Original subtitles

Sergei Bazhanov. I was head of the International Bank of St. Petersburg.

My boss said, "Work in Moscow during the week and handle your St. Petersburg business on weekends."

I ran into Putin, who was on his way to Moscow.

We were on a small Yak-40 aircraft, and I suggested we travel together.

"Gladly," he said.

At the time, a certain Zeltser had been demanding money from the bank.

He lived in the US. I don't know whether he was an American citizen.

He was a shady character. He was a criminal too.

He had swindled the bank director out of six or seven million dollars.

He had also sued us twice for 25 million.

Putin asked, "What's the dispute about?"

He listened to me and said, "But he's the one who stole from you."

"Yes, Vladimir. He stole the money."

"What are you going to do?" "Take him to court, of course."

"You should just kill him."

I was astonished. Putin was a senior official, after all.

"What?" I said. He waved it away. "So others won't get any ideas about stealing."

"My principles are the same as in the film The Godfather."

Putin's actions in the 1990s help us understand what he does today.

Putin holds a dominant position. But I've seen his true face.

St. Petersburg in particular was notorious for its violence.

It was Russia's Wild West.

Officials and ordinary people were killed.

A Tokarev pistol outside your front door.

It was that simple.

The KGB didn't protect Putin.

If he survived, he survived.

Well, then that was fine.

Otherwise, they brought in someone else.

Either side could kill him. He had to weigh his options.

Roman Tsepov was a prominent player in the criminal world.

He was a former cop himself.

Tsepov was an authority in that world and built his own organization.

-Have you heard of Baltic Escort? -Yes, of course.

-What was it? -Well, what it sounds like. Bodybuilders.

In ridiculous outfits. At first, it was tracksuits.

Later, they got jackets and floppy ties.

It was the 1990s. Exactly as you'd imagine.

Baltic Escort was simply a front.

They were indeed Putin's bodyguards...

...but criminals also worked under the cover of the security company.

If a businessman needed to import something into Russia, into St. Petersburg...

...he had to pay for protection if he wanted things to go smoothly.

Tsepov paid the city administration. One man from Tsepov's gang...

...told me he was asked to deliver money to Putin.

I'm a little reluctant to ask the next question...

-...but I'd still like to... -What is it?

I'd still like to ask: Are you offered bribes?

I can honestly say such offers are made indirectly.

I won't ask any more.

Go ahead and ask.

So you don't accept the offers?

Do you want me to say I do?

Sobchak and Putin were seen driving new Mercedes sedans.

They were very expensive, top-of-the-range Mercedes cars.

It was rather puzzling...

...because their salaries at the time amounted to about forty dollars a month.

My name is Andrew Goodman. I served as a US diplomat.

I was posted to St. Petersburg as deputy consul general...

...from 1992 to 1995.

I'm speaking now as a private citizen, not as a representative of the US.

I investigated organized crime and corruption.

There were exactly three parking garages in all of St. Petersburg at the time.

The two Mercedes cars were parked in one of those garages.

My colleagues and I had access to that particular garage.

So we could see the cars ourselves.

The question was how and why they had acquired the Mercedes cars.

Boris Berezovsky was one of the first wealthy people in those circles.

Some people had started making a lot of money...

...and Berezovsky had figured out how to sell cars.

Berezovsky opened Mercedes dealerships.

He had one in Moscow, then opened another in St. Petersburg.

They had trouble obtaining the land for the dealership.

It had been promised to someone else.

The agreement had to be rewritten. All sorts of things happened.

Putin had signed the agreement granting the Mercedes dealers rights to the land.

An official document was required, and I saw that Putin had signed it.

And suddenly, the Mercedes dealership got the contract.

Berezovsky wanted to thank Putin generously for helping open the dealership.

He offered Putin the latest Mercedes model.

There was much talk of the city's two top officials receiving cars as gifts.

People were surprised to see him driving it around town.

Everyone in the city administration was asking where they had got the cars.

Sobchak's problem was...

...that his wife became too fond of the car, so he kept it.

Putin was smart enough to give his back.

That has been important to Putin ever since.

He accepted gifts and allowed people to show their gratitude.

Large sums were involved, but they couldn't become leverage against him.

He did nothing that could be turned against him.

He was quite cautious.

At certain times, I met Putin several times a day.

Foreign companies were supposed to see the advantages of doing business in St. Petersburg.

Only then were they told that doing business came at a cost.

What was the attitude toward corruption?

Basically, that loyal state officials were entitled to a certain reward.

I had the idea...

...of manufacturing pump-action guns with a business partner.

I was introduced to Putin when I needed to register my branch office.

If you approached an official, you realized it would cost you.

I asked acquaintances who worked with the Committee for External Relations.

They said I would be told the amount.

So I was introduced to Putin, and we talked a little.

We discussed international cooperation.

Then he simply wrote down a figure.

Without a word, he wrote the figures on a piece of paper. Ten thousand dollars.

Couriers have been used in American organized crime.

The courier is the person who collects the bribe being paid.

A courier ensures a certain distance...

...between the corrupt official and, for example, the gang leader.

They don't want to dirty their own hands.

-Who was Putin's courier? -I can't give you that name.

I can only say he's a very prominent figure in Russian industry.

He gave me the note and said Miller would handle it.

Alexei Miller is Gazprom's current CEO.

Everyone in Putin's circle...

...must prove their loyalty to him in one way or another.

My name is Roman Anin.

I'm editor of Important Stories, which currently operates outside Russia.

Previously, I spent fifteen years on Novaya Gazeta's investigative team.

Among other things, I investigated...

...Putin's ties to organized crime in the 1990s and 2000s.

Today, the cooperative looks mostly like a few small holiday homes by a lake.

But in the 1990s, the houses were very expensive.

They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As a public official, Putin certainly couldn't afford a house like that.

His only way of buying a holiday home was probably...

...through illegal income as deputy mayor. Bribes, in other words.

Putin's circle consists of neighbors from the Ozero cooperative...

...who now hold key positions.

Shamalov got to know Putin in the 1990s and was a close friend.

His son was married to Putin's daughter.

Shamalov was a doctor involved in medical supplies.

He worked at Siemens for a long time.

The medical equipment supplied by Siemens...

...passed through offshore companies such as Great Hill, among others.

Profits from the offshore companies were transferred to the palace construction project.

Putin's palace is a monument to corruption.

A tasteless but grandiose monument.

Corruption in the Siemens supply contracts financed the palace.

As a KGB agent, Putin understands the value of a signature.

He has always avoided signing documents.

That's why there's nothing proving Putin held accounts or owned companies.

But we know how it worked.

A friend is allowed to export oil, and in return a certain percentage goes to the palace.

It's standard practice in corruption.

As soon as a company opened an office...

...a mafia gang visited, offering protection.

"Pay us, and we'll make sure no one touches you."

If someone didn't want to pay, we politely explained that it wasn't a good idea.

I received letters saying things like, "Put ten thousand dollars..."

"...in the mailbox on Solyanoy Lane. Otherwise, you'll get a bullet in the temple."

There were three or four mafia gangs in the city:

The Malyshev gang, a particularly brutal gang from Kazan...

...the Chechen gang, which was out of control...

...and the Tambov gang under Kumarin.

It was a real war, which also affected ordinary residents...

...who weren't involved at all.

It was New Year's Eve, and we were partying at a bar downtown.

By chance, our rivals were there too.

We drew our guns. Someone called the police, and we were all arrested together.

While we were at the police station, a senior officer from headquarters came in.

He ordered our group released, but our rivals were to remain in custody.

One of the policemen asked what was going on.

The man from headquarters simply replied, "Do you want trouble with Cherkesov?"

They couldn't run the city without reaching certain agreements with the mafia.

Eventually, they decided to work with the Tambov gang.

"They're criminals, but they're predictable. We can handle them."

Vladimir... He was a boxer.

He started out as a bouncer back in the 1980s.

Then he became a bartender and got into extortion and everything that goes with it.

It may not be entirely true that Kumarin and Putin were friends...

...but they respected each other's interests.

I can take the company Sovex as an example.

Airports have refueling facilities for aircraft.

Planes have to refuel, after all.

Naturally, the major airlines didn't want to make payments in Russia.

If you transferred money, you would never get anything for it.

You'd see neither the fuel nor the money.

Instead, the money was transferred to Liechtenstein.

After that, we could buy fuel...

...and refuel the planes. It was convenient for everyone.

Formally, the refueling facility belonged to the city.

So I had to... sign a long-term lease with them.

The agreement had to be made with Putin...

...and my business partner, Dima Skigin, tried to negotiate a deal.

So Dima went to see Putin, but when he returned, he was swearing furiously.

"They're unbelievably greedy. They want fifteen percent." That was a lot.

Eventually, they came down to four.

-That four percent... Who got it? -Putin personally.

Four percent... of the profit we made.

How much money was that?

A few hundred thousand dollars.

That's quite a sum.

Once the company was up and running, the gangsters showed up.

"Unless you sign over a share of the company to us, we'll kill you."

That's how it happened.

The profits from refueling the planes didn't go to the airport...

...but to criminal gangs, who transferred them to offshore accounts.

In 2003, I tried to get my money back.

But it was... It was unpleasant.

What happened?

I'd rather not go into detail, but I was attacked.

I spent two months in hospital. They slashed me all over.

Then I had to move abroad.

You don't want to get killed, after all.

The mafia became integrated and more business-oriented.

Instead of men with machine guns and grenade launchers, they brought in lawyers.

Putin helped with the paperwork...

...so the state wouldn't ask any questions about the business.

There are documentaries...

...showing that Putin continued to run the FSB in St. Petersburg, even after he left.

He appeared to be fighting hard against the mafia.

So he "fought" the mafia without defeating it.

Putin remained closely linked to the mafia well into the 2000s.

My name is Shemtov Michtavi. I'm from Israel, and I'm seventy-two.

For many years, I lived in the criminal world. It was my family.

At the time, there was the Cali cartel and Pablo Escobar's cartel in Medellín.

They smuggled tonnes of drugs into the United States.

But some shipments were seized because American police knew their route.

So they began looking for new routes that no one knew about:

Through Russia to Europe.

The port of St. Petersburg lies in the west, and it's large.

It's close to Europe, so it's easy to ship something there.

For smuggling, you need a port belonging to a criminal boss...

...who deals in dirty business. Then you have shared interests.

We had a meeting with the Cali cartel.

At first, we planned to pack the cocaine in boxes of sugar.

Sugar was in short supply in Russia.

But after a while, they said there was also a shortage of meat.

The deal was going ahead, and I traveled with them into the Colombian jungle.

They packed the cocaine inside cans of meat.

It all worked perfectly.

I was given some documents and the recipient's address in Russia.

The address belonged to the mayor of St. Petersburg.

Vladimir Putin was deputy to Mayor Anatoly Sobchak.

At the time, the entire shipment was worth between 100 and 120 million dollars.

There was just one problem. Among everyone involved, there was one person...

...whose name I cannot mention for legal reasons.

He was a police officer working undercover.

The Israeli police had named the operation Acapulco.

We're opening the container.

The cargo has been rearranged.

When we open the box, we find...

...cans of meat and potatoes. We open a can.

Here you are. Look at this.

There's a substance inside the can.

What does it taste like?

It tastes bitter. Your tongue goes numb.

Cherkesov was head of the FSB, then called the FSK...

...when Operation Acapulco took place.

His words at the press conference were telling:

"The cocaine will be processed for medical purposes."

Cocaine is normally burned.

But in St. Petersburg, it was to be "processed."

The FSB was definitely a player in the criminal world.

It was often hard to distinguish the FSB from criminal gangs.

Would Putin really not have noticed anything? That's ridiculous.

There's a photograph of people sitting at Putin's table, including Kumarin.

I don't know the context, but it wasn't an official gathering...

...it was dinner with friends.

They were bound to Putin by blood ties, cocaine and much else.

The gangs were used to generate profits and transfer money to the West.

At the same time, they could also be used to discredit democratic government.

We may imagine, and this applies to me too...

...that if we introduce tough rule and a firm hand...

...life will become more comfortable and secure.

But in reality, that comfort soon disappears.

The firm hand soon begins to choke us.

I think it's possible we may have totalitarian rule for a time.

Putin was already ambitious then.

In St. Petersburg, state structures collapsed...

...and might made right.

Putin is the spider at the center, a pivotal figure in this web...

...of corruption, security services and mafia structures.

Sobchak was a bad mentor. He taught Putin what not to do.

Putin began considering moving on to something else.

Perhaps it was time to move to Moscow.

I was visiting relatives in Germany...

...when armed forces stormed our company in St. Petersburg.

I called Vladimir Putin and asked whether he could do anything.

But the answer was no.

Yeltsin expropriated our property by presidential decree.

The president wanted to use our company's property as a guest residence.

Did you think your friend Putin would help you?

Putin said quite clearly, "I can't stand up to Moscow."

"I have a career ahead of me." And he was right about that.

Through the expropriation of my company, he got to know Pavel Borodin.

Borodin headed one of the president's departments...

...and his daughter was studying in St. Petersburg.

If she had any problems, Putin made sure they were solved. He looked after her.

When Borodin came to St. Petersburg, Putin was very keen...

...to make sure he was comfortable, with a car, a private driver and so on.

They helped each other both ways.

"You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours."

He had known Putin since his St. Petersburg days.

Berezovsky wanted to thank him for his help...

...and offered him a new Mercedes as a gift. Putin declined.

For some reason, Berezovsky saw this as a sign that Putin was honest.

On behalf of the president, I will now introduce...

...the new head of the FSB: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Returning to the security service is like coming home.

My name is Marina Litvinenko.

My husband, Alexander Litvinenko, fought organized crime all his life.

I remember Alexander telling me they had a new boss.

"So what?" I said. "He's someone from St. Petersburg."

"He's so strange. He even brought a driver with him from there."

That sounded odd to Alexander.

Besides, Putin had no particular achievements to his name.

After Putin was appointed in July...

...he tried to find out who Putin really was.

They had a meeting.

Alexander had information he wanted to share with Putin.

There was evidence proving...

...that a criminal organization existed within the FSB.

They had people controlling drug and arms smuggling.

Here is the diagram Alexander Litvinenko drew for Putin.

Here, for example, we see the port of St. Petersburg and the Tambov gang.

He had hoped Putin would investigate the gangs' ties to the FSB.

For Putin, this was extremely uncomfortable...

...because at the same time an open letter was published in Kommersant...

...in which Berezovsky addressed Putin, writing:

"As head of the FSB, you..."

"...must clean up the security service and root out criminal activity."

It was a double blow.

Alexander said straight away, "Our phone is tapped."

That was the beginning, I would say.

A month later, Alexander and some colleagues held a press conference.

Certain people use the FSB not to safeguard state security...

...but for personal gain.

They use the FSB to settle scores with opponents, commit crimes on commission...

...or simply make money.

He spoke about crimes committed over the previous years...

...and said this had to be stopped before the FSB became a threat.

Naturally, my husband Alexander became an enemy to Putin.

Alexander fled without telling me, because he left alone at first.

We met later in Turkey and never returned to Russia.

All the buildings had regained their tsarist-era splendor.

It cost several billion dollars, and investigations began in Switzerland...

...into money changing hands, bribes and money smuggled out of the country.

Yuri Skuratov, the prosecutor general, opened an investigation into Yeltsin's family.

He was a dangerous enemy. It's all very well to say you're fighting corruption.

An extraordinary operation was launched to destroy the prosecutor general.

He was filmed with hidden cameras...

...in a sauna with prostitutes.

The video was broadcast on state television...

...as part of the evening news on the Rossiya channel.

Two men held the press conference:

The then prime minister, Sergei Stepashin...

...and FSB chief Vladimir Putin.

Things got heated when a journalist asked whether the recordings were authentic.

"Isn't it just someone who resembles the prosecutor general?"

Stepashin was completely thrown by the question.

He said, "Well... Experts will examine it, and we don't know."

"We can hardly prove anything."

Putin interrupted him. "Of course the experts have reviewed the material."

"They have no doubt about its authenticity."

I share the view of the president and the prime minister.

The prosecutor general should resign.

When the press conference was broadcast...

...members of Yeltsin's "family" exclaimed:

"There he is. He's the one we want. We need Putin."

At that moment, he was chosen...

...as the man who would secure their future, crush their enemies...

...and ensure they wouldn't be investigated for any kind of corruption.

Putin's handling of the situation with the prosecutor general and the prostitutes...

...made him president.

The group of FSB personnel you assigned to work undercover in the government...

...has successfully completed the first phase of its mission.

This is your office now.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin!

Some oil companies, such as Yukos, have substantial assets.

How did they acquire them? That's what we'll discuss today.

Putin stripped them of their power and property and put them in prison.

Berezovsky was forced out of Russia.

All his business partners were imprisoned, and their companies were seized.

Even then, Putin's politics rested on criminal foundations.

The state he has built, if it can even be called a state...

...is a repugnant structure resembling the KGB and criminal gangs.

-Hello? -Nikolai Vasilyevich?

-Are you busy? -No.

These gentlemen belong to the mafia.

Their wealth is built on criminal organizations.

In March 2006, quite by chance, I was assigned...

...to investigate an organization commonly called the Russian mafia.

People say they simply come here...

...for the sunshine and Spain's weak legislation.

I can agree with the first point, but certainly not the second.

You've heard, haven't you?

Medvedev is going to be president, right?

Yes, and our man will become prime minister.

And not just that. He'll become chairman of the entire government.

Interestingly, this hadn't yet been announced in the media:

Medvedev and Putin were going to swap roles as president and prime minister.

The main thing is that everything is still decided by one man.

Just one, and he's our man.

They had the protection of the Russian state.

The situation is...

...that His Highness the Tsar has made a favorable decision.

They said, "Go to London, and you'll meet someone."

I didn't know Alexander Litvinenko, but he told me things.

He talked about the criminal world in St. Petersburg...

...and about the heroin trade.

I remember him telling me about certain Russians.

Absolutely everything Litvinenko told me checked out.

He was due to come to Madrid around November eighth to testify...

...but he was given a fatal dose of polonium on November first.

They killed a person who posed no danger to the state.

And they killed him in a way that endangered the public, using a radioactive weapon.

Killing Litvinenko in 2006 was an insane decision for a head of state.

But from a KGB chief's perspective, it's more understandable.

-Can you forgive? -Yes.

But not everything.

-What is unforgivable? -Betrayal.

So those who challenged him are now abroad, dead or in prison.

What do you say about a person who, in a little over ten years...

...has gone from being a fairly ordinary official...

...in the KGB, or whatever it may be...

In ten years...

...he has risen through the ranks to become president of a vast nuclear power.

He felt he had some kind of calling.

The idea of the "Russian world," Putin's official ideology of war...

...is, in my view, a mythologized version of KGB ideology.

KGB agents are seen as having saved Russia from destruction.

It's narcissism: seeing yourself as the savior of the motherland.

Putin! Putin!

And if you've also held absolute power for twenty-five years...

...and everyone around you says you're God's emissary, you start believing it.

-We have won! -Yes!

Glory to Russia!

It is nothing other than totalitarianism.

That makes things incredibly difficult, even if Putin were to disappear.

Untangling this entire web of economic and state power...

It's almost impossible.

Translation: M. Kapla, K. Hjerpe, A. Blombergsson Svensk Medietext for SVT