Epstein Secrets

his brought Poteyev under immediate suspicion. Tipped off by the CIA to the FBI's error, Poteyev managed to escape by taking a train from Mos- cow to Belarus, where the CIA exfiltrated him to the United States. Poteyev had been saved from prison—or worse—but he was no lon- ger useful to the CIA as a mole.

cure debriefing room, he said that he had information that Russia would find interesting, but he wanted money in return. What interested me about the Pelton case was that Cherkashin proceeded to recruit Pelton, even though he was no longer working at the NSA and no longer had access to @ the NSA. In addi

urse grab them.” The final recruitment I asked Cherkashin about was that of Ronald Pelton, the civilian employee of the NSA who had retired in 1979. Pelton had left the NSA without taking any classified documents with him. After retiring, he had financial difficulties, and he sought to get money from the

ught Poteyev under immediate suspicion. Tipped off by the CIA to the FBI’s error, Poteyev managed to escape by taking a train from Moscow to Minsk in Belarus. The CIA next exfiltrated him out of Belarus and to the United States. Poteyev had been saved from prison—or worse, but he was no longer useful to th

urse grab them.” The final recruitment I asked Cherkashin about was that of Ronald Pelton, the civilian employee of the NSA who had retired in 1979. Pelton had left the NSA without taking any classified documents with him. After retiring, he had financial difficulties, and he sought to get money from the

return. What interested me about the Pelton case was that Cherkashin proceeded to recruit Pelton even though he was no longer working at the NSA, and Pelton no longer had access to the NSA. In addition, since the FBI had 24 hour surveillance on the embassy, Pelton had almost certainly been photographed en

rvant from Dagestan, who had amassed an estimated fortune of $7.1 billion. Kerimov recently had been charged for manipulating a Potash cartel case in Belarus. Most of these clients were reputed to be part of Putin’s inner circle. To break the ice, I asked him about Oliver Stone. I knew he had a small role

ously tapped into Soviet undersea cables in the Sea of Okhotsk, which connected a to the Soviet Pacific Fleet's mainland headquarters at Vladivostok. Pelton received another $30,000 from the KGB. “Did the information in his head proved valuable?” I asked. “As long as the NSA didn’t know the tap was comp

he residence of the Soviet ambassador to Austria. A KGB’s electronic communications expert, Anatoly Slavnov, was then sent to Vienna to supervise the Pelton debriefings. The debriefing sessions, which went on for 15 days, were from 8 AM to 6 PM. In them, Pelton managed to recall Project A, a joint NSA-CIA