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A few days ago @bellingcat published a major investigation into a key figure into the MH17 downing, identifying him as an FSB officer. There's more coming soon.
A good time to check out our recent piece on how Russia issues fake passports to its operatives https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/11/07/how-russia-issues-fake-passports-to-its-operatives-in-ukraine/
A good time to check out our recent piece on how Russia issues fake passports to its operatives https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/11/07/how-russia-issues-fake-passports-to-its-operatives-in-ukraine/
Using some leaked travel databases (available via torrent and on some shady forums), we can search for flight records via passport number and name.
We found the fake passport of Igor "Bes" Bezler through a pretty simple method:
-Search for people using his real first and patronym names (Igor NIkolaevich)
-Same date of birth
-New last name, often with the same first letter as his real name.
Gives us: Igor Beregovoy.
-Search for people using his real first and patronym names (Igor NIkolaevich)
-Same date of birth
-New last name, often with the same first letter as his real name.
Gives us: Igor Beregovoy.
We know this is actually Bezler for a few reasons.
One: this flight to Simferopol matches up to when he (publicly) fled the Donbas and went back to Crimea.
Secondly: there is no Beregovoy in any other database, including the INN (Russian taxpayer database), showing he's a fake ID
One: this flight to Simferopol matches up to when he (publicly) fled the Donbas and went back to Crimea.
Secondly: there is no Beregovoy in any other database, including the INN (Russian taxpayer database), showing he's a fake ID
Another way is by searching for passport neighbors. Russia is sloppy and will issue out passports in batches for its operatives, letting us run a wildcard search to look for "passport number neighbors". Let's do that for the aforementioned Beregovoy's passport number: 4513078464.
(Note that Beregovoy is not a real human, this passport number refers to a fake identity for a GRU operative. This is like providing the address of a storage unit for a fake person used to make tax shelters)
First, the number itself: 4513078464
45 = the passport office that issued the document (Moscow passport office)
13 = year that the form was printed (meaning, the passport was issued in 2013 or 2014)
078492 = the serial number, meaning that 0784** and 0785** are its "neighbors"
45 = the passport office that issued the document (Moscow passport office)
13 = year that the form was printed (meaning, the passport was issued in 2013 or 2014)
078492 = the serial number, meaning that 0784** and 0785** are its "neighbors"
Running a wildcard search for 45130784** and 45130785** gives us a bunch of results, many of which are normal people. However, one result jumps out: 4513078464, belonging to "Andrey Ivanovich Laptev"
This is the former Defense Minister of South Ossetia (2006-8), and a GRU officer
This is the former Defense Minister of South Ossetia (2006-8), and a GRU officer
The real identity of "Andrei Ivanovich Laptev" (aka "Orion") is Oleg Ivannikov, a GRU officer who was also involved in the downing of MH17. @bellingcat
and @the_ins_ru identified (and called!) him in 2018. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/05/25/mh17-russian-gru-commander-orion-identified-oleg-ivannikov/
and @the_ins_ru identified (and called!) him in 2018. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/05/25/mh17-russian-gru-commander-orion-identified-oleg-ivannikov/
The Laptev/Ivannikov persona doesn't follow quite the same playbook as with Beregovoy/Bezler, but it's close -- passport issued in same batch, and same birth month/year (April 1967), but different days and names. Ivannikov is experienced, so he got a bit more divergent persona.
