9) The Taste of Poison

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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 friend 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 their romantic relationship or something, I still look at them. That's my targets. I have different targets in my life. It's a different period of times, and manism is the tool to achieve your goal. I know it sounds really bad.

Sorry, that's me.

Welcome to my world.

To enjoy you.

I'm really sorry.

I how to do that?

I go on my.

Juty friends and my god like to you have to tre.

Verses Episode nine, chapter nineteen. The story so far.

So I just finished listening to the first eight episodes that 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 listened to because it's when I lived, and it was just thought 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 twenty two 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 Alia's experiences in the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency formed as a successor to the KGB, sharing 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 can ruins that behavior has been through time Courkamicans Russians In my entire time and 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 into 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 bring 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 buys 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 Leah 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 unless you were a colonel that's closed.

It a booton than me. And that's exactly what this entire programs. I mean, it looks like because that they.

Got a colonel in there that was, you know, needed his sexual needs so filled. 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 you know, nation state making excuses for discussing human behavior and excusing it because it's serving the greater need of our country.

With FBI agent Robin Dreeke's thoughts here in mind, we return now to Leah's story. There have been some comments questioning Leah, and as mentioned in episode two, we will of course get to that, but for now, let's just listen because this story takes some unpredictable turns.

Chapter twenty debate.

In two thousand and three, President Putin signed and founded a special Department fs KYN 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 fifteen 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, and.

It was Eliah's first task in the FSCN 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 would be sold throughly tough to go their back.

Among Leah'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? And 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 worshitting him, and he noticed that I was lying, but I just didn't. I just was scared. He gave me this weird feeling, the feeling

At one of those morning meetings, Aliah received her first actual assignment to stake out of the credit 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 never done anything like this. So we had like one man. He was a addict. He used to help agents to buy drugs and tell us what kind is it? Is it 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 war marked previously by us.

Here's how this thing marked.

Once their informant bought the drugs, the team would then raid the house, make arrests, and gather evidence, including the marked money. However, when a Leah entered the house, she saw more than drugs and weapons. She saw evidence of the human trafficking operation that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Listener discretion is highly advised.

That boy he bought heroin a doze. 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 agents. And when we entered the house, and when we entered the houses so like killed overdoors, like bodies of kids, like many.

And it was the whole floor was like full of.

Like this used heroin doses and kids who 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 bats and they were they had like bracelets on the on the wrist. They couldn't do anything, but they couldn't even they couldn't even speak.

They were completely high and overdose.

And they 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 and 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. They also was one guy who was almost like my age.

Change that shit.

I was so angry, so that what made me strong. I promised myself that I'll do everything to help wherever it takes.

With this new sense of mission and purpose, Eli 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 decided to speak with the general. I knocked his door and came to his room in the office, and I said, Sir, I cannot go with you for 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, what, like,

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 against 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 may tell you the story what really happened with the female employee his former

He did.

After Lee 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 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 maltenant 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

Chapter twenty one the Banya.

Shortly after her meeting with the lieutenant General, and likely not by coincidence, Elia's missions became even more dangerous.

My colleagues arrested one criminal, quite 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 criminal gang and they wouldn't pay on time, he would kill them and their families. He could kill living kids. My colleagues arrested him. Then they didn't have any evidences. They couldn't get any confession or whatever from him, so

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 police. 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 with the sight 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 Bania Russian Banya and this it was 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 a drink.

We dropped to the nightclub very kind of like underground where everybody can basically took 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 has but the indigrant, which makes you talk a lot. You

Sergei, her team leader, gave her an unnamed drug and a small bottle with an eye dropper, and then dropped her off at the club.

I took that bottle of which my college gave me in the bag. I took some condoms as well with me, and I was ready. So I arrived there by taxing, and then I knew that my team was waiting in the car. I came in and I saw him sitting at the table with the 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 bonage 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 the lea 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, soill he could feel it. This girl who was next to me, she's like, oh, sit down with us.

Eliah sat there and spoke with the women, ignoring her target except for the occasional seductive glance.

And then they were continuing 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? I had to intrigue him, just like a couple of days ago. He was in an interrogation room, so you definitely understand that potentially he'd been watched.

Eventually, an opportunity to learn 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 have some good drugs and she said really like yeah, and she told all your guys like, oh, she has like good drugs. She's like, okay, where is it? This is like video. I said, 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 like do you know this sauna? She's like, oh, yeah, I know, I know the sauna, like I've been there. I said like, yeah,

SERGEI agreed to go to the evidence locker get some cocaine and bring it to a leah before she left the club.

My other colleagues stay were following us. They 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.

Elijah 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 not when and how to pour these drops into hit 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 bag.

Leah 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'd pick up also like my glass, but it was same looking cocktail with cola, and coke has a quite strong taste rate, so if you use any poison or you use any type of drug, coke tastes so strong that it's just cover 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 out the drop and put

Eliah assumed that her first seduction mission had been a success. That is until a few days later when the criminals family said that he'd gone missing that night and began accusing the police of having done something to him.

So Aliah asked the colleague about it.

He's like, I don't know, but I know that Sergi was working this case and it's not good for him. And I thought, okay, 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 this string who knows what liquid.

As Leah 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 a nightmare to everyone.

As for whether she accidentally overdosed him or something else happened afterward, Leah would never know.

I mean, in the end of the day, I never know if they were still straight like that or not, because 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 Leah continued receiving new missions, she noticed that the lieutenant General hadn't propositioned her again. So she thought, she say from him.

I thought he would just leave me, you know, just okay, it is what it is.

But like the predator, he was lieutenant general was just waiting for the right time to strike, and a few weeks later he's struck it away. Elien never saw coming.

Everybody were leaving his office after the reporting, and then he said, oh, yeah, you were 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, okay, 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 peaced, like

Eliah's story continues in episode ten, which is available now. Continue listening for free on Apple Podcasts. For full credits, check out our show notes. If you or someone you know is a victim of human trafficking, please contact the Human Trafficking Hotline at one eight eight eight three seven three seven eight eight eight to get help and support.