THE RUSSIAN EMBASSY/ LONDON

 Roman Kordinski was born in Poland to Jewish parents in 1968. Jews were in the minority in both Poland and the Soviet Union, so his father drifted from one dead end job to another. His mother had died from pneumonia when he was four years old, soon after his alcoholic father left him with his grandparents and disappeared. The rumour mill said that he was the victim of Muslim gangsters when he couldn’t afford the repayments to a loan shark. His grandparents spent their meagre savings on what education they could afford for Roman. It soon became obvious that the young Kordinski was incredibly bright. He was selected for state sponsored grammar school and was taken to Moscow to complete his studies. Even at school his skills as an entrepreneur began to surface. He would split packets of cigarettes into smaller more affordable bundles, and sell them to his fellow students at a huge profit. Roman also ventured into the money lending business, loaning small amounts of cash at extortionate rates. One semester an older boy borrowed money from Roman but reneged on his repayments, embarrassing him in front of a group of his closest friends in the process. Roman had walked away very calmly from the boy and then doubled back on him. The older boy was discovered a short time later with his hands pinned to his wooden desk by his geometry compass. He had refused to identify his attacker stating only that he was a stranger with a beard and glasses. No one believed the boy, but there was no proof against the young Kordinski. The incident was brushed under the carpet and there were no late payments ever made again.

 At nineteen he started a degree in business studies before graduating from the Russian Law School three years later. Roman Kordinski and five of his university colleagues started a small company, which bought and sold crude oil and petroleum products from Iran and the USSR state run oil companies. By 1991 after a bumper year, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were in a position to float their company on the stock markets worldwide. The company was massively undervalued at just over 1-million dollars and the five friends bought their own stock at a huge discount between them. Roman and his best friend Yuki owned fifty percent of the stock. Roman had threatened a local bank manager to loan them the funds to facilitate the deal, however the bank manager refused to co-operate. Roman followed the banker`s wife to the local school where she was taking her son the next morning. As they crossed the road to the school gates Roman mowed the mother and child down in his grey Lada. The wife suffered multiple fractures, which kept her in hospital for six months. She was too ill to attend her son`s funeral. The bank manager had four other children to consider, and the next day the funds were made available for Roman to purchase the lion`s share of his own stock.

Seventeen years on he was riding in the back of a bulletproof limousine accompanied by nine armed bodyguards, on his way to the Russian embassy in Admiralty Square, London. Roman was summoned by the Russian Ambassador to a crisis meeting regarding his Russian businesses. The Russian government had always known that Roman had grossly undervalued the stock when it was floated. They also knew that he was responsible for the suspicious deaths and disappearances of the five other major shareholders. His close friend Yuki had died in a fire at his home four years ago. Despite the fact that the post mortem discovered the presence of cyanide in his charred remains a verdict of accidental death was recorded. Two other shareholders died together in an assassination attack, which was made to look as if it was conducted by Chechen Mafia men. The Chechen Mafia had denied all knowledge of any such operation and the finger of suspicion pointed back to Roman Kordinski. The last of the five oil pioneers had received a short prison sentence for tax evasion in Russia. The offence was minor but the Russian courts were making an example of a rich businessman flouting the tax laws. He was found in his cell beaten to death with his tongue cut out. The removal of the tongue is a traditional mafia tactic to identify a snitch. This unfortunate series of events left Roman Kordinski in the fortunate position of being one of the world`s richest oil tycoons.

Roman had embraced the opening up of the Soviet Union in 1991. He had used his wealth and influence to build one of the most ruthless, diverse criminal organisations ever known. Legitimate multi-million pound companies masked the more profitable drugs and people trafficking trade. He specifically advertised for, sourced and recruited ex-KGB and Spetsnaz (Russian Special Forces) personnel to operate his illegal operations. Between 1991 and 1998 the Russian Mafia gangs targeted commercially strong businesses for their protection and extortion rackets. The fragile Russian banking system was initially used to launder vast sums of dirty money. The natural next step was to control the banks themselves. 1993 saw the kidnap and murder of ten local Russian bankers, 1993 to 1998 saw a total of ninety-five more bank employees killed for refusing to co-operate with the Mafia gangs. Gang warfare was commonplace as battles for territory and lucrative protection contracts raged across Moscow and the fragmented Soviet satellite countries. Religion split the gangs further as Roman hired only Jewish personnel and the Chechen gangs were predominantly Muslims.

In November 1996 Paul Tatum was assassinated. He was an American millionaire hotel owner. He purchased the Radisson-Slavanskaya Hotel in Moscow with a Chechen business partner. Several threats to the American`s life were made when he refused to sell his half share in the hotel. He tightened his security, took to wearing a bulletproof vest beneath his business suit and surrounded himself with armed bodyguards. When his assassin struck his bodyguards did nothing to protect him as he was shot eleven times in the head and neck, the shooter obviously knew he was wearing a vest. Roman Kordinski was now a multi-billionaire. The problem was that the Chechen Mafia was now stronger in Moscow than his Russian organisation. The Chechen gangs were pouring their profits into buying arms and munitions to supply the Chechen rebels in their fight for independence against Russia. To them the business was part of a Jihad, a religious war against Russian invaders. It made them more determined and brutal than Kordinski`s men, making Moscow a dangerous place for him to live. He had survived several assassination attempts and managed to avoid lengthy prison sentences by a mixture of bribery and intimidation.

Roman moved his operational base to the UK in an attempt to raise his profile as an international celebrity. It would be far more difficult for him to be assassinated in the West if he were in the public eye. In 2002 he purchased an ailing football club, and with his millions he attracted the brightest young talent available to play for them. He became a household name quickly across Europe and the West by donating publicly to popular charities. He made himself untouchable but he still maintained a heavy security presence wherever he went. Now he was arriving at the Russian embassy for a meeting he was anticipating since the day he moved west. The Russian President had bullied the Kremlin into constitutional changes, which outlawed the ownership or control of Russian assets from outside of Russia itself. Roman Kordinski was Polish by birth and could not return to Russia without fearing for his life or his liberty. The Kremlin had served him with a termination notice, which effectively returned all his stock options to the state. His business interests in Russia, which were worth billions, would not be worth a penny. He had ninety days to comply and handover the running of the companies to the Russian government. His oil company pumped twenty-five thousand barrels of crude oil per day, with ninety days left that equalled 2250000 barrels. He had to force OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) to increase the cost of a barrel of crude oil significantly, to enable him to maximise his profits over the ninety days that he had left. That is the reason why he had arranged for the kidnapping of Jeannie Kellesh. The Saudis thought that she was dead, although no body was found. They would soon find out that she was in fact alive, however if they didn’t cooperate with Roman Kordinski then she wouldn’t live much longer.