> Initially, the FSB was mainly interested in getting its hands on our equipment, presumably in the hopes of confirming its hypothesis regarding our links with the CIA.
> ...
> The FSB officers feigned surprise and promised to return the missing items immediately but succeeded in doing so only after 40 minutes had passed. Although they failed to bypass the pin codes on the phones or computer, the Kremlin’s agents did manage to install a tracker on Roman’s laptop, which he discovered within minutes.
> I had a weirdly similar experience shortly thereafter, not in Moscow, but — shockingly — in Berlin. Flying back from a screening of Navalny in New York and on the way to another one in the Hague, I was just passing via the German capital for a few hours to speak at a conference. The event was held at a pompous hotel in the city’s suburbs.
> ...
> During the event, I looked up the ownership of the hotel only to discover it was owned by a German, quite literally, “friend of Vladimir Putin”. I rushed out to get my suitcase, and the bellboy took a whopping twenty minutes to find it. On the way to the airport, I discovered a hard disk was missing from the suticase. I alerted the police who rushed to the hotel, only to be told that the security cameras had been down for maintenance.
Does this imply that the conference was held at this hotel purely to get access to his devices?
> The scheme was replete with cars bearing fake license plates, a route that avoided traffic surveillance cameras, and two speed boats that would need to be sunk at the end of the operation.
> Later on, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) informed Roman that Kyiv’s intelligence services had gathered information showing that a Ukrainian criminal group had received an “order” from Moscow to kidnap him and take him to Russia. A reward of $50,000 was offered for his capture.
> At one point, one of them even booked a seat next to him on a flight from Budapest to Berlin, wearing a hidden camera to record his screen while he texted me. Their attempt to get his smartphone pin code was off by only one digit.
How many people were working full-time to get this guy?
It does sound crazy. If they really wanted to kidnap him, they would have succeeded instead leaving so many clues. The SBU told him? I am shocked, shocked.
Getting hands on electronic equipment is what any pro-Palestinian Western journalist is familiar with at airports etc.
> Initially, the FSB was mainly interested in getting its hands on our equipment, presumably in the hopes of confirming its hypothesis regarding our links with the CIA. > ... > The FSB officers feigned surprise and promised to return the missing items immediately but succeeded in doing so only after 40 minutes had passed. Although they failed to bypass the pin codes on the phones or computer, the Kremlin’s agents did manage to install a tracker on Roman’s laptop, which he discovered within minutes.
> I had a weirdly similar experience shortly thereafter, not in Moscow, but — shockingly — in Berlin. Flying back from a screening of Navalny in New York and on the way to another one in the Hague, I was just passing via the German capital for a few hours to speak at a conference. The event was held at a pompous hotel in the city’s suburbs. > ... > During the event, I looked up the ownership of the hotel only to discover it was owned by a German, quite literally, “friend of Vladimir Putin”. I rushed out to get my suitcase, and the bellboy took a whopping twenty minutes to find it. On the way to the airport, I discovered a hard disk was missing from the suticase. I alerted the police who rushed to the hotel, only to be told that the security cameras had been down for maintenance.
Does this imply that the conference was held at this hotel purely to get access to his devices?
> The scheme was replete with cars bearing fake license plates, a route that avoided traffic surveillance cameras, and two speed boats that would need to be sunk at the end of the operation.
> Later on, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) informed Roman that Kyiv’s intelligence services had gathered information showing that a Ukrainian criminal group had received an “order” from Moscow to kidnap him and take him to Russia. A reward of $50,000 was offered for his capture.
> At one point, one of them even booked a seat next to him on a flight from Budapest to Berlin, wearing a hidden camera to record his screen while he texted me. Their attempt to get his smartphone pin code was off by only one digit.
How many people were working full-time to get this guy?