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Warning, the following episode contains explicit language and sexual themes. Listener discretion is advised.
There were some difficult decisions to be made after meeting Alea Rosa. When I researched her online, there was not a lot to find. However, there were a few sources supporting her claims to be a Russian trained seduction spy.
I'm about to introduce you to a real life I guess you could say red Sparrow.
She was trained in the KGB style arts of seduction, persuasion and manipulating.
Then there were sources saying this.
Everyone in la is creating a narrative to further their own careers. Hers just how seems to be absolutely outrageous, and also a film has already been made, So yes, she has lied to my face.
I wondered what the truth was and how do you even go about officially confirming someone was a former FSB seduction agent. After I watched these, Aliah did give me photographs and documents, and even let me speak to one of her former colleagues in Russia. But even the authenticity of these can't be proven. I also wondered something else, how much of some people's skepticalresponse to Aliyah comes from the fact that she's a woman presenting herself in a
glamorous way online and selling information products. After all, for the men at the table on the night I met Aleiah, what was the proof that my friend Johnny Junior's family was in the mafia family or that my other friend really held a high position, he claims at the CIA. Best selling author Chris Voss has made a career out of a former FBI hostage negotiator, and he also sells information products online.
I was an FBI hostage negotiator. It sounds like a cry for help, doesn't it.
But he's a man and wears a suit. So I called him to ask how often he's had to prove his identity. Here's his answer, show like credentials approve that you were a former FBI agent.
I haven't had anybody challenge me.
So I made the decision to sit down with Aliyah and do something no one has ever done for her before. Give her a safe space to share her full story and to not just listen to it, but listen to truly understand and to support her telling of it, and then we can look at it all afterward. In order to do this properly, especially after what FBI agent Robin Drake told me in the last episode.
Because basically, she's human trafficked is what she is.
I took and completed a course in trauma informed interviewing and consulted with everyone from intelligence agents to try counselors to social justice professors along the way. So let's just listen to Aliah's powerful story. Over the course of these next episodes, find experts, agents, and even targets to better understand the hidden world of Russian seduction spies and experience what may be one of the most unforgettable and disturbing
accounts I've ever heard. Note that for privacy considerations, alterations have been made to certain names, identifying features, and locations. Listener discretion is highly advised.
Hello everyone, my name is Delia Rosa and I was a former Russian spy. My name is Delia Rosa and I was a secret service agent in Russia. My name is Delia Rosa. I fled my country due to the last mission I worked as a secret Service agent.
Okay, I do it.
That's you like it more? Yeah, everybody likes it. In fact, like we never called each other like spy. I mean yeah, it was spine, but it's kind of like spies, kind of like a movie thing like, oh spy, it's so sexy, but it wasn't.
You know.
It's just like, okay, we were agents even like in my diploma and then my certificate that says like agent. You know, we don't call each other spies, but in fact they would call it espionage. It's exactly what is spying?
Is that? Or is it? Right? In Russia it's the same word.
Yeah, it's kind of like right they would say, like, which is spy?
Soish just because people talk out a lot with Russia with their poisons as well or not?
Oh yes, absolutely, we started all kind of poisons. Yeah, where to put them? Basically where to place them like for example, you can pour some in water or tea, and how long will this poison affect the body and when the poison will disappear. So when they would do when the person will read this that, and they would do how do you call it an English? Yeah, autopsy.
Then they wouldn't find anything. It would be just like, you don't know why this person died, maybe hard attack or whatever, like oh, maybe something you know, just like happens.
I tell Eleah that it sounds not like a school for espionage, but a school for death.
It's death. You're kind of like, I mean, death is so close. You always feel death that you Okay, So once they give you the gun and you feel the gun in your hand, okay, so you do understand you can kill. You have this power, and it's so addictive.
I had to kill you. I'm really sorry. I had to.
Do it that. I got on.
Duty a bed, I was old, and my god, I got to like you. I had to kill you, said so much.
Episode two, Chapter four, Forbidden Motions.
The President of the United States.
Good evening and Merry Christmas to all Americans across our great country. During these last few months, you and I have witnessed one of the greatest dramas of the twentieth century, the historic and revolutionary transformation of a totalitarian dictatorship the Soviet Union and the liberation of its peoples. New independent nations have emerged out of the wreckage of the Soviet Empire.
This act marks the end of the old Soviet Union, signified today by Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to resign as president. So I am seizing my activities in the post of President of the uss.
R and from the White House.
President Bush salutes the man who presided over the end of the Soviet Union.
I was born in the Soviet Union in Usasa, the country which doesn't exist anymore. My parents coming from Central Asia. According to my DNA, I don't have any Russian blood inside of me. But Kazakhstan was part of USSAR, and when in nineteen ninety one Yusata was dissolved, my father and my family we ended up living in Russia in Moscow, so we had our citizenship of Russia, but yet we half our heritage coming from Central Asia.
Original lot is shit.
Astrown there was.
I was born in a family of high ranked officer of the military army. My father was working on the Department of Domestic Security, protecting city and country from criminal gangs coming from former YUSUSA countries. His father was a national hero fighting against Natzi Second War, and being a little girl, my dad would bring me to the main monument in Stadingrad and he would show his father name written on the wall with other heroes.
At Stalingrad, German forces were locked in a deadly struggle with the city's beleaguered Red Army defenders. In the terrible battle, half a million Nazi troops were killed, wounded or captured and more than three quarters of a million Russians.
Being a little girl, I remember I looked at my dad going to the work, worrying this uniform, and every single evening when he would come back home, he would take me on his lap and he would tell me that I also should protect people one day, and also would serve military one day to protect my country and my people. I was so proud of my dad, and I was so proud to be his daughter, and I just wanted him to be proud of me too.
And so from a young age, Aliyah began receiving intense physical training from her father. Home became boot camp.
From six years old. Every day he would push me to do exercises, push ups and all this stuff. He would give me very heavy weights to lift and he would tell me, okay, so two ki long verchances like I don't know how many miles, like okay, you have to go like with me, but like very heavy stuff in my hands. And I would be crying and I would say I cannot do it, like it's so having. He's like, no, you do it. You cannot give up
do it. So I didn't have any adoption. I had to go with him, follow him, and just slowly, slowly, I became a really strong girl.
Physical strength and endurance were not enough. Really his father he also trained her to be strong mentally. When she came home from elementary school, Aliah would sit on the floor at her father's feet while he taught her his unique lessons.
The most important technique which my dad taught me is all the stake cold blooded. All the stay very focused on the main goal and never be emotional. And you have to train your mind where whatever comes any stressful situation in your life, but you all this stake cold blooded. For example, if something could happen I don't know, my toy was broken or something, I literally was not allowed to cry, so I couldn't be emotional. I could cry only in the night so nobody could see my tears.
And then one day when she was twelve, Aliyah discovered her passion.
I remember one day we were driving and we were driving through the forest and he said, would you like to try to shoot from gun? And I remember the first moment I took a gun and it was heavy and cold, but it was really powerful. He had another gun which was my favorite. It's much faster, it's more effective. It calls s teta instead of like vistolt macaroff, which is gun macarf. It's kind of like common everybody using it. But teta gun is like one of my one of
my favorite. And I had that excitement that I'm holding these special with fun, like a superhero to protect other you know, innocent of weak people.
Much of the training Aliah received from her father, from shooting guns to hiding her true thoughts and emotions, unintentionally prepared her to be what they call in Russia a swallow or a seduction spy. Because of the connotations of the word swallow in America, it was changed in its translation here to another bird, a sparrow. This was definitely not the type of military work that Aliah's father had imagined for his daughter.
My father comes from Muslim family, but in Usasada or no religion, so we wouldn't go to you know, mosques or wherever or like keep kind of like traditions. But as a Muslim man, he would be really strict to my mom and to me too, so we would always kind of like serve him, you know what I mean, like serve the man and myself. Like for example, daughters they have to when they will marry, they have to be virgin and before their marriage, they cannot have any
sexual relationship with anyone. So my father didn't allow me to go out. My father didn't allow me to have friends mot even like boyfriends or whatever, so I was even more shy. So I was not allowed to wear make up or nail polish, like super short skirts or something like that. If I would go out with my friend and I would be late for five minutes, my father would literally beat me with his belt. So I was honestly like, I was scared of him very much.
In high school in Moscow, because she was different, Aaliyah was picked on relentlessly.
I was bullied in my school all the time because I was one Asian girl studying with all these beautiful, blonde, blue eyed girls. I had pimples all over my face. I had like big lenses, you know, like glasses. I had long hair. I was dressed really badly because again my dad didn't allow me to wear like, you know, short skirts or dresses.
I felt awful.
And that was my childhood. And even though I was physically strong and I could really beat them up, all of them, but I just was not confident and I was just so I was just an ugly duckling.
When a Leah graduated high school at age seventeen, she went to a university like most of her classmates. However, as soon as she turned eighteen, the minimum age to join the military, her father did something that wouldn't be possible in America. He stormed into the university in his military uniform, made the administrators hand over Lea's records, and forcibly withdrew her from college.
And I remember that moment when he went to the university. He took my papers literally like that. And you know, in that city where we lived, he was kind of like a big name. So he took out all my papers and he sat, no, you have to go to the military, because this is our life, this is our path, and that's it.
Chapter five War Crimes.
Warning. The following contains graphic descriptions of violence and sexual assault that may be too intense or triggering to some listeners. Discretion is advised.
Is there anything that makes the Russian military and its culture different than the other militaries you've seen and covered?
So in my experience in working in places where there has been the presence of the Russian military, whether that be Syria or in Ukraine, it's just an incredibly brutal military. It's a very menacing This.
Is Hally McKay, a leading journalist who's investigated war crimes and violence against women in Russia, Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and dozens.
Of other countries.
Sort of war crimes that have happened, especially in Ukraine.
Just again, the sort of cold blooded killing, the treatment of the civilians or of prisoners of war is just really on another level that I often have just never seen in my time as a war reporter. And mind you, Russian society it's a very brainwashed society in many ways.
You know, whatever the Kremlin says.
Goes, And I think any time you believe that you have the righteous power or that somehow whatever you're doing is for the grade of good, you can justify any sort of horrible behavior against another individual.
Before we begin the story of Elah's time in the military, which is disturbing on a number of levels. This kind of context is important because being a spy or a secret agent may sound glamorous, but not when you're a woman in the Russian military. Yeah, I'm just curious any context you can provide on what it's like to be a woman in the Russian military or intelligence.
It's about four point two percent of the entire forces are made up of women.
From everything that I've heard and people that I've interviewed.
Myself, it's just an extremely hostile environment to work in. And I know even with the US military it's a very hard slog for women, so many face sexual assault, But in the Russian military, I want to say that that is significantly even more intense and even higher. One particular woman that I remember interviewing back in twenty seventeen when I was doing some work in Moscow and she had been a Russian military medic.
Allie tells the story of this interviewee who was subjected to continued sexual abuse and harassments in the Russian military and made to serve as what the euphemistically call a fieldwife to her commanders.
Home in and out, And she was just one example of someone who had suffered so much of that internal trauma and nothing was necessarily related to the combat. She didn't see combat herself, but just being in that environment for a decade of her very young life, I think it really destroyed her. And I think she's probably just one example of many that once you sort of get in,
it's very difficult to get out. And there is this mentality of where the military wants to break you that can be done in so many different ways, and I think for women that often manifests itself in sexual.
Assault, and it seems that there's a lot of sort of power and control that if you don't comply with this, we're going to ruin your entire life in your future, because this is a career path for the people in it.
Yeah, absolutely, you have very few levers of recourse to complain about what happened, to file a complaint, to speak to a supervisor.
That will destroy you in your career much more than it's going to.
Destroy a perpetrator.
So you're better off just to sort.
Of shut up and be quiet about it and try to get through it, which of course manifests itself in trauma in the end. But that is certainly the experience of what I've heard with most women in the Russian military. But I personally have never heard of any sort of repercussion against a Russian soldier for sexual assault or rape against a fellow combat troope.
And so against this horrible backdrop, you returned to a LEAs story and her internship at the Department of Criminal Investigations ACQUISITE before beginning her formal military training. Because of the gravity of what follows, Aliah's story will be shared in its entirety as she first told it, without any interruptions. For many, like Aaliah, it's important not to minimize or dilute the severity of these types of experiences.
Please note that what she just closes here is very graphic and maybe disturbing to some listeners.
Do they My dad took me and introduced me to this department, to my future colleagues, my future commander. I remember the day very well. I was confused, and I tried to do my best. You know, I wanted to look good, of course, in terms of my intellectual abilities, and I just wanted to be good employee and good agent. And I was ready to study, and I was really driven, and I was I had these romantic feelings about my job. Oh my god, I will protect people, I will do
my best. I will you know, I will serve my country. That's amazing, Like I want to be that, you know, that hero, like my grandfather was. In that department, they were about fifty agents and only me was a female one. So all these forty nine guys looked at me in the way like oh, a new meet. And I didn't realize basically that I was that, you know, like a deer surrounded by wolves. I didn't realize because I was
too young and too unexperienced as a woman. Just a few days later, when I was accepted as an intern, and I had to start it my job routine and I had to just to learn and see what is it about and everything. Somebody called to our home number. It was eight pm and I was reading a book. I remember, I was preparing to go to sleep. My dad picked up the phone and he spoke with someone and I heard, yes, yes, okay, I understand, Yes, she'll be right back, she'll be yeah, she'll be there. Okay,
she'll take taxis, she'll come. Then my dad came and he said to me, your colleague just called and they said it's a huge murder, so everybody have to come and try to help, you know, to find out killers and murders. So you have to go and help your department, So get ready do it. Like immediately I came to the department, was about like eight thirty. I didn't know right, it was my first alarm ever, so I don't know
what's going on. And I just saw only one guy there, like one of my colleague, my my agent, who was that time about like maybe twenty like seven twenty like eight something like that.
And I came.
I said, like, hey, all right, so I received the call so and he said, yeah, I called you that. I'm like okay, yeah, I'm ready to do, Like okay, so what do I need to do? He didn't tell me anything, and I was like, why is he's so quiet, like what's going on? And then I looked at the department. Everything was like dark, like no other agents, no lights. Every room is closed, like you know, every office's room
is so close. And I asked him why no one is in the department, like where everybody, and he's like, oh, everybody's on their own spots, so don't worry about it. And he asked me, do you want to drink, like drink? First of all, I don't drink. I was not allowed to drink alcohol obviously. Second, like what drink? I mean, be supposed to work? Great? And I asked him, like, I mean, like no, I don't thank you. He said,
come here to that room because everything is closed. So I entered the like the room, and I saw a table, I saw a couch, and I saw, you know, a lamp which was like kind of like in a dark mode so it's not too bright. And I saw vodka on the table and some kind of like snacks, and slowly I started to think that this is not what I'm I'm supposed to do. I was supposed to work. I supposed to be on the alarm, I supposed to like do my job like, but this is not like
there's nothing like that. I had this thought that something going on, but I couldn't understand what. And he just came to me so close that I could feel his breath and I understood that he had been drinking. And that moment, okay, should I run, Like what should I do? I don't know? And then I started saying, wait a minute, how can I run? Because he closed the door with the keys and I don't have the keys. I cannot open the door to get out. What I supposed to do?
Beat him? I cannot beat him. He's like bigger than me, like two times I'm very pitied, hungry, ten pounds and he is like huge guy, two times bigger than me. Like how I'm supposed to run? And I mean, like how I'm supposed to escape? And I started to think about it. So it's just like very quickly and rapidly, like all these thoughts came into my mind and I just understood that, like I don't know what to do, there is no way to get out. And he took his hand and he put his hand on my neck.
I couldn't move because he pushed his body on my body close to the wall, so I couldn't even move anywhere. And he said, so there are two options. Number one, either you fuck with me right now, and number two, I'll still fuck you, but I don't want to leave bruises on your body. And if you think that, you will go and complain to your daddy. This is not happening because you know why, because you don't want your daddy go to jail, right, don't you? And I'm like, no,
he said, and you cannot go to police. I'm the power, I'm the government person. You can't do anything, do you understand? And I just I just nod my head and he said, okay, so would you choose? And I said, but wait, listen, First of all, I'm virgin, like I you know, like I'm coming from a very religious family, like I never haven't, like I don't know anything about it. And he said, like, well, even better for me. That day I had a period. I didn't even use stampoons, so I was using pads
because I was virgin. So I said, like, this is not pleasant for you are all like I mean, I I have a periods, Like I can't do that anyway. I said, like, let's do it another time, right, I'll come another day and you'll do it. I mean, I'm still here, I work here, I'm not trying to wear something. So I tried to call to his logical mindset to make him to think that it doesn't make any sense. And he said, to me, what do you think you'll bushit me is stupid. At that moment, I understood that
it's just it just doesn't work. He just grabbed my small body and he pushed me so strong to the couch. He just jumped on me, and he jumped on me so hard that I felt that all my legs and everything, like I in pain because he's like, basically he jumped on me and I felt like his bones on my bones, and I thought like he basically almost like broke my knees. I was thinking, okay, so if I will scream, there is no one in this building. So even if I
will scream, there's no one really to come. And she just looked into my eyes and he said that just make it fast. You know, it's all depend from you. And I started to cry, and he said, like, I don't care if you cry. I was wearing a skirt. He just threw away my panties with my pad and immediately he just tried to put his penis and he couldn't do it because I had the Virgin Hammond and I was super dry, of course, and he couldn't just basically go inside, and he started to scream at me.
He said to me, open yourself, like let me in, and I just couldn't do anything, and I said I can't, Like I was just crying and screaming, like I cannot do it, I cannot do it. And he started to beat me. He said, I couldn't. I couldn't beat your face because it's obvious bruises and you have to come to your job tomorrow, and you have to be very quiet about what happened. So I know how to beat
without leaving any evidences. So he started to beat my stomach and it was painful, and he said, if you won't let me in, you'll be in pain even longer. I'll beat you till your fucking death. Open your fucking legs. I just understood that I cannot do anything, and I just had to let him go inside and just rape me. The moment I relaxed my body, he rapidly just went
inside and it was so painful, and I screamed. I screamed because it was unexpected pain, and I felt that that pressure inside of me, and that moment everything I read in the books or everything I've heard about sex, I was like, wait a minute, this is sex. This is painful and disgusting. It cannot be a pleasure, like I don't understand, like this is so.
This is so bad.
He did come quite quick, thank god. And the moment he did come, he just jumped out of me, and.
I was so.
You know, I just wanted to run away, and I had clothes all over. My blows was ripped and my skirt was somewhere and everything was in blood. He left into the toilet, I suppose, and I was thinking, like I need to get the hell out right now because I don't want to see him. I just need to get out. I don't know where the keys are, so I have to ask him to open the door and everything.
And somebody knocked the door. Somebody came, and I said, like fuck, why didn't they fucking came like just two minutes ago when he could like stop and like it was like such a bad luck. And that guy was still in the bathroom and he went out. He ran into the opening the door, and he told me, if you will tell anyone about this, I'll make sure that you'll never see the next day, do you understand?
And I.
And I looked at you into his eyes, and I understood that he's not joking, like this is not a joke. He's like serious, and I just I said yeah, I said okay, and I and it's just like I need to go home because my dad is waiting. I need to go home, like okay, go I just ran. I was so broken and devastated. And I remember when I left the department running back home. The only one thought I had how can I leave that no one will
notice what really happened to me? Because when I went to the bus, I thought that everybody looked at me that I just you know, I just had like blood all over myself, and I was thinking, like how can I hide it from my dad so he wouldn't notice or ask me anything? And how can I leave with this pain inside of me? I can't cry, I cannot
show it. How can I leave this with this like disappointment? Right, It's like everything wherever I believed, all these romances, and he is supposed to be a good guy in the story. He's an agent. How could this officer, a military officer who protects people from criminal how could he reap me? I told myself that moment that the revenge will come and Karma will do the best for him, and eventually it did.
Elia's story continues in episode.
Three, if you leave the Wolves, you have to become one of Wolves.
Available now along with all eight episodes of To Die For Volume one, continue listening for free on Apple Podcasts. For full credits, check out our show notes. If you or a loved one are a survivor of sexual assault, you can visit rain dot org. That's r AI n N dot org, or call one eight hundred sixty five six four six seven three for free confidential twenty four to seven support