Latest news with #Thieves-in-Law
CBS News
25-03-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
A murder-for-hire in Brooklyn: How the Iranian regime targeted a dissident with help from the Russian mob
Masih Alinejad , a journalist and prominent critic of the Iranian regime, was in the garden of her Brooklyn home when she locked eyes with the hitman hired to assassinate her. It was late July, and she had gone into her garden to pick vegetables. "He was gigantic," she later testified in federal district court in Manhattan at the trial of the men who plotted to kill her. "He was in the sunflowers staring into my eyes." Though she eyed him with some suspicion, she also thought he might be taking pictures of her garden of "beautiful sunflowers." "Every curse that I hear, I plant a flower," she explained, referring to threats she's endured for criticizing the Islamic Republic. "That's why I have a massive garden. A lot of cursing and threats." The man in her garden, Khalid Mehdiyev, had been directed to kill Alinejad by fellow members of a Russian mob organization known as Thieves-in-Law, Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, prosecutors said . In his car was an AK-47 style assault rifle and 66 rounds of ammunition. Prosecutors said that Iran's government had offered Amirov and Omarov a $500,000 bounty. On July 28, 2022, this murder-for-hire scheme involving Russian mobsters and the Iranian regime targeting a defiant dissident was foiled in Brooklyn. Alinejad, who has wild curls and often wears a white flower in her hair, is also an activist and leader of the movement to free Iran's women from the compulsory hijab . This was only one of the Iranian regime's several attempts to assassinate or kidnap Alinejad. One alleged assassination planner targeted not just Alinejad, but also President Trump during his 2024 campaign last fall. Farhad Shakeri is accused of being an "asset" of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who was tasked with devising a plan to kill Mr. Trump and recruiting two men to "silence and kill, on U.S. soil, an American journalist," according to the indictment. While it was not the first attempt on her life, Amirov and Omarov were the first attempted assassins to go to trial in New York last week in a criminal case that provided a rare look into Iran's assassination attempts on U.S. soil. Prosecutors said high-ranking members of the IRGC were instructing Amirov and Omarov in the scheme. FBI agents detailed their analysis of devices and internet search histories tying Iranian intelligence officers to the plot. Through photographs, videos and messages, they illustrated the global network behind the attempted murder, with Medhiyev reporting his surveillance progress to Omarov and Amirov as he updated them from Brooklyn. "We blocked it from both sides, it will be a show once she steps out of the house," messaged Medhiyev to Omarov, who then forwarded it to Amirov. "God willing," he replied. In another plan, Medhiyev went to ask Alinejad for flowers from her garden, but she did not come to the door. Her Ring camera surveillance at one point showed him pacing back and forth on her porch before trying to open the door. Medhiyev was later stopped by police, who found the rifle and bullets in the backseat of his car. Last week, a federal jury found Omarov and Amirov guilty on all charges , including murder-for-hire and attempted murder in aid of racketeering. They face over 50 years in prison. "I am being bombarded with emotion," Alinejad told CBS News over the phone shortly after the verdict, sounding tearful. "I just need to cry now, I need to laugh, I need to dance. I just got the news now." "The real masterminds of this crime are still in power in Iran," she said. "I am waiting for the day when Ali Khamenei and his terrorist Revolutionary Guards face justice, I want them to be punished." Despite the attempts on her life, Alinejad said she will not be silenced in her fight against the Islamic Republic. "She has a mission," her husband Kambiz Foroohar told CBS News. "And that mission is that the Islamic Republic is like ISIS. It's an evil regime. She feels like she's compelled to challenge it. Compulsory hijab is just one way of challenging the Islamic Republic." In Iran, Alinejad struggled to keep her wild curls hidden under a hijab. "I have a lot of hair. It was not easy," she testified in court. She was a political journalist there for over a decade but admitted she was always crossing the "red lines" of what Iran's government would allow people to write about. In 2009, she fled Iran. "I'm a journalist, so I couldn't just keep quiet," she said. "I had no option but to leave Iran." Once in the United States, she took off her hijab. She posted a photo of herself jumping in the air on social media, reveling in the feeling of the wind in her hair. In Iran, she "felt like a hostage." That was the beginning of her campaign against the compulsory hijab, which evolved into the White Wednesday movement. Every Wednesday, women in Iran would film videos of themselves walking unveiled, a peaceful protest against compulsion. "Social media is like my weapon," Alinejad testified. "My social media exposé." The Iranian regime reacted by calling her and unveiled women "prostitutes," she said. They arrested hundreds of women. Iran's Revolutionary Court has threatened women with up to 10 years in prison for sharing protest videos with her. "It's become a crime," she said, her voice cracking. The government has also accused Alinejad of being a foreign agent. "Oh, all of them," she testified listing intelligence agencies: "Agent of the CIA, agent of Mossad, Agent of MI6, agent of President Trump." In court, Alinejad broke down when the prosecution displayed a cartoon published in Iran's state-controlled newspaper depicting two dissidents hanging in the air and an image of Alinejad looking up at them fearfully. Both men, who held citizenship in Europe (one also had a U.S. green card) were kidnapped and executed by the Iranian regime. She testified in court that the caption read: " Next: Masih Alinejad. " "Did you understand that to be about you?" the prosecutor asked. "Yes," she replied tearfully. By proxy, Alinejad's family in Iran has also become a target. In 2018, Iranian government officials tried to coerce relatives to lure her to Turkey, where they planned to capture her, offering a payment in exchange. The relatives did not accept. In 2019, her brother was arrested on charges of associating with her. He was sentenced to eight years in prison but released after two years . "They can't reach her. They can reach her family." said Foroohar. "So that's always a big concern. But the family is also brave. They're enduring it." In July 2021, four Iranian intelligence officials were charged with a kidnapping conspiracy – for developing plans to kidnap Alinejad and bring her back to Iran. They allegedly explored slipping her out of the U.S. by travel routes from Alinejad's home to the waterfront in Brooklyn, a maritime evacuation route involving speed boats, and maritime travel from New York to Venezuela, according to the indictment. The conspirators live in Iran, where they remain at large. It is "chilling" how close Mehdiyev came to carrying out the plan to kill his wife, said Faroohar. Medhiyev testified at trial about seeing Alinejad on the porch as he walked by her home, but his gun was in the car. By the time he went back for it, she had left. "I was there to try to kill the journalist," he admitted. Medhiyev was a key witness for the prosecution, but the defense tried to undermine his credibility, dubbing him the "pizza delivery hitman" after Medhiyev admitted on the stand that he had once planned a kidnapping while working at a pizza shop. "As you're coordinating an international kidnapping you're also working at a pizza shop?" asked Omarov's defense attorney, Elena Fast. "That's correct," he replied. On the day of his arrest, Mehdiyev had approached the door of Alinejad's home. At the time she was on a Zoom call with Venezuelan dissident Leopoldo Lopez and Russian chess player Garry Kasparov . She heard someone on the porch but did not go downstairs. "She said, 'I don't know who that is but this call is more important,'" Lopez recounted over Whatsapp. "It was the Zoom call that saved her life," he said. Earlier, Medhiyev had sent Omarov a video of him opening a suitcase in the back of his car with an AK-47 style rifle inside. A caption read, "we are ready." Amirov replied, "keep the car clean." Police arrested Mehdiyev nearby that day after he ran a stop sign. In the back of his car, they discovered the AK-47 style assault rifle and 66 rounds of ammunition. Foroohar received a call at work from the FBI asking to "whisk me away to a safe location." He and Alinejad were later told that a man with an AK-47 had been arrested outside their home. "It's quite stressful. It's quite scary," admitted Foroohar, when asked what it felt like to live under threat. "At the same time if you think about it too much, you are just paralyzed. So you compartmentalize." "It's not easy. Sometimes you look over your shoulder," he added. "Sometimes you just learn how to trust." Alinejad and her husband have lived in so many safe houses that they lost track. She has only been back to their Brooklyn home once to make sure the neighbors are watering her garden. In 2024, it was under surveillance again. On Nov. 7, Shakeri – the man assigned to assassinate both Mr. Trump and Alinejad – along with Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt were indicted for their alleged involvement in a second murder-for-hire plot on Alinejad's life. Rivera and Loadholt are accused of surveilling her Brooklyn home for months, with the intent to locate and kill her. The Justice Department charged Shakeri with directing "a network of criminal associates to further Iran's assassination plots against its targets." "It was very shocking and surprising," said Foroohar. "We thought the whole thing was over and done with. And we don't know when the next one is. We had a conversation with members of the Biden administration, and they said, you better get used to this because Iran is very determined to get rid of Masih, and they're not going to give up."
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Yahoo
Murder-for-hire plot to assassinate Iranian dissident in NYC is lie cooked up by ‘pizza delivery hitman,' lawyer claims
Two eastern European gangsters never plotted to murder exiled Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad, despite claims to the contrary by a bumbling 'pizza delivery hitman,' the suspect's defense lawyer claimed in her closing argument Wednesday. Polad Omarov and Rafat Amirov were only trying to 'scam' Iranian officials out of $500,000 in a bizarre scheme that involved sending would-be assassin Khalid Mehdiyev outside Alinejad's Brooklyn home with instructions not to kill her, attorney Elena Fast claimed. 'This is ridiculous! There was no murder plot,' Fast said in her closing statement at the Manhattan trial of Omarov and Amirov, who are charged with ordering the brazen hit on Alinejad in July 2022. Mehdiyev botched the high-stakes hit in spectacular fashion — including by ordering food to his car outside her home, ambling around maskless on her porch and then running a stop sign while fleeing the scene, leading to his arrest, the feds say. Omarov's lawyer claimed that the staggering slipups from Mehdiyev — who said he had been selling pizzas in the Bronx before his arrest — were evidence that his handlers never wanted to kill Alinejad at all. 'This was a scam,' Fast told jurors. 'There was no James Bond 007. They hired a clown as the hit man.' Among the evidence the feds have revealed during the week-and-a-half-long trial are photos of gaudy cake gifts that Omarov received touting his place in a criminal organization called the Thieves-in-Law. One treat Omarov received was topped with a gold crown and an edible handgun, evidence shows. Fast started her closing statements by inviting the jury to imagine they were watching a TV show called 'The Pizza Delivery Hitman.' The Russia-born attorney then put on an eastern European accent and acted out a skit for jurors in which she pretended to take orders for both pizzas and murders at Peppino's, the White Plains Road pizza shop where Mehdiyev worked before he was busted. Mehdivev was both the 'world's most dishonest Peppino's pizzeria manager' and the 'world's most dishonest Russian gangster,' she said, calling him a 'liar who cannot be trusted.' Prosecutors countered that Omarov and Amirov were 'all too eager' to claim a $500,000 'bounty' that the Iranian government put out for Alinejad, who is known for her outspoken criticism of the Iranian regime and how it treats the nation's women. The feds drew jurors' attention to the trove of texts between Mehdiyev and the two defendants — who are all part of the same gang based in their home nation of Azerbaijan — outlining the plot to kill Alinejad. 'They called for God's blessing on their murderous endeavor, and they prayed for results,' prosecutor Michael Lockhard said as Omarov and Amirov sat calmly at the defense table, their hands folded across their lap, slumping into their chairs. Alinejad took the stand Tuesday and described the moment she saw her would-be killer staring straight into her eyes through her pristine sunflower patch — but she said she figured the 'gigantic' hitman was just admiring her garden. Agents of the Iranian government have been hunting Alinejad relentlessly since she fled the Middle Eastern country in 2009, but their barbarous schemes have so far fallen short. Jury deliberations are expected to begin Thursday. The alleged gangster duo has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which could imprison them for decades if they're convicted. Mehdiyev — who said he was paid $30,000 for the botched hit — decided to cooperate with the feds after pleading guilty to attempted murder and gun charges. He faces at least 15 years in prison for trying to kill Alinejad and unrelated racketeering charges.
New York Times
14-03-2025
- New York Times
How a Russian Mobster Stalked an Iranian Dissident in Brooklyn
Khalid Mehdiyev returned a phone call in the summer of 2022 from a fellow member of the Russian mob, Polad Omarov. They had been collaborating on a project, Mr. Mehdiyev said, extorting a grocery store owner in Brooklyn. Now, Mr. Omarov said, he had been offered a bigger job by some people he knew. 'They want the journalist die,' Mr. Mehdiyev said Mr. Omarov told him. 'They want to give that job to us.' Over several days in a Manhattan murder-for-hire trial, Mr. Mehdiyev, an Azerbaijani member of a Russian crime syndicate, gave a detailed description of how Mr. Omarov had directed him in a failed plot to murder Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-born journalist and dissident living in Brooklyn. Mr. Mehdiyev, 27, a bearded, burly man who wore dark-green prison garb in court, spoke in a flat voice with occasionally mixed-up grammar or pronunciation as he delivered his account of the realities of transnational repression — fancy words for the blunt threat of violence. He described coercing business owners for a group of mobsters called the Thieves-in-Law while living in Yonkers, N.Y. A restaurant was burned and a Range Rover was filled with bullet holes. Meetings with enforcers named Man Man and Sonny took place in a Bronx pizzeria where a woman behind the counter would help Mr. Mehdiyev pick up money from the mob. Mr. Omarov and a second mobster, Rafat Amirov, both accused of murder for hire and conspiracy, have been on trial in Federal District Court since Monday. Mr. Mehdiyev, who was arrested in 2022 near Ms. Alinejad's home with an AK-47-style assault rifle, had faced the same charges. But he took the stand as a government witness, saying he had pleaded guilty to several offenses including attempted murder and possession of an illegal firearm. During an opening statement, a prosecutor said Mr. Mehdiyev was Mr. Omarov's 'trusted lieutenant.' That prosecutor also told jurors that they would hear 'directly from the hit man' — Mr. Mehdiyev — who would provide 'a terrifying inside view' of preparations to kill Ms. Alinejad. A lawyer for Mr. Amirov also previewed Mr. Mehdiyev's testimony, but in different terms. That lawyer, Michael W. Martin, said his client was being framed by Mr. Mehdiyev and cautioned jurors not to take as gospel 'the testimony of a murderer and liar.' Mr. Mehdiyev acknowledged under cross-examination that he had submitted forged documents to U.S. authorities to get into the country, then defrauded the Small Business Administration and deposited fake checks with Wells Fargo and Bank of America. With Man Man, he stole $8,000 from a woman on Long Island. He also tried to rob a man in Manhattan who was wearing a large chain and attempted to extort a sum of money he said he could not remember from a housemate. From the United States, he had ordered two murders overseas and told his chosen killer, a man named Fikrat, to commit those crimes while on the phone with him. Mr. Mehdiyev said he joined the Russian mob at 16 or 17. Men in Azerbaijan brought him in, Mr. Mehdiyev testified, telling him 'if you living the street life, you better live by the rules.' Those forbade him from helping any government and required unswerving allegiance to a 'vor,' or mob leader. In Mr. Mehdiyev's case, that was a man known as Guli who ruled his gang from prison. After sending 20 people to beat and stab a rival, Mr. Mehdiyev fled Azerbaijan. He was still a teenager when he decided to move to the United States. 'We don't have people out there,' Mr. Mehdiyev said Guli told him, adding that he wanted him to 'do crimes for my name.' Prosecutors have said that the idea to kill Ms. Alinejad, who left Iran in 2009 and has been a persistent critic of the Tehran government, originated in a network of Iranian men who have been charged in Manhattan but are not in U.S. custody. Members of that network, led by Ruhollah Bazghandi, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, contacted Mr. Amirov, according to an indictment. He, in turn, contacted Mr. Omarov, prosecutors said, who delegated the job to his Azerbaijani lieutenant in Yonkers. Mr. Mehdiyev testified that Mr. Omarov told him the murder of Ms. Alinejad would bring in $160,000 and that people within the government of Azerbaijan had arranged it. 'Azerbaijan government wants to do gift to the Iran government' Mr. Mehdiyev said. The Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not reply to email messages asking for comment on Mr. Mehdiyev's testimony. Within days, Mr. Mehdiyev said, he received $30,000 that Mr. Omarov had sent via a man in Brooklyn. He added that he brought the woman from the pizzeria with him to get the plastic bag full of cash, because Mr. Omarov had told him 'don't show your face.' He paid $2,000 to someone in the Bronx for the assault rifle. Mr. Mehdiyev said he wanted someone else to carry out the murder under his supervision, but Mr. Omarov said he was ultimately responsible: 'Put one more bullet on journalist head.' He tried to keep his hands clean, Mr. Mehdiyev testified, but couldn't find anyone to do what mobsters call the wet work. Man Man, the enforcer, said Ms. Alinejad was too well known to kill without attracting attention. He proposed they burn down her house instead. For about a week, Mr. Mehdiyev testified, he staked out Ms. Alinejad's home, communicating several times a day with Mr. Omarov. He found Ms. Alinejad's phone number on her Instagram page and sent her messages through WhatsApp and Telegram, which were introduced as evidence. One said 'u the best journalist.' Another asked Ms. Alinejad for help with asylum papers. 'I was trying to have a conversation with her so I can get into her life,' Mr. Mehdiyev explained. 'I was trying to get the easy way to kill her.' There was at least one missed chance. Mr. Mehdiyev testified that he saw Ms. Alinejad sitting on her porch as he strolled by. 'By the time I was walking back to my car to go get the gun, she wasn't there.' Finally, near the end of July, he walked onto the porch. Security camera footage from the home showed him dressed in a black T-shirt and shorts. A video that was shown to jurors captured one of his hands extended toward the knob of her door. He did not get in. Within minutes, Mr. Mehdiyev testified, he was back in his car and driving away, eager to evade what he believed to be undercover police officers. The police were indeed in the area. Officers pulled over Mr. Mehdiyev when he drove through a stop sign and arrested him when they learned that his license was suspended. In the car they found the assault rifle and a black ski mask. He meant to use the rifle to shoot Ms. Alinejad, he told a prosecutor in court, and the mask would be used to 'cover my face when I was going to kill journalist.'
New York Times
10-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trial Set for Men Accused of Targeting Iranian Dissident in New York
First, the Iranian government was accused of trying to lure a journalist and dissident from New York City to Turkey to abduct and imprison her. Then, according to U.S. officials, intelligence agents schemed unsuccessfully to kidnap the woman, Masih Alinejad. In 2022 came the most audacious attempt to silence Ms. Alinejad, who was born in Iran and has long criticized its government. Prosecutors said figures connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran sent members of the Russian mob to kill her. The plot, authorities say, was thwarted when police officers stopped an Azerbaijani man who had lurked outside Ms. Alinejad's Brooklyn home and tried to open her door. In his sport utility vehicle, they found an assault rifle with an obliterated serial number, 66 rounds of ammunition and a ski mask. The men accused of directing the activity in Brooklyn, Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, are to stand trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Monday, charged with murder for hire and conspiracy. The trial is expected to illustrate the lengths to which Iranian officials will go to retaliate against expatriates, even those living in Western countries, who speak up against the government in Tehran. 'We will not tolerate attempts by a foreign power to threaten, silence or harm Americans,' Merrick B. Garland, the attorney general at the time, said in 2023 when federal officials first detailed the plot against Ms. Alinejad. Prosecutors are planning to describe how Mr. Amirov and Mr. Omarov operated within a rivalrous, faction-ridden criminal organization known as the Thieves-in-Law, which originated in Stalinist prison camps. Some insight might come from a former member of the group who prosecutors said participated in the plot against Ms. Alinejad, but will testify for the government as a cooperating witness. That person has been identified in court papers only as 'CW-1,' but details of his actions match some of those ascribed to Khalid Mehdiyev, the Azerbaijani man who was arrested outside Ms. Alinejad's house. An indictment that charged Mr. Amirov, Mr. Omarov and several others who remain at large did not list Mr. Mehdiyev, who lived in Yonkers, N.Y., at the time of his arrest, as a defendant. The cooperating witness will testify about statements by Mr. Amirov while both were in a federal jail in Brooklyn following the failed attempt on Ms. Alinejad's life, prosecutors wrote, including one that the contract for killing her was worth $500,000. Prosecutors also wrote that they would present 'substantial electronic communications' documenting the murder plot that were found in Mr. Omarov's cloud accounts and devices. Before trying to kill Ms. Alinejad, prosecutors wrote, Mr. Omarov and Mr. Mehdiyev had participated in several kidnapping and murder plots overseas, aiming to enrich themselves and to strengthen their standing within the Russian mob. The two had been involved in extorting an ethnic Azeri grocery store owner in Brooklyn in 2022, prosecutors said, when Mr. Omarov told Mr. Mehdiyev he had a better assignment — killing Ms. Alinejad — that could lead to additional lucrative jobs. Ms. Alinejad had worked in Iran as a journalist but wrote in The New York Times that she was forced to leave the country in 2009. Since then, Ms. Alinejad, who hosts a program called 'Tablet' on Voice of America Persian, a U.S. government-owned broadcaster, has been a sharp critic of the Iranian government. She is known for starting a campaign in 2014 against compulsory hijab laws in Iran and inviting women to wear white scarves in protest. In 2018, according to court papers, Iranian officials offered to pay Ms. Alinejad's relatives in Iran to invite her to Turkey, with the apparent goal of bringing her to Iran for imprisonment. The relatives refused and the next year one was sentenced to eight years in prison, court papers said, based on purported support for Ms. Alinejad's advocacy. Two years later, Iranian operatives, including an intelligence official named Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, were accused of conspiring to kidnap Ms. Alinejad. Prosecutors said that the plotters had used a live, high-definition video feed of her home. An indictment described a plan that included the potential use of speedboats to spirit Ms. Alinejad away from New York City, followed by an ocean voyage to Venezuela, whose leadership has friendly relations with the Iranian government. The idea to kill Ms. Alinejad in Brooklyn originated soon after the kidnapping plot fell apart, according to prosecutors, and was initiated by a network in Iran led by Ruhollah Bazghandi, a brigadier general in the Revolutionary Guards. He and three other Iranian men who are not in U.S. custody have been charged in Manhattan with murder for hire. Members of the Bazghandi network turned to Mr. Amirov, a citizen of Azerbaijan and Russia who was then living in Iran, an indictment said, and he in turn contacted Mr. Omarov, a Georgian living in Eastern Europe. They provided $30,000 to Mr. Mehdiyev, according to an indictment, and he bought the assault rifle and began staking out Ms. Alinejad's home. His surveillance lasted about a week, an indictment said, with Mr. Mehdiyev telling Mr. Omarov at one point that he was 'at the crime scene.' The two men exchanged ideas about how to draw Ms. Alinejad to her door, the indictment said, and Mr. Mehdiyev sent a video showing the assault rifle to Mr. Omarov, along with the message: 'We are ready.' On that day, it seems, Ms. Alinejad was more prepared than the man sent to kill her. According to an affidavit by an F.B.I. agent, Mr. Mehdiyev lingered outside Ms. Alinejad's home for hours, at one point ordering food to be delivered to his vehicle, and tried to open Ms. Alinejad's front door. She slipped from the premises, apparently without encountering Mr. Mehdiyev. He drove away about 15 minutes later and was observed by police officers who had arrived after Ms. Alinejad reported suspicious activity to the F.B.I. While being watched, Mr. Mehdiyev drove through a stop sign, the agent wrote. That infraction provided a reason for the police to pull him over and discover that his driver's license was suspended. Mr. Mehdiyev was arrested and a search of his vehicle turned up the rifle. Soon after that, he was charged with possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. In jail in Brooklyn, Mr. Mehdiyev used a contraband phone to let the Thieves-in-Law know that he had been arrested. Word that he was in custody prompted a flurry of communications among the group's members, prosecutors said. One member sent Mr. Omarov several voice messages saying that Mr. Mehdiyev 'went to kill the journalist' but 'they caught him,' according to prosecutors. Days later. Mr. Omarov was said to have written to Mr. Amirov about Mr. Mehdiyev, saying: 'I hope he will not make trouble for me.'
Associated Press
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
KARAGANDA: RED MAFIA Releases on over 100 Screens in the Russian Federation, Beginning January 30, 2025
Filmmaker Max Weissberg Explores the Complexities of One of the World's Most Notorious Criminal Organizations KARAGANDA: RED MAFIA is set for its highly anticipated Russian Federation release in over 100 cinemas in 58 cities throughout the Russian Federation. This follows the film's premiere in Russia at the 46th Moscow International Film Festival in 2024, which Max Weissberg attended and also served as a member of the short film jury. Written and directed by Max Weissberg, KARAGANDA: RED MAFIA stars Konstantin Lavysh (Room 104, Power Book IV: Force) as Vladimir, Nikita Bogolyubov (Zero Day, Barry) as Aleksei, Dimiter D. Marinov (Green Book, For All Mankind) as Vanya, Natasha Blasick (Paul T. Goldman) as Elena, Richie Stephens (Mayor of Kingston) as Lyosha, Alexander Karavay (The Unusual Suspects) as Monya, and Irina Dubova (The Perfect Couple) as Masha. Set in the shadowy underworld of the Vory v Zakonye (Thieves-in-Law), an elite criminal organization with roots dating back to czarist Russia, the film follows Vladimir, a Russian gangster in the 1990s. After a violent shootout at a Russian airbase, he becomes embroiled in a deadly mafia war that forces him to confront an old friend from their time in Soviet prison camps. This encounter sets him on a harrowing journey to rescue his wife from within the brutal Soviet penal system. The film has been dubbed into Russian for its Russian release and has a shorter run time than its American version. In Moscow, the film will screen at the Karo Cinemas throughout the city. Neotonix, Inc. is handling the local release. 'Considering the political situation, I am surprised as anyone that a film like ours was approved by officials in the Russian Federation for wide release,' explained Max. 'My hope is that if we can make a deal with Russia, so can Trump.' Not only does the film include Ukrainian actors, it also had Bruce Alan Greene as an additional photographer. Greene was the cinematographer behind such Zelensky films as ME. YOU. SHE. HE, LOVE IN THE BIG CITY, THE 8 BEST DATES and many others. 'Though our team consisted of a diverse set of people who disagreed on political matters, we were able to work peacefully towards a common goal,' Max said. The story of KARAGANDA: RED MAFIA began to take shape while Weissberg was studying abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2004. While outlining the screenplay, Weissberg experienced a personal tragedy when his sister Nicole disappeared in the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. This profound loss is mirrored in the emotional core of the film, where the protagonist's desperate search for his wife reflects Weissberg's own grief. In 2008, Max began his career in the film business telling the tragic story of his family in HOTEL GRAMERCY PARK, a documentary that included cameos from Ben Stiller, Kanye West, Karl Lagerfeld, and Jared Leto. KARAGANDA: RED MAFIA is inspired by Weissberg's award-winning thesis film, KARAGANDA (2014), filmed at the American Film Institute, which won five awards across 26 film festivals. The feature version expands on the original narrative, delving deeper into themes of loyalty, power, and survival within one of the world's most infamous criminal organizations. KARAGANDA: RED MAFIA is produced by Nina Gortinski and Max Weissberg, with executive producers Sameer Dua, and Ego Mikitas, and co-producers by George Hume and Gregory Oelke. The film was lensed by cinematographer Derrick Jacinto Cohan. Instagram: @karagandafilm Contact Information: Karaganda, LLC Max Weissberg 1-917-378-3000
