against animals and other bands and troops. that is what our actual nature is. at the point of lord of the flies. in the lord of the flies you have these kids who are the pinnacle of western civilization. kids from a british boarding school and almost instantly, the second you put them back in a natural environment, they start becoming tribal. they sat each other. that humanity. >> watch afterwards day at 9 pm eastern on book tv. >>. >> next, spanish special prosecutor josc gonzalez talks about his experiences combating russian criminal organizations operating abroad. >> he sits down for a discussion with april public reporter who covers organized crime. posted by the hudsoninstitute in washington dc, this is an hour and a half .

>> can you hear me? this is a wonderful sound system. if we could have technology you can hear me better, it would be better distributed. welcome to the tinton institute. i'm charles davidson, executive director. i'll start again. welcome to the stimson institute. i'm charles davidson, executive director of the cleft talk receipt initiative and we are extremely honored to be hosting josc gonzalez who has come from spain to visit us for a couple of days . this event here and the various other things going on in town.

he is living an example of what can be done and i don't want to say more about him by way of introduction because he's going to speak about what he has done and what is going on in spain in terms of the work that they are doing so i don't want to spoil that in any way, shape or form. i would like of course is a very brief word about the talk receipt initiative and how this fits into where we are now . it is almost exactly 4 years since we started this effort here and initially, the issue was helping to make people more aware of the problem. the kleptocratic threat and the export of corruption and collect talk receipt in the west is something that was over there and it was a problem that wasn't generally recognized in the policy community. that has changed. so then, our emphasis became

well, what can we do about this policy wise? and as many of you know there's a lot going on in that way. but all policy, all laws need law enforcement. both domestically and internationally. and the threat of transnational criminal organizations and the way they and mesh themselves with governance, governments of various sorts and nonstate actors is a national security threat to us but it's a civilization security threat to democratic countries in general. so we clearly need muscular, fearless, non-corrupt law enforcement. mister brenda, please. [applause]

>> good morning. first of all, i'd like to thank charles of course. and the institute. i consider it to be an honor, first of all. it's wonderful to be here in washington and this institute. >> since i arrived here, i've been cooperating with us institutions for quite a while. the fbi and dc. and the most part of my presentation and what i want to speak about today has to do with with crime and how

spanish officials have been investigated for a plutocracy in the grassroots. in other words, on the national stage. >> the officers and agents have been concerned and were kind enough to realize that there was a problem that came from the savages in russia, the macaws since the 1990s and russian citizens were

optimistic. they thought that they were being free from oppression, from the soviet union. and they went from the real poverty. the russian people have incredible intellectual richness and we see this through their temerity and of course we should deny but there's a series of people who are having no chain and this is certainly not a compliment although i don't think it's an insult either because i'd like to avoid insults.

we are a series of people who are involved in the political world and in the criminal world and they are receiving all kinds of assets in their country and this means they are garnering power, economically speaking and they are taking on power in an exaggerated manner. and it's primarily to an incredible commitment in russia but that's problem is then transferred elsewhere. and the reason that we see ahead of this problem is none other than violent crime. >> we see, i had no idea . i always talk about the national police and civil guard. the end of the 90s, they are the ones together with the

national intelligence agency they begin to look beyond the criminal sphere and it was a great deal of money was coming in, capitals closed and that we needed to have them help or some control over that and that's an important part because if we were trying to maintain preventative measures before we could get hurt, we are going to damage them but it was the only way that turned out to be effective. there are other european countries that are wonderful countries and maybe better in many ways but police work ahead of the curve in this. if we look at an analysis of

a class accuracy, those who have political power in any country , not just russia is complicated to investigate those persons and i'm talking about criminal investigation. it was also complicated to continue our investigation on people who are high-level criminals because it's known that in a pyramid criminal organization, that the bottom we have those people who are directly related to ordinary crimes like killing,extortion , and then at the top, they are leaders that have little contact directly speaking with these crimes. usually it's criminal investigations and at the bottom, and spanish police

however began at the top to investigate those kingpins and some of them have been, they like the laws and other mafia. i'm sure that we can speak about them later. and that investigation is not the bottom but at the top. it bore fruit. we detected that recognized the criminal organizations and recognized as such by the russian computers. when they get in contact with us, we collaborate with them and it surprises many people that we actually collaborate with russian prosecutors because many people think they are going to be protected by them. >> one way to ratify russia,

we know about it is that an investigation, well, people think that it's, if they reach the prosecutor's office , then really it won't be a thorough investigation. but really what we want is to eliminate criminal organizations and so we have seen that in spain though people are demanding that the prosecutor's office maintain on these investigations, it's important to talk about our experience and into others. and i come on the half of the anticorruption office of the prosecutor and on the half of the agency of spain. again, i appreciate this

invitation from an ngo and it's true i'm not a formally representing the department office rather i come here in my own capacity but i do represent the prosecutor so i'm going to take questions now to talk about the anticorruption process. that the institution works for. and it is called the office of prosecutor against corruption and organized crime. it's not new. it was new in spain but we have a preliminary from 2000, transnational organized crime that led to the convention under the us and in the preamble of both conventions, it talks about corruption.

this is nothing new. it's nothing really ahead of the curve. there is a relationship between russia and organized crime is constant and ongoing . and we need to attack it in a coordinated manner and that's why we have these international incidents of the un and that is why as charles said, it's surprising that until recently, we have realized or some countries have realized that this relationship is very close. in other words, russian organized crime is not a lower-level corruption, rather it's a transnational organized crime, that involves corruption needs high-level corruption. the strong criminal organizations, are not happy or content just to correct a

low level air. they go to the highest levels. to the extent that it seems that corruption is not corruption, rather it's power is like that. >> and it shows it's almost as if they wanted the powerful to tell society this is what power is, power is corruption so they're trying to convince citizens of this. >> are anticorruption prosecutors office was founded in 1995. >> in a period when in spain, we realize well, we had gone from a dictatorship to a democracy but that doesn't mean that we're going to have better leaders. >> and there was a moment where, things felt desperate because they realize that new politics are also correct but

the big difference is that in a dictatorship in spain from 36, 1936 to 1976. well, there was no fight against corruption . >> and society thought it was just normal. that was just the start. so the powers of my office are national powers. there are several prosecutors. there are 28 in madrid and then we have several prosecutors are also over the country. and so this is the normal result of the decentralization process that has gone on since the founding of our new constitution which is based on a decentralized government. our powers are very powerful. fighting corruption and there's one in particular

that allows us to fight against organized crime. we are allowed to investigate money laundering. committed by organized crime or organized crime groups. there's just one exception. those criminal organizations that are devoted to drug trafficking, that actually falls under another prosecutors which is prosecutor's office. and the specialization has allowed usto be very effective . and allows me, if i may, to predicate here and yes, they paid me and i am allowed to be here it's one thing on construction. >> first of all, we have a judicial office. in other words, the individuals who form the

office and then we have three important movements, we call them. we have the national police and the guard and one unit and they only work with our office. so they are subordinates. then we have another movement itches from the past ministry , they look at databases and all the tax information of people in the movement and settle there. we have all the information about the situation and we have another important element which is the intervention unit. they are public service who actually control the spin and how contracts are rewarded, how funds are allocated,

contacts. in other words, the interaction with their predecessor and in our office , that's the structure. >> this set up is multidisciplinary. it's quite complex. it's complex. i'm fighting organized crime which is also complex so i'd like to make a few drawings here if you don't mind. since i'm not an artist, iask you to forgive me . >> human imperfection.

there is legitimization of this organized crime. we have economics, legitimacy . organized crime wants to earn money. they are not trying to give a service to people. organized crime says where there's no state,that's where i'm going. where there is no structure to fight me, that's where i'm going . charles, if i run over time, please let me know. when on over time, you let me know. their aim is economic profit. more economic profit means more power. this is therefore the basis

of a criminalorganization . but if they just had that, criminal organizations would be easy to get rid of. a lot of money but you are a mafia boss, we can get rid of you. we need to find a way to attractively insinuate themselves into society. how do they do it? i don't know exactly because they continue to do it but i think we can say that the first thing they tried to do after a achieving economic profit is to legitimize themselves vis-c-vis society. territorially speaking, almost all mafia bosses have a specific territory that they protect and in spain for example, or italy , those people who are most corrupt,

first they do 2 things. 1, they have a luxurious mansion to show that they are there and secondly, they buy a soccer team. i'm not saying everyone who owns a soccer team are mafia bosses.i'm an supporter and is it is an honorable soccer team. this social level that goes from their little town starts to expand and they create foundations. and they say they are philanthropists . they say they want to take charities, be charitable, create legal foundations, medical foundation.

they actually deceive people and get them into the foundations and they select people who are well-known to direct these foundations. some are deceived, others let themselves be deceived so they start to actually have this social web that they are able to create and bring people in and they're like, that's not enough. why? because at the end, in general, the state understands their origin is an economic origin so they need to take care of their reputation and they need to whitewash their reputation. money-laundering is fundamental for criminal organizations and now we added the whitewashing of

their reputation. if you have assets, you need to enjoy it and they want to be ostentatious. they want to show it, they want to show they are enjoying it and that they are normal people and society needs to support them and accept them. i think some years, starting in the 50s, the sicilian mafia start to increase their activity. they go into ruralareas . they also get money from the state. one of the examples is the pillaging of guillerma. these are mafioso's that are involved in construction. what you see is a true mafia boss, a true kingpin. what they do is build a house

. and by again, a soccer team. well, any sport. it doesn't have to be soccer. but when they build the house, they understand the building itself, construction is important and they continue in the construction sector and we see that all over the world. construction, highways, public works and in the 50s, the sicilian mafia realizes that they need to also go farther and devote themselves to getting profit from the state. that's the second step. i think one step was a developed tear. it was really to build a business which is a criminal organization and that's what we have to see it as. the fight against money

laundering is essential but is not the only fight, not the only front. we also have to fight against criminal activity and against corruption. and because this relationship between awarding of contracts, public administrations and criminal organizations, well then, the criminal organizations come into contact with politicians. and that is what allows for the block of legitimizing themselves. they are insinuating themselves into the political world. they even get legislation changed. they do this in legislation as far as crime is concerned. they say justice is slow. they get sentencing reduced. they get different crimes deleted or eliminated from

the criminal statute. they even between all the people they have in their web , we had detected in our investigations, russian crime organizations that people who we know have police records have been able to have officials actually make these police records disappear. so they can actually have their records purged. and so the worst is when they actually create their own political parties. there the loss of an organized crime group and this has occurred. i think that the liberal party in russia created by mister simmon oski will how is it possible that this

party has officials that the laws to organized crime, they have one who died but mister poleshenko, even a person like him who has been accused of murdering alexander litsenko and here we have the more subtle delegitimizing organized crimes. this have to do directly with the money laundering. and this is using these large firms of attorneys, financial experts and i'm also talking about financial and banking institutions.

institutions that go against the prevention of money-laundering . this is done in the economic sphere and other spheres. these people also have ties to all these other blocks here. the economic, social , the public administration. these are people who are experts and specialists in managing tax events. you could say thanks david don't exist. you can call it whatever you want, but these are areas, territories in which mafia bosses and criminals can have assets, which are hidden or the ownership thereof, the firm is investigated in any country you can call them countries that don't collaborate or countries of territories that are opaque.

i'd like to give you an example and this is really self-criticism, this is spain. spain currently has gibraltar. well, temporarily its british but gibraltar, we consider it to be an opaque, non-collaborating territory and criminal organizations use gibraltar to actually hide their assets or the owners of the assets. and in the investigations we've undertaken, the first investigation done by the civil garden police are investigations that are directly aimed at eradicating the seasonal law.

the seasonal law are really the lowest part of the criminal organization. they are the leaders, but as in the 90s, they were the ones that protect businesses, or under whose protection, under their protection, wealth was created. with over time, especially as of 2000, 2001, they start to differently because they started doing this. they, it's these scenes in the law have tattoos all over them. they can't do any of these legitimizing activities. you've got to remove your tattoos, be a normal person and so i always think in

masculine, i say he because they are men. and we have to look at one. the season law how to become a species of endangered extinctions . and they flourished in russia. and now they're almost exterminated and that is part of the collaboration we received from the prosecutor in russia to eradicate them but there's some season law. >> who never had a tattoo. and those are the ones that have bought the title of season law and these laws indeed are legitimizing their activities. >> we had an investigation with regard to mister vladimir putin. he is a season law. he was investigated drug

trafficking in the uk and in spain, for leading the obvious kayak plan. and currently, the russian prosecutor asked us to transfer the file from spain to russia because we are not able to get him extradited back to spain and we trust that the prosecutors office in russia will continue with an investigation. and there are people who have whitewashed his reputation and laundered his money. the investigation is ongoing because russia does not investigate him, we will take the steps. >> but there are huge leaders of criminal organizations which go beyond this.

they're not as vulgar as the season law. we had an operation called troy operation in spain and the national police guard arrested several people in june 2008. >> and then there's the 96 rock was arrested. he had fled space and he had contact with mister abu-jamal, mister mahmud, these are all very high-level businessmen . and the relationship he had with them was very familiar. it was based on a business relationship also and we heard and read how petroff also had a relationship with the then minister of defense and mister cerda, was a subordinate to mister petroff . we heard him speak to him and friendly terms, and also to

mister raymond, two other people who are not part of the administration but are part of the power structure and that is concerning. another person who we were investigating is, was mister nikoliavich and he was responsible for fighting drug trafficking and we set his file back to russia and then mister sub a ski, thankfully the prosecutor's office in russia took the information that we gave them has gone after mister soboleski area. >> therefore, we have seen this relationship to organized crime. >> to the public administration in russia and politicians in russia in

reality, what we, what you're doing is throwing stones at the russian administration. number administration needs to recognize that there's corruption therein and if that is the case, they need to clean it up and in spain we had recent arrests of a former minister in spain. and no one here is saying that the anticorruption prosecutor or the civil guard that arrested this foreign minister is undermining this spanish public administration. to the contrary. this is legitimizing the democracy of these governments and administrations. >> finally, i'd like to talk about the difficulties we have in fighting money-laundering. we have detected as i said

previously that we need to legitimize antidemocratic level our institutions. this is anongoing effort . it's true. that there's been some people who still relax but just because they are democracy, they're notwant to have to corruption . well, no. that is not the case. democratic politicians can also be corrupted. and officials of a democratic regime can be corrupted. we have realized for example in one of the proceedings that we have taken forward, which has to do with the corruption of a political party and they are called comprehensive democratic. we saw that they were systematically corrupt and

the thesis forward in that regard is what the civil guard base, is what the prosecutor said that we think we're going to be able to prove this so this is another example of how the catalog society and spanish society doesn't want to recognize that there administration is corrupt. and we think that's how it was possible that political parties were able to lead and cry for independence. >> we see horrible corruption , corruption that's stolen money from all the taxpayers, from all of our citizens. if they had done things as a political party but this is our theory now. also, you have the difficulties of social

perception another difficulty we face is collaboration, cooperation. >> i began by speaking about the cooperation we have with united states. we have a cooperation agreement that's based on 2010. we also have cooperation in from law enforcement, civil guard, national police. the customs agency. and also we have multistate plaza which are the police from catalonia. we have a wonderful relationship withthe united states . well, we do not think we are the executing arm of the united states or anyone, just of ourselves, of spain and as what's was wikileaks and some countries collaborate like the united states and others don't really have serious problems in fighting

organized crime with regard to the uk. very serious problems in getting them to cooperate and the exception of drug trafficking, we see there's no tax havens or those opaque, non-collaborating territories as i mentioned and we have problems getting cooperation from holland and belgium. we have serious issues in fighting organized crime because of this area. >> and i see that as the uk is reacting effectively to economic contamination, that they have suffered from oligarchs that take dirty money, money from a criminal organization, let's be clear. which is behind a business. even an important business

that has, that goes forward with legal and lucrative activity.criminal organizations. our laundering money through large companies. not just through front companies. and that's why we need to be vigilant of this part. the legal, financial part. thank you very much. [applause] >>. [inaudible] thank you again.

sebastian rotella is going to say a few words. sebastian is currently with propublica and knows this well and has written about his cases and related subjects and speaks spanish fluently. and ben judah is with us and as some of you know, he was criticized in ways that then would like to reform and has been working on that and there has been recent activity in the uk in the last 10 days but it's a little bit promising at least . and then we will have a brief discussion, it's already 10 of 11. we will leave plenty of time for your questions and that we have such an extraordinarily distinguished audience and there are many familiar faces and many non-familiar faces which is great, it's not the usual

clip talk or see initiative fan club so i'm happy to see you, welcome. >> it's a pleasure to be here, thank you chuck and an honor to be here . i'd like to talk a little bit about my perspective on this. as the sun, the american son of spanish and italian immigrants i spent time in spain for personal and professional reasons and i've covered organized crime and terrorism and intelligence around the world but last year when i got an assignment from propublica to look at russia related questions in europe, i chose spain hopefully as a place that would be a window into the global phenomenon because i knew the language, i knew the people in law enforcementand i have been following some of these cases without going in depth and i got a chance to spend time with people in the police , other agencies and explore some of the places

where these interesting cases have happened and in fact what remarkable is the spanish experience over the past 10 or 15 years really is this body of cases where the history or the evolution of russian organized crime would receive not just in spain but it reveals in remarkable detail that these are powered not with go beyond, that we are talking about a blending of organized crime, intelligence, politics and business . and i think the spanish experience is as they say, he described it really as a roadmap, a model or how to fight this urgent global threat. a couple of points of perspective that i think are interesting, one to remember is that the russian mafia comes from the 90s and early 2000. looking for safety, because of the intensity of the wars back home and investment opportunities, it was a company that was booming in

construction and real estate and part of a global expansion. this was a global miasma of organized crime. in spain you should remember is a prosperous civilized country, one of the lowest homicide rates in europe. and it has such an effective law enforcement a justice system that has a lot of guarantees and a progressive prison policy so there are a lot of reasons why it was attractive and as this degrees, you should remember this is a small number darting out. in the late 90s, early 2000. we're talking about small groups of investigators. and having worked with law enforcement around the world, one thing that i've always been impressed by is that they're very frank when they say that they're happy to say i don't know or i don't know this topic well or i'm learning even when they are great at. one thing that impressed me when talking to josc and others who become experts is

that they are very candid about the fact that in the beginning, this was not a world they knew a lot about. they say we've made a lot of mistakes and we have to learn. we had a lot of obstacles. they've come a long way. and this was a different model of organized crime compared to what they were used too. a nasa crossroads for drug trafficking they dealt with an american mafia and the italian mafia but this was an entirely different model. a lot ofthese people that were showing up were in it for themselves as well be successful businessman . so the investigators had to learn how to take on these groups, how to understand them. they had to educate their own judiciary about it which was subtle. they had to prove crimes that were happening and the money being laundered because of crimes that had happened elsewhere. you were dealing with enemies who on the one hand were very dangerous and had firepower

but on the other practiced strategic restraint so they were committing violent crimes in spain. these were mafias with unlimited resources with some of the best lawyers and financial advisors that spain could offer and they had difficulties with as much as josc talked about, some of the collaboration. some of these countries where the eurasian mafias have come from our partners. but they began to understand thedimensions of these groups that range from armies of burglars at the lowest level , operating throughout your . tough people who had direct partnerships with the cabinet level in russia. and worldwide money-laundering networks. and i think what josc and the others did was pioneered the

cooperation both in spain which wasn't necessarily easy if you follow the law enforcement. there are times when there was division among the other agencies and josc and others had to coordinate and international. they realized they had to learn about these groups and work with a lot of other international partners if this was going to be successful so working as you heard with americans, european law enforcement and with russia and other countries. and what they were worried about was the danger of infiltration and in spain there were dangerous signs . not only mafia but in 2009 they were expanding into areas like banking and the energy sector, bona fide gangsters trying to infiltrate the energy sector. at one point they reached the presidential level in spain and attempt i guess to have the energy companies move into the spanish market. and as you heard, soccer is

not only a huge cultural phenomenon but if you own a business in spain, one of the times you talk about infiltration, josc is a fan of madrid so he's going to be happy to hear me talk about the barcelona soccer team which is a great rifle. the chief of security for one of the most wealthy and best-known soccer teams in the world was a convicted georgian drug trafficker. and the head of the barbados team now is a russian who is accused of having been arrested a few months ago of money-laundering . and they found also inroads into politics in the police. there are some cases where corrupt spanish police officers are targets of the special prosecutor's office of an investigation. there was a moment when the meadow and politician who was convicted a couple years ago,

his appointment to the chief of police came with 2000 officers and one of the proudest regions of the country. he was convicted of being an accomplice of the russian mafia and the russian mafia would have had an accomplice in the regional police so it shows you the things they were coming up against but i think spain crackdown is interesting because it's been one of the most sustained and systematic and they've arrested some of the most important bosses, russian or eurasian mafia bosses, they've arrested outside of russia including the georgian kingpin. they've led europe wide investigations of a particularly murderous georgian mafia which to show you the kind of obstacles they were up against, when the spanish warrants were executed throughout europe, in greece one of the georgians paid an $800,000

cash brought bride to the greek police who were coming to arrest him on behalf of the spanish and you heard about the police, a trial of some of these people awaiting a verdict which is in my estimation , i know there are probably experts people like what you heard about. and the depth and the breadth and the specificity of the way that threat that combined these different sectors of crime and intelligence and politics and business the way it works. there is also i think, just to

finish, the spanish have taken a very aggressive premise. if there is a piece of an international organization in their territory to follow it to the top. so some of these oligarchs that have recently been sanctioned in the past weeks, are people who have been investigating for years. and in some cases the prosecutor in other cases have at least been able to question and their cases should lead in all kinds of interesting things. some are former partners of paul manafort who is also in the news these days. some of them are, one of them is under investigation. alexander -- reportedly under investigation for ties to the trump campaign and potential illegal financing. the spanish cases just really give you, it's a window you to think about going beyond. it gives you a window into all kinds of international activity. not always have they been successful. sometimes a start out as bid operations and have ultimately been rather meager but i think

there is no question of challenge these mafias and these larger structures in the way that is impressive. one thing i think is ironic is we know a lot about the russian mafia in spain because there has been so much activity on this front. but i would argue that if you look at europe and countries like the uk or greece or germany or maybe you are less about it, there are places where there's a lot of work left to do. i think the spanish model of cooperation is one that should be emulated. and just in closing, there is an expression i first heard, it is used incessantly which means the armored life. which is the life that prosecutors and cops will fight the mafia always being surrounded by bodyguards, always being aware both physical threats and of treachery and attempts to pressure them and attack them

and the expression the spanish is very similar. and you hear that in latin america all the time about people fighting the same fight. that is the fight that people like josc and his colleagues have chosen. thing was admirable and it is a pleasure to be on this panel with him today. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, sebastian. does this bring any questions or comments to mind, been? >> our guests, such a panoramic force through russia and spain and really bringing to light not only the severity of the problem but the power that these organizations now possess. i would like to make a few, maybe possibly another comment about what could be done in the united states in order to tackle this problem. what policy approach you should urgently be pushing for.

in this country. when one studies the kind of chains of how these operate you find in enormous company will find a legal entity or the legal entity of llc, the legal entity of the corporation stripped down to its purest form simply as a sheet of paper or digital imprint. being used anonymously to cover up crime and to cover up proceeds of crime. it is really urgent that the united states pushes to abolish the existence of anonymous companies in this country. not only should it do that, it should also make deliberately misleading incorporation agents aware of -- when creating these anonymous companies a criminal

offense. and since then should establish a dedicated inspection unit for a corporation agents and the equivalents to make sure it is effective compliance.as long as you can hide the identity of somebody controlling an asset or individual linked to the asset behind a cloud of anonymity, it makes the work of people like jose grinda gonzalez extremely difficult and the life of a mafia kingpin extremely easy. how does one deal with these questions of infiltration or that we were discussing? well, the united states already has the foreign agents registration act. this piece of legislation dating from the sort of, the struggle against fascism needs to be radically updated. we have been arguing here that

the doj needs to introduce a comprehensive enforcement strategy and congress should finally allocate sufficient resources and implementation. if you want to be serious about fighting organized crime and defending national security, one needs to provide the resources to do it. it is also really essential that loopholes, where lobbyists can register under different disclosure acts should be consolidated and that the time frames for registration and penalties for late filings are enforced. you also think that it is absolutely essential when it comes to addressing these problems that the current incomplete, broken, not fit for purpose in any meaningful sense and time under a -- the anti-money laundering system.

it was designed in order to combat cocaine cowboys in miami in the 1980s, operating essentially with cash and is not fit essentially, to do anything else apart from catch those people. what needs to be done is there needs to be an extension of the anti-money laundering system. a way from sibley focusing on that but also high-risk sectors that are not covered by anti-money laundering requirements such as the one listed by jose grinda gonzalez. the real estate industry, lawyers, and other luxury industries.possibly including the soccer industry. again, we have a fundamental need for resources to be put behind these questions. something that i find spending

time in washington as we have, still deeply 20th century, in 1956 understanding of what is the national security threat? in which, when the united states faces problems that could potentially come in the form of an exit scene or tank or something atomic or chemical, full resources are deployed in order to counteract even the possibility of such a threat. when a national security threat comes in the form of dirty money where comes in and the pinstripe suit of a lawyer, or of a lobbyist, extremely little, practically no resources are put towards checking this threat. we need to have more resources given to the treasury and more resources given to law enforcement order to deal with this. there is a deeper problem at

play in the united states which spain does not face. which is a vulcanized bureaucracy. when you have over a dozen institutions in this country, with overlapping goals and agendas, duplicate staff all trying to deal with financial regulations, it does not help you. it helps the sort of criminal side of things. there needs to be in the long-term, regulatory consolidation for matters to do with organized crime and financial regulation. it may not be possible at the moment but it needs to be done. because in an environment, a complex institutional environment that needs to be issued policy doctrines coming from the white house and if the white house is unable or unwilling to do so, to issue policy doctrines about how to combat this then congress needs

to set up a commission that can outline its own strategy. looking further afield, united states needs to develop approaches where it can highlight the core national security danger of organized crime and russian organized crime and implement the strategies into nato, into collaboration with the european union and embed it in this diplomatic approach to countries which are very much at risk. long-term, i would like to echo what sir jose grinda gonzalez says about fighting russian organized crime is not fighting the russian people. it is, there needs to be

raising awareness about this in russia pier 1 policy i think can be very effective would be consolidating frozen assets from russian organized crime were this into a fund for the russian people. the sums of which would be clearly visible online. which could sort of sit there until a time in which russia has sort of returned to the rule of law. it needs to be, it needs to be made extremely clear that law enforcement is working to the benefit of the russian people. in a closing remark about raising awareness in russia is the importance of numbers. when you study this field or when you study how these issues are reported, there is a lack of concrete numbers. one thing that the treasury and the relevant institutions can

do is see how much money think is being stolen from russia and how much they believe it is costing the russian people to make people aware of these gigantic costs. i would like to once again thank, our panelists for coming here today. >> thank you. [applause] >> i should mention that much of which been -- ben just described is in a report that we recently saw. and he co-authored. we did give nate a big hand for helping. in terms of the visit so thank

you, nate. nate deserves a big hand. [applause] nate is the program manager of the kleptocracy -- people creates a daily brief that we put out which is a lot of trouble and we have wanted to sort of stop doing it for months and months and months but people keep telling us it is so useful. that nate is stuck doing it and a lot of those people were real actors in the anti- kleptocracy space. perhaps more specifically but then i should, read this. so we keep doing it and this is, nate spends a couple of hours a day on that. i hope many of you may be signed up for it. if not, i hope you -- or any of our reports out there, nate? they are all out there! okay.

i would say this is not about russia only. is about countering kleptocracy in general. we thought that we would give it a specific title because it does seem to be the clear and present danger that people recognize. but it is meant to have general applicability and of course, there is nothing at all anti-russian about it, quite contrary. so, i think given the time, we will turn to you and take some questions. it is a comment then it needs to be extremely brief. and then we may bring one or two things around. i'm told we can go a little bit beyond 11:30 a.m.. it depends on your availability. and the audience shrinks to an embarrassing size, we will stop. so, please, there will be a microphone or multiple microphones floating around and

if you could please identify yourself by name and affiliation. we will take it from there. sir? in the front. >> hello, my name is alex, reported with the russian -- my question is for mr. jose grinda gonzalez. you displayed in court some messages to you and spoke about threats. i just wanted to ask you to speak in that regard. how your life changed after this investigation began. do you need to take precautions in everyday life? what they are exactly and the second question is, what level of law enforcement and prosecutors you mentioned that

is some of the cases, your pretty sure that they will continue the investigation against some people that you indicted. it is probably in other cases. thank you. >>. >> thank you first of all we who investigate organized crime in general and people in particular with me and entice. first, contrary -- they have done that to me actually. and honestly, i don't care. i am supported by my agency and by the spanish government.

and then a second threat is a physical threat. i can't really say what's happening. because there is an investigation against those that order my killing. and i cannot really talk about someone who was to kill me. i do not want to smear him. in any case, i am quite confident regarding my social vegetation and i am also quite confident regarding my personal because my agency, the prosecutors office, national colleagues are working hard on my, providing me with security. i live in peace and regarding your second part of the question. our collaboration with the russian law enforcement. i don't know what to say.

i don't know with the prosecutors office, yes.we do have collaboration on a permanent basis. but it is not homogenous. sometimes if we don't feed the prosecutors office they cannot chew. >> i have a question about venezuela. if this is a topic of interest for the prosecutors office and whether you are investigating this? >> well if i start talking

about that, i think only three people will be left in the audience because we will be here for five or six hours or maybe a few days, even. just to be brief, because, really it is such a huge topic. well, it is not a problem. the problem with private banks is very specific. isolated, it had great repercussions because the banking system was fragile lysed at that point but it is not systemic. and andorra, we have wonderful cooperation with andorra. both with the police as well as the prosecutors office. at a judicial level. as well as another kind of cooperation like the one we

have with -- another was the financial intelligence units and it is very important that kind of cooperation. the issue of private banks now, venezuelans who were clients of the banks, that relation ship could not exist anywhere in the world. i think the private banking was not a problem that was just a problem of venezuela. what is the problem of venezuelans? i need hours to talk about that briefly, the justice system has ongoing investigations in spain and with regard to venezuelans, that have been stealing money from venezuela. who are responsible for the impoverishment of the venezuelan people and so, we are cooperating with them, portugal and the us. and we hope, and i'm not being ironic here. we hope to have the cooperation of venezuelan prosecutors and

so, what are we talking about here as far as stealing money is concerned? i will just give you an example. i think that the declaration of the emergency situation in 2010, there were a series of contrasts with electric plants to generate electricity in venezuela. it has been a failure. many of the public businesses that awarded contracts or were awarded contracts for a different works are being sought after by the united states, by spain and by others. we still need to prosecute those people who actually corrupted those public servants and where took my people in the us, people in venezuela.

although most of the people in venezuela came to the united states and they are subject to investigation in the u.s. and there are suits and reports against venezuelans in venezuela. because they are responsible for the impoverishment of the venezuelan people. >> thank you. this disheveled gentleman in the second row. [laughter] >> my name is glenn simpson. and i run a research company in washington. my question is about alexander torsion. i think sebastian had a report that he seems to have been tipped off to his arrest warrant in spain. i wanted to know if a progress

has been made in figuring out who tipped him off? how he found out about it? whether he has been put on an interpol red notice and finally, whether you have shared information with the u.s. government about him and his suspected criminal activities? >> well, as soon as i take the floor i think that i can answer that. alexander torsion was subject to investigation in spain of a court in mallorca. the civil guard was conducting the investigation along with the anticorruption prosecutors office. and -- who is the anticorruption prosecutor well, and in charge of the office in mallorca.

i worked with him. he was heading up the investigation. investigated torsion. why? because he was involved with a man named -- who has been convicted i'm sorry romanoff. it seemed to us that there was criminal activity going on to the extent that 20, i think it was 22 august in 2013. he was waiting for mr. torsion to go to the birthdate. in mallorca. if he had arrived with would have detained him in the airport. why? because we have telephone conversations that were intercepted under that investigation that led us to believe that he was laundering money. and for a criminal

organization. well, the fbi also has linked him to -- and both romanoff and torsion talked about these two people if they knew them, that they were friends and currently, mr. romanoff has been convicted. he actually had a plea bargain with the prosecutors office. so we did not investigate torsion because what we had at first, which was clear evidence against him, well, when we arrested romanoff in december 2014 if i remember correctly, well, this evidence well, kind of dispersed and so, we never actually issued an indictment

against him nor was there an international order issued against him either. >> gentleman over there. >> stephen blank, american foreign policy council. questions for the panel. to what degree do you see linkages or even actual both sides wearing the same hat, with regard to organized crime and media penetration in europe? >> should we give that right to -- >> well, i do not know really. but what i do know is that the media is part of the defensive -- is a very active participation that the media has to take on and that exists

in spain, that coordination of interest, more than just coordination of interest of the state but rather of the country of the society. in other words, and alignment. in spain, as far as i know, there has been no infiltration of organized crime in media outlets. in europe, i do not know. i have no idea. in our investigations in spain, we have not been attacked by the media with some few exceptions if i may use the word, -- that is an insult, by the way. there has been specific generals who have attacked me and that is not why he is a -- necessarily. but it is because it was for

money. that is why they did it. not because of my character. so when i say that i don't know, perhaps not that i don't want to say that i just really have no idea. >> it is not the usual language we use around here. [laughter] yes, sebastian. questions on the media point. i'm covered latin america where see media outlets being directly instruments of the mafia in one way or the other connected to drug cartels or intelligence services, things like that. i certainly in western europe i've not seen that but there are cases in some countries where people, oligarchs or people connected to them with shady types have moved and acquired media related businesses and so, they are, you start to wonder and the

other thing would be to the extent that there are political parties in europe including in countries like italy and france that have strong connections to and are sympathetic with the regime in russia and have gone as far in some political leaders saying things like they do not believe that the poisoning and salsberry was, that countries do not do that. they don't believe any country would try to poison somebody like that. to the extent that political leaders who have media that are sympathetic to them have relationships with them are taking that line. you can see how they could start to seep in. certainly the other thing that you see for example, in the -- crisis but this is not really media but the kind of fake news bots, propaganda activity that had been attributed to the russian connected forcesin other parts of the west were

certainly on display , a lot of objective analysts have said in catalonia. for fake news, what is what seemed to be a strategy of separatist movements and political conflict and chaos and all of that. i think it has been very much on display in the crisis and a bombardment of fake news which was connected partly through the venezuela eggs actually. the russian, venezuelan connection. >> just to reiterate the point about how to deal with this problem, the first essential tool, you need to bring as much transparency as possible in order to reveal situations like this happening in the media. and that means transparency to corporate structures, it means bringing transparency to tax declarations in order to have law enforcement do its job. the second thing we really need is reporting requirements, more

reporting requirements in order to make sure money laundering is not happening on sectors that are not covered like sort of property, like lawyers, hedge funds, capacity building. we do not have enough people dealing with this. you have a handful of people working as bank examiners and you have tens of thousands of people working on redundant national security issues just because that is how the bureaucratic inertia works be one thing i did not talk about last time as we really need legal tools. it is an unexplained order which places the onus on an individual from one of these at risk countries in order to explain where his wealth comes from. it is something you urgently need to bring here. the integration of the topics into the national security framework and national security doctrine. finally there is this question

of the fourth estate. even though it may not be a classical branch of political theory when it comes to understanding a democratic system, it functions as such. when we see in europe and north america, online platforms which are destroying the ability of the fourth state to finance a cell.it is also destroying the ability of journalists and journalism to be funded.we need to move so that these monopoly platforms are forced, they are forced to either read numerate platforms for the content that they drive from people to share all that they pay taxes, pay higher taxes which can then be used to support journalism in the manner of the bbc or other european formats. and allowing these monopoly online platforms to operate in

the way they do, is. bad for democracy and bad for organized crime.>> any other questions?we will get the microphone to -- >> i'm going to speak in spanish. i am javier -- i was ambassador of spain to the united states between 2001 and 2004. the first time i heard about prosecutor -- was in a book. who was a regular presence here. and who we regret has died, she wrote a book which was called

-- kleptocracy. and she favorably talked about prosecutor grinda and she held his actions taken against the russian mafia. and this book has only been published in the united states because in the uk they did not dare publish it. they were concerned that there would be a suit filed and she said that the problem isn't that the mafia exist in russia but that the state is a mafia state and the head of the mafia organization is vladimir putin. so it is a criminal state, she asserted. not a criminal gang.

and do you share this analysis? what was put forward? do you share this? >> to have to deal with this? okay. well, there is a book in spain. it was written by a media outlet abc. it is a newspaper in spain. -- the name of the book is the word of -- i have to speak as a prosecutor. in my investigations in spain, i have not validated that

thesis. not at all. what i have said is that what we perceive is that there is a very high level corruption in russia. we have been fighting against that and in part with cooperation of russian prosecutors. the rest is well, believing in people. mr. -- for example had that thesis.he asserted that he is dead. and there is an investigation. in the uk. well, there were two that i knew about. actually or that existed i believe, one to seek who had killed --. two specific people were identified. and there was a different proceeding about the reasons

why these two people killed him. the british judge thought it was probable that the russian state had participated in this killing. i have always said in the meeting that i had with him it was critical of him because i believed he was from the secret services and he had worked with mr. -- who was an oligarchy and so, i thought that relationship was, it could not exist if he was going to cooperate with spanish justice. but he did cooperate with us. and i fully trust although this is many years later, i fully trust his words. he was an honorable man.

i know he wanted to collaborate with us and he did. i do not know any kind of other cooperation he might have had but he also had the book, i believe. which defends the thesis that you have just asserted. and i have not detected that this thesis is true. i do not want to criticize it. i do not want to support it because i -- >> ben became famous at the age of 23 with his book. about russia.would you like to touch this? you don't have to. >> i am not -- >> you don't have to. >> quite if slightly different thesis when it comes to russia. something i personally think there are limits to a kleptocracy paradigm in

understanding the motivation the russian politicians and that a certain point of view in thinking that the russian elite motivations could be explained in terms of maximizing profits and maximizing rent only go so far and does not explain the full necessity they have to embark on struggle and collision with the west.i think a kleptocracy framework is useful but i think i personally go for more -- version of it. in the early to thousands there was very popular in academia, for obvious reasons, there was an overfocus on undefined ideology behind the vladimir putin regime. i think they took the ideology too seriously and how the kremlin fort. now it hasn't been in the mainstream enough terry creation of the besieged

fortress mentality, what they mean, what the russians establishment has come to believe about certain things and how it propagates these ideologies and pumping them into institutions and networks and the world of private schools and private hunting lodges and into the bureaucracy and into the military. i think when we talk about russia, a comment that one receives from russian officials and then a myriad, you're talking about fragments, the fragments in the 1990s. they do have a point here which is that the, the discussion in the media we get is an over focused on a generation of ambitious 1990 oligarchs heavily criminalized, and have

these western sort of global financial ambitions. and there is not enough discussion of the other generations of -- which either do not have ambitions on a global scale or know that they will not be possible for them to achieve or of the generation that putin oligarchs whose motivations have become more blurred, i wouldn't restrict the ideology but it is still there. it is the bottom line which is that a purely russian elite would not embark on the policies it has. over the last five or six years. you have to think of russia as a fusion of kleptocracy and ideology. and what is a very real

bureaucratic mechanism in my opinion. >> would you like to comment or leave this? >> just briefly. i mean, i would have to spend -- i spent many years covering powerful mafias where the lines between mafia and the state blur around the world. particularly latin america. countries like mexico, argentina and guatemala. they are talked about as models of penetration of the state by mafias. and italy. and other places. i don't think i covered russia long enough or in-depth enough to assert a thesis like that. which a journalist probably should not assert any way unless he has written a very long article or short book on it were a long book. but certainly, my work so far looking at this issue and comparing it to others is, i haven't seen in other places where it covered very powerful and very dangerous mafias, this

blurring that the spanish cases show very well of organized crime, intelligence and law enforcement sources, the business world and politics. the way those things all come together in the model of these mafias is remarkable and disturbing as some of the specific cases. >> i would like to ask a question to sort of, on what is, -- in of your cases, have you come across any individuals linked to donald trump or link to people that are linked to trump? [laughter] >> no. >> let me continue with this question. the official position of course is that we do not have one.

i mean the hudson institute is a think tank and it does not take officials position of this sort. but, i think the answer is, we don't care. we don't care what you call it. we are concerned with the u.s. national security. and nothing is going to be 100 percent. that is the thesis of the russian mafia is obviously not, completely true. but we do think that obviously, and we work closely with -- it is an interesting explanatory in terms of understanding what is going on. particularly, understanding the extent to which the st. petersburg group has increasingly increased its power within the russian state. that is at this point, effectual descriptive one might say. i do not think too many people including those involved in question there is a whole lot. they are not spending a lot of time trying to debunk that. so, i think it is now almost

order -- quarter of noon. thank you all for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

brennansan c-span2 is panel discussion looking at foreign contributions in u.s. elections. the house oversight hearing examined the laws governing federal labor units. booktv is in primetime with a focus on foreign policy. will hear from former secretary of state condoleezza rice. stanford professor, amy -- duke professor and a georgetown professor. that start to 8 pm eastern right here on c-span2.

>> commencement speeches all this week in primetime. tonight at 8 pm eastern, jimmy carter, betsy devos, representative mark meadows, and atlanta mayor, this week in primetime on c-span and c-span.org. and on the free c-span radio app. this weekend on c-span. saturday night at 9:30 p.m. eastern the weekly standard annual political summit in colorado springs. with a debate on president trump foreign and domestic policies. sunday at 9 pm former u.s. attorney general eric holder at the new england council politics and eggs event. on booktv c-span2 sunday night at nine eastern, syndicated columnist and cnn contributor, and a republican strategist on president trump swing state voters and how they could

impact future elections. and shortly after 11 pm sunday, and author discusses his book, the flying tigers.the untold story of the american pilots who waged a secret war against japan. and on american history tv, c-span3 saturday 6 pm eastern on the civil war. the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the 14th amendment with clemson university history professor, orval vernon burton. sunday 6:30 pm eastern on oral histories, u.s. army veteran, dennis haynes talks about his experiences, injuries and a long recovery during the vietnam war. watch the c-span networks this weekend. >> now, we take you to new york university law school. for a look at foreign contributions in the u.s. elections. and what federal and state lawmakers can do to restrain overseas inflnc