Thread by @TotallyNotARus5

Hello again, Bright Beach Mob Thread #3:
Marat Balagula’s African adventure and credit card scams gone awry

This thread will mainly be sourced from Economic Warfare by R.T. Naylor, All is Clouded by Desire by Block and Weaver, Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence by Kahana, and yet again Red Mafiya by Friedman
Link to thread #2 for reference:

We had last left off with Marat Balagula having eliminated most of his significant competition to assert his status as the top Russian gangster in Brooklyn, but by that point he had already both embarked on his unlikeliest business venture and sown the seeds of his demise

Not long after Balagula’s ascent in 1985, Rabbi Ron Greenwald (introduced in thread #1 as one of former mob boss Evsei Agron’s early facilitators; L) had reached out to Balagula in order to introduce him to a Soviet-born Israeli associate of his: Shabtai Kalmanovitch (R)

Kalmanovitch, like Balagula, had left the Soviet Union in the 1970s, but instead of relocating to the US, he immigrated to Israel, where he soon met and charmed then-PM Golda Meir, then who opened the doors to him as a political functionary

By 1978, he had climbed the ladder enough to catch Greenwald’s eye, when the latter (likely spotting a kindred opportunist spirit) asked him for help in facilitating a three-way prisoner swap involving a Soviet dissident, an Israeli pilot in Mozambique, and a Soviet spy in the US

The deal fell through, but when the corrupt president of Bophuthatswana Lucas Mangope, reached out to Greenwald for financial assistance, the wily rabbi (who had to turn him down for political reasons) promptly re-directed him to Kalmanovitch

Bophuthatswana was where Shabtai made his first fortune, building many developments such as casinos and soccer stadia, as well as bringing in retired IDF personnel to train the country’s security apparatus, until he was forced to permanently leave in 1987

Instead of relocating to either Israel, or the comfort of his mansion in Monaco, Kalmanovitch was not quite done with Africa and relocated to a country he’d been cultivating his influence in for a few years now: Sierra Leone

In the early 1980s, the nation’s diamond trade was led by a small group of Lebanese merchants who were funding two of the warring factions during the Lebanese civil war. This was of interest to Kalmanovitch for a few reasons, but one of them was that he was also a Mossad agent

Another reason was that it was a great opportunity to take over the country’s economy, which is why he went down to NYC with his good friend Ron Greenwald in order to meet like-minded individuals who helped him make the dream of owning an African nation a reality

Having raised funds from Russian and Italian Mafiosi in NYC, the operation was a success: General Joseph Momoh was president, Israel had gained an intel foothold in West Africa, a coup was successfully thwarted, and Kalmanovitch & co began reaping the financial rewards

Balagula brought Boris Nayfeld and others with him, and regularly used Freetown as a meeting place with fellow Soviet criminals from Belgium Efim Laskin (L) and Rachmiel Brandwain, with whom they devised an early heroin network that Nayfeld would later expand to new heights

All seemed to be going well, until the Russians figured out something no one (particularly gangsters) enjoys finding out: their compatriot Kalmanovitch was ripping them off. And they initially reacted with the expected murder contract, until Balagula got in the way

Seeing as a dead man cannot repay his debts, Balagula forced Shabtai into a scheme to defraud Merrill Lynch out of $27 million using phony cheques, for which he was eventually arrested in London in 1987, after having breakfast with one of the spies who kickstarted Iran-Contra

Rabbi Ron Greenwald and American Jewish gangster Murray Wilson (top left), never far away from a Russian mob scheme, were in Kalmanovitch’s hotel on the day of his arrest. Both avoided detention, and Wilson even went on to sue Monaco in order to reclaim the money he stole

Kalmanovitch was first extradited to the US, and then to Israel due to a twist in the tale that would have most audiences rolling their eyes at the screen if this were a movie: Kalmanovich was indicted and convicted of being a spy for the KGB in 1988

Yes, Golda Meir’s chosen one himself had been a spy for the KGB before he’d even reached Israeli territory, passing all of the information he’d been feeding Tel Aviv to Moscow, and also American information stolen by American spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard

When the news that his onetime business associate had been secretly working for the motherland this entire time broke, Marat Balagula was unavailable for comment, since he was on the lam from American law enforcement due to—ironically—another scam involving Merrill Lynch

In 1985, Balagula granted an audience to a small-time crook named Bobby Fasano, who had both the ability to emboss credit card information onto plastic as well as an inside contact at Merrill Lynch, and was on the look out for amenable business partners

Marat, never one to turn down easy money, placed him with two of his guys, and sent them out to Russian-owned stores in NYC and Philadelphia, where they eventually raked in over $750,000

Fasano was arrested not long after, and promptly began cooperating with the feds. Wiretapped conversations between himself and Marat regarding difficulties with erectile disfunction would be played in court to demonstrate the pair had a close relationship

Marat, having tried and failed to use Alan Dershowitz (note that the “esteemed” qualifier in Friedman’s description was prior to his friendship with Epstein becoming public knowledge) to bribe the judge, put Plan B into effect and bolted to Africa with his mistress

In a curious incident, the Secret Service agent who eventually tracked him down to Johannesburg had his progress oddly impeded on several occasions, after he found out that Balagula’s CIA asset ex-sub captain driver was flying down to South Africa monthly with $50,000 in cash

When Balagula was eventually apprehended in West Germany, he tried to offer himself up as an agent to American intelligence, in order to help weed out KGB spies in Brighton Beach, but whatever intel value the CIA of FBI may have thought he had did not impress the US Attorney

In November of 1992, he was convicted of the credit card fraud and later the gasoline tax theft, leaving behind a significant power vacuum that would leave a trail of bodies from the United States to Europe which I’ll discuss in the next thread

Next up: Heroin networks and fireworks in Little Odessa
Thank you for reading!