of time. And manism is the tool to achieve your goal. I know it sounds really bad, sorry. That's me. Welcome to my world.
I can guess that behind.
I was loading my gun.
I got you, I tear you apart. I had to kill you. Was it so much fun?
Episode 9. Chapter 19. The story so far.
So I just finished listening to the first eight episodes of To Die, For. It was the most compelling thing I've listened to in a long time. And this is not my genre I typically listen to, because it's what I lived. And it was just spot on fascinating.
This is Robin Drake, the FBI agent whose voice you heard at the beginning of this podcast. He's just finished listening to the first eight episodes and called to share some thoughts from his experience of 22 years recruiting Russian spies for American intelligence.
It's completely conceivable and believable, everything she said. Your heart just breaks for the trauma that not just she, but I mean, they take traffic in human beings. I mean, that's exactly what they're doing. They corrupt them. They destroy these women.
Robin is talking about Aliyah's experiences in the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency formed as a successor to the KGB. During her training, Aliyah was selected for a secret program for seduction agents, taught by a female major there, who Robin sees as a victim of the system, forced to create new victims.
And the other thing that struck me too, is how congruent that behavior has been. through time. Working against Russians, my entire time in the FBI, never once did I ever see a Russian female intelligence officer. They don't do it. Nope.
It is not their culture. And if someone rose in the ranks, it was because they were doing what her major was doing, training other females just to be tools and, you know, I call them screwdrivers and wrenches, you know, to be thrown away. It's totally objectified.
I want to ask you something that I've thought about and talking to you is bringing that thought to the surface, which is part of me thinks, assuming this all checks out, was this a real institutional program to train sex spies? Or was this a way for the higher-ups at the academy to create a ring of abuse with these women by pretending it's that?
I'm going to say yes to both. And here's why I frame it like that, because from our context in the West, it looks like it's one or the other. But from their context, from where they come from, it's all the same.
We talk about the colonel who ran the academy that Aliyah went to, how he abused her on the first day, and she was put in a position where she had to seduce him and make him think she was his girlfriend in order to protect herself.
There's no checks and balances whatsoever. Their checks and balances is I'm the colonel, I say what goes. And unless you're a colonel that's closer to Putin than me, and that's exactly what this entire program to me looks like, is that they got a colonel in there that needed his sexual needs fulfilled, so I'm going to create a program that satisfies me. And I'm glad she's getting good counseling and therapy for it too, because they destroyed her. This is not about nation-states.
This is about a nation-state making excuses for disgusting human behavior and excusing it, because it's serving the greater need of our country.
With FBI agent Robin Drake's thoughts here in mind, we return now to Aliyah's story. There have been some comments questioning Aliyah, and, as mentioned in episode 2, we will of course get to that. But for now, let's just listen, because this story takes some unpredictable turns.
Chapter 20 The Bait.
In 2003,, President Putin signed and founded a special department, FSKN, and that department was established only for one reason and one mission, to stop drug trafficking from Afghanistan.
This was the new department that Aliyah would be working in. Angry. that Aliyah had rejected his marriage proposal, the colonel had handed her off to his friend, a lieutenant general in the FSKN, to start working under him and be his next victim.
So, next day, I went to the new department. It was two floors, building, white walls inside. And it was a really small department, so we had maybe around like 15 agents, no women, only male. So the new department welcomed me, and we had our morning report routine, where we had our tasks, our assignments.
Aliyah's first task in the FSKN, the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation, was to shadow the other agents as they staked out houses where drugs were sold.
I would need to go with my team, who would be like two or three other agents, and we would walk on the streets and find out places where drugs would be sold. It's really tough to go there back.
Among Aliyah's many challenges, there was her new commander, the lieutenant general, who repeated a pattern Aliyah was now tragically familiar with. The first time, he phrased it as a question.
Less than a week, I served in that new department.
The lieutenant general called me, and he said to me that,
all right, so how do you like your new department? I said, yeah, it's pretty nice, thank you. And he said, well, let's go for a dinner. And I said, oh my God, I can't do it today, I have some things to do. He noticed that I was bullshitting him, he noticed that I was lying, but I just didn't, I just was scared.
He gave me this weird feeling, the feeling that I should run away. But then he said, okay, if not today, when is the next time? You tell me, so we go out.
And then I called to the colonel. I said, you know, he wants to go out with me. And the colonel said that you have to accept his offer.
And I understood that I don't really have anywhere to go and anyone to ask.
Anyway, the whole week I was trying not to be seen by my commander. Even every morning at the reporting, I always looked down.
At one of those morning meetings, Ilya received her first actual assignment. To stake out a decrepit apartment building where drugs were likely being sold and send in an undercover informant to get evidence.
And I remember it was my first mission, I'd never done anything like this. So we had like one man, he was a drug addict. He used to help agents to buy drugs and tell us what kind is it, if it's good or bad. He was like a bait. He's probably dead already.
So we would organize this operation where we would give him money which were marked previously by us.
Here's how this thing worked. Once their informant bought the drugs, the team would then raid the house, make arrests and gather evidence, including the marked money. However, when Ilya entered the house, she saw more than drugs and weapons. She saw evidence of a human trafficking operation that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Listener, discretion is highly advised.
That boy, he bought heroin, dose, he paid. And then we were waiting and we saw that he was giving this money. We came to the house, myself, three other agents and another agent. And when we entered the house,
when we entered the house, I saw, like killed over there, bodies of kids. Like many.
And it was. the whole floor was like full of like this used heroin doses. And kids were like five years old and another was just like a little baby.
And then we checked the rooms and there was, like other girls sitting in the rooms. Like, I guess like they all were overdosed, and some of them, they were, they were like metallic beds and they were, they had like bracelets on the wrist, so they couldn't do anything, but they couldn't even, they couldn't even speak. They were completely high and overdosed and we just couldn't even talk to them. And I saw their hands, they had huge bruises in their hands and legs. I don't know how many men these poor girls had to, had to be with.
And some of them after, like the embassy, took them, some of them, they, they just died before they started. Like they, before they went to the hospital, they died in the car. It was awful. I, I was crying then the whole evening.
There also was one guy who was almost like my age. He was actually from Kazakhstan too. When I was crying, he supported me. He said, I know what you're going through. It's never okay to see dead bodies, especially children's bodies.
But he said, you know what, we can change it. Let's make it happen. And every single day, when we find these houses, when we arrest these motherfuckers, we change the world.
And when I heard this, my father's words that I, I have to protect people, especially children and especially women, and all this learning in the academy, I felt like I really can do something. And I just, I just wanted to change that shit. I was so angry.
So that's what made me strong. I promised myself that I'll do everything to, to help wherever it takes.
With this new sense of mission and purpose, Aliyah decided that she would stop avoiding the Lieutenant General and tell him directly that she would not be going out with him. She was here to work and make a difference.
So I, I decided to speak with the General. I knocked his door. I came to his room in the office and I said, um, sir, I cannot go with you for a dinner. I cannot even go out with you because I, I'm not available. I have commitments in front of a man.
And he said, no, I already spoke with him. It's all fine. He passed you over to me, so it's okay. So now it's my turn. And I was, like, my God, like I just hated that situation.
And he said, you don't understand how privileged you are, because I am willing to have sex with you. Not relationship, not commitments, not love. And I said, you know what? I'm not doing. that.
Like I'm not becoming again someone's, you know, like a hole for like wherever. If, like Cornell, doesn't want to protect me anymore, I'll do it myself. So no.
And he said to me, I just want to warn you, young lady, if you think that you can be cleverer than me, this is not possible. And someone might tell you the story. what really happened with the female employee, his former employee, when she rejected me. And he said, so if you will reject me, you'll be dead. But I thought that moment he's trying to make it more dramatic.
I would never imagine that he really meant it. He did.
After Leah left the meeting, she asked the colleague she trusted most, the one who is also from Kazakhstan, what had happened to the last female agent who'd rejected the Lieutenant General's advances.
So he said a few years ago, in that department, there was a female agent. And she was beautiful. And he called her a black swan. Because she had this beautiful, long black hair and beautiful eyes. And she studied in the same department where I did.
He said this Lieutenant General approached her to have with her some sexual relationship. And she rejected him. So he sent her to one mission where she was shot.
So she was killed.
And he said, like, just be careful, because this dude definitely killed so many people. He's so cruel.
I'm John Walczak, host of the new podcast, Missing in Arizona.
And I'm, Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world.
We cloned his voice using AI. In 2001,. police say I killed my family.
First mom, then the kids.
And rigged my house to explode. In a quiet suburb.
This is the Beverly Hills of the valley. Before escaping into the wilderness.
There was sleet and hail and snow coming down.
They found my wife's SUV. Right on the reservation boundary.
Is he going to sniper me out of some tree?
But not me.
Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. For two years.
They won't tell you anything.
I've traveled the nation. I'm going down in the cave. Tracking down clues.
They were thinking that I picked him up and took him somewhere.
If you keep asking me this, I'm going to call the police and have you removed.
Searching for Robert Fisher.
One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world.
Do you recognize my voice?
Join an exploding house. The hunt.
The iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts. Or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week you'll hear brand new stories. First-hand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind.
Second, stories about regaining a sense of safety. A handle on reality after your entire world is flipped upside down. From unbelievable romantic betrayals.
The love that was so real for me was always just a game for him.
To betrayals in your own family. When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. Financial betrayal.
This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars.
And life or death deceptions.
She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me.
Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Shortly after her meeting with the Lieutenant General, and likely not by coincidence, Aliyah's missions became even more dangerous.
My colleagues arrested one criminal. Quite a young boy. He was so violent, he would just kill people around him, just without any reason. For example, if they would loan money from a criminal gang and they wouldn't pay on time. He would kill them and their families.
He could kill even kids. My colleagues arrested him. Then they didn't have any evidences. They couldn't get any confession or whatever from him, so they had to let him leave. And I prayed to God they wouldn't send me to seduce him or whatever.
Because, I mean, I didn't want to deal with this guy. He was completely out of his mind. And he was just scary. And they asked me to set him up.
For the first time, Aliyah was asked to use her special training. They hoped that where their traditional police tactics, including violence, had not worked, seduction would.
When I received that assignment, they said you just need to basically make him to come to the place. It would be sauna. You won't be alone. We will be with you, we will follow you, so it will be fine.
The sauna, because of its all-purpose use as a bathhouse, social club and meeting place in Russia, was the site of many intelligence operations, not all of which ended well for the target.
If they would have a proof that you are the enemy of the country, they would usually, like, take you to, like, this sauna, which is banya, Russian banya, and they just, like, give you some drinks with the poison. That's it. It's easy.
With this particular mission, Aliyah would not be giving her target poison. She would be slipping something else into his drink.
We drove to the nightclub, very, kind of, like, underground, where everybody can basically take drugs in front of everyone. He had, like, a small little army with him, his gang, people, criminals. And we decided that next night we'll get prepared, and I will come to that club, and I will try to make him to go with me to sauna, where I would need to give him a drink. It wasn't a poison, but, first of all, it had the indigrant, which makes you talk a lot, you can give answers to any questions. So I was supposed to give it to him in the drink.
Then I had to open the door to my team to come in, and then they would continue with him to do whatever they needed.
Sergei, her team leader, gave her an unnamed drug in a small bottle with an eyedropper, and then dropped her off at the club.
I took that bottle, which my colleague gave me, in the bag. I took some condoms as well with me, and I was ready. So I arrived there by taxi, and then I knew that my team was waiting in the car. I came in, and I saw him sitting at the table with two other guys, and they were, like, two girls. They looked just perfect, you know, just, like, clothes, makeup, everything.
So I had to attract his attention, and I started to dance.
One of the most important techniques of sex espionage is to never approach your target directly, because if he suspects you're an undercover agent, it could be a fatal mistake. So instead, once Aliyah caught her target's eye, she started a conversation with his two female friends about their clothing.
I started to speak with the girl first. And I said, like, oh, my God, like, where did you buy yours? And she said, oh, I bought it, like, in this shop. So we started to talk really enthusiastically. So he looked at me, I noticed.
And I remember I did, like, this long look into his eyes. Really long, so he could feel it. This girl who was next to me, she's like, oh, sit down with us.
Aliyah sat there and spoke with the women, ignoring her target, except for the occasional seductive glance.
And then they were continuing, like, partying and everything. And I was thinking, like, how can I approach him where... I mean, it would be just simple to say, hey, would you like to fuck? But I had to intrigue him. Just, like, a couple days ago, he was in interrogation room.
So he definitely understand that, potentially, he'd been watched.
Eventually, an opportunity to lure her target to the sauna came, and one of the women she was talking to started mentioning after parties and asking if anyone had cocaine.
So I said, oh, by the way, I have some good drugs. And she said, really? Like, yeah. And she told all her guys, like, oh, she has, like, good drugs. She's like, okay, where is it?
I said, like, oh, no, I can call my guy, like, he will come and bring it. He usually brings it to, like, the sauna, so-and-so. And it's like, do you know this sauna? She's like, oh, yeah, I know this sauna, like, I've been there. I said, like, yeah, why don't you have a party there?
So I wanted this proposal would come from her mouth rather than mine, because I was the new girl who, like, nobody knew. So she passed this information to him. And he seemed, like, agreed to that. So I went to the toilet. I texted to my Sergey, to my guy, and I said, listen, so we are going to that sauna, but he wants drugs.
What about drugs which we have in the department?
My other colleagues, they were following us. We came to the sauna. Everybody got undressed. I took the bag of cocaine to the table. I put it on the table.
They started to sniff it.
So there were, like, two girls. They started to swim in the swimming pool, and two guys hanging out with them. So my target, for a while, he was, like, by himself. What I had to do, I had to take him separately to another room, so it would be just me and him in the room.
Aliyah wasn't sure how to get her target, this gang enforcer and murderer, into the other room until she remembered something else she'd been taught in her training, something that was very unusual to learn at a military academy.
I said, like, would you like some massage? And he's like, yeah. And I started to massage his shoulders. He drank that cocktail with vodka, but he didn't drink that much because he was more, like, using drugs. I didn't really know when and how to pour these drops into his glass.
And I was telling him, oh my God, like, you're so strong. You're so, like, masculine, and you have so much tensions. And if you would lay down, I can do good massage for you for the whole back.
Aliyah suggested to her target that they move into a more comfortable room, hoping that his friends would just assume they were hooking up and not worry about him.
He said, yeah, let's do it.
So, when we were walking into the room, I pick up his glass. And I pick up also, like, my glass, but it was same-looking. cocktail with cola. And coke has a quite strong taste, right? So if you use any poison or you use any type of drug, coke taste is so strong that it just covers it all.
So you wouldn't feel the taste of poison.
So he laid down, and I said, like, let me give you the drink.
And when he was laying, I just, like, took the drop and put, like, three drops into his drink. And I put my glass, like, nearby, but I didn't touch it. And then I just gave it to him. I said, like, just drink it, and I will do, like, massage straight away. So he drank it.
He put it, like, on the side, and he laid down. And then I went on top of him, and I started to massage his shoulders.
While I was massaging, I felt, like, that. his muscle were, like, relaxing, relaxing, relaxing. And then he basically stopped reacting, and he was completely out.
So I took his hand, and it was completely limp. So I was like, okay, so he's ready.
And when I stood up, I took my glass, and when I went to the main lobby, I just washed it, basically.
I didn't tell anything to his friends, and they were, like, still in the swimming pool. I just left, and when I was leaving, I texted to Sergey, the commander of the group of this team. Okay, it's done. He's, like, he passed over. That's it.
And I took a taxi, and I went home.
Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand, accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Stories about regaining a sense of safety, a handle on reality after your entire world is flipped upside down, from unbelievable romantic betrayals...
The love that was so real for me was always just a game for him.
to betrayals in your own family. When I think about my dad, oh, well, he is a sociopath. ...financial betrayal...
This is not even the part where he steals millions of dollars.
and life-or-death deceptions.
She's practicing how she's going to cry when the police calls her after they kill me.
Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm John Walczak, host of the new podcast, Missing in Arizona.
And I'm, Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world.
We cloned his voice using AI. In 2001,. police say I killed my family.
My first mom, then the kids.
And rigged my house to explode. In a quiet suburb.
This is the Beverly Hills of the Valley. Before escaping into the wilderness.
There was sleet and hail and snow coming down.
They found my wife's SUV. Right on the reservation boundary. And my dog flew.
All I could think of is him going to sniper me out of some tree.
But not me.
For two years.
They won't tell you anything.
I've traveled the nation. I'm going down in a cave. Tracking down clues.
They were thinking that I picked him up and took him somewhere. If you keep asking me this, I'm going to call the police and have you removed.
Searching for Robert Fisher.
One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world.
Do you recognize my voice?
Join an exploding house. The hunt.
Family annihilation.
Today. And a disappearing act. Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Aaliyah assumed that her first seduction mission had been a success. That is, until a few days later, when the criminal's family said that he'd gone missing that night and began accusing the police of having done something to him. So Aaliyah asked a colleague about it.
He's like, I don't know, but I know that Sergey was working on this case and it's not good for him.
And I thought, OK, so if this criminal is missing, I am involved in this case, perhaps in this murder. And I thought, you know, it could be really bad to me, too, because I was the one who gave him this drink with who knows what liquid.
As Aaliyah reckoned with the possibility that she might have killed him, she thought about how many innocent people this criminal had killed himself, just literally because he enjoyed it.
And by that time, I didn't feel bad about him. He was just like a zombie who brings only nightmare to everyone.
As for whether she accidentally overdosed him or something else happened afterward, Aaliyah would never know.
I mean, in the end of the day, I never know if they were still straight, like that or not, because, like it was the job of the cleaners. We used to have cleaners, people who, like government people who would come and clean.
Even her colleagues from the mission that night refused to talk about it.
The only one thing what he said to me, never tell anyone about what happened.
So I never said anything.
And day by day, I would come to my office, to my department and work and go to all these operations and just do my job. And I've seen more and more crimes on the street. I would see more and more dead bodies.
And it was really dangerous and it was risky.
As Aaliyah continued receiving new missions, she noticed that the lieutenant general hadn't propositioned her again, so she thought she was safe from him.
I thought he would just leave me, you know, just, OK, it is what it is.
But, like the predator he was, the lieutenant general was just waiting for the right time to strike. And a few weeks later, he struck in a way Aaliyah never saw coming.
Everybody were leaving his office after the reporting. And then he said, oh yeah, you are staying. I have a special assignment for you. And I was like, shit.
So I stayed in his room. He closed the door. And he said, so what did you decide? And I played stupid. I said, like, about what?
Sorry, like, I don't understand. And he's like, OK, so I see, like, you don't get it, right? All right, you can leave now.
I pretended that nothing happened, really, that he's not pissed, like he's OK. But in fact, he was really pissed.
So, the next morning, we had our reporting, as always. And he said, by the way, agent, you have a chance to pay back to your country by going to the war. Make us to be proud of you.
And when he said it, I heard all my colleagues were like, oh, my God, she is fucked. Good luck to her. Like, when will you go to the funeral?
Inside of me, I started to shake of anger and hate.
He is sending me to the Chechen war for me to be killed over there. And never come back.
Call 888-373-7888 to get help and support.
In the world, Robert Fisher, do you recognize my voice?
Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust and the trail of destruction left behind. Listen to Betrayal weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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