On a Kangaroo Court Trial for Fraud in Kazakhstan?! | Paradise Lost

for New Yorker mark seidenfeld it was the chance of a lifetime to run one of kazakhstan's growing telephone companies this was really a great opportunity sort of an adventure if you will but K you and kill everybody who loves you but the dream job turned to a nightmare when Mark fell on the wrong side of a local power broker of course this is quite a dangerous thing to do in uh an environment like Kazakhstan it would see Mark flung into o Bleak Siberian jail dragged thousands of miles in a prison Train full of violent criminals before facing trial on trumped up charges I suddenly get the sinking feeling that things are not going as planned [Music] I was living in New York City last job had finished and was looking around for new opportunity I had looked around in the US and 9/11 had sort of canceled out a lot of opportunities that I had been looking at over there one day I'm just reading the newspaper and in the the employment section there's this big block letter ad saying you know opportunity for COO of telephone company in Kazakhstan and I'm thinking this is cool what I did was just you know took my resume and fax it to the number listed in the advertisement and promptly forgot about it next morning I get a phone call how soon can we meet and I'm sitting there you know looking at the phone trying to figure out is this real what did I get myself into and you know should I actually go to the interview or not but unemployed and with his marriage over Mark did go to the interview a month later he arrived in almati to become the chief executive of one of kazakhstan's new telecoms companies Anor I knew very little about Kazakhstan as the airplane lands you you get a view of this amazing mountain range which you know stretches basically as far as the eye can [Music] see first thing that that hits you when you're leaving the airport and driving into town on the outskirts you know you're still looking at the drab Soviet era you know gray huge apartment blocks and then as you go in you start seeing these very attention grabbing buildings across roads between Asia and Europe almati had once been a stopping point on the Silk Road to China now with the fall of Communism and independence from Russia thanks to its vast oil reserves Kazakhstan was booming almati was an extremely and still is an extremely dynamic city make mistake this is no Borat this is a place that has its highrises its investment bankers the oil companies the five-star hotels if someone at that point in time was looking for an unparalleled opportunity for business adventure it would be hard to beat what Kazakhstan offered at the time for Mark who was just 34 it was a huge break although he'd worked in telecoms before he'd never run a company there's a certain amount of apprehension you're in a new country it's a new set of responsibilities as confident that you may be in in your abilities you know there's still that much that's that's a challenge to yourself that you're going to have to get through it was early 2002 when Mark began work as chief executive of honor it was really weird because you you walk in and all the people are looking at you with a mixture of say apprehension or not really knowing and you know all these thoughts are going through my head of yes I can do it but then there's that little voice in back saying well better make sure you can anor's chairman was British Banker John Ward someone with considerable experience of working in the new markets of the former Soviet Union my Impressions when I first met him was perhaps M Brash young man in a hurry to get to wherever he wants to be he clearly has uh an ability to translate that energy into action which is uh the attribute I came to admire [Music] most Mark's brief was simple grow the company into a lucrative business which could then be sold on for a tidy profit the higher value the company had upon exit the larger bonus that a significant amount of the management team would get myself included I was well aware of the way that business is conducted and the risks and opportunities that that involved so when I started working kazakstan I was pretty convinced that I was well prepared for anything that might [Music] [Applause] [Music] happen after several months at the helm of telecoms company Anna Mark seidenfeld thought he was getting the hang of doing business kazak style having good connections and networking especially in these parts of the world are very important to getting your business done once a month there would be a get together primarily of expats the business community and they called it the Kindred Spirits so this was a group of people at society that Dona bottles uh for a very pleasant evening which involved drinking as much more whiskey as you could possibly uh tolerate and included that would be uh some rather nice cigars marks saw this as a way of promoting his business and himself as uh as part of the process of getting to know people this just allowed us to go directly to the top if you figure on the total amount spent on these bottles of whiskey and cigars and the amount of contracts that we got out of it uh it was probably the most uh cost effective uh marketing that in the history of business of course uh any business that's operating in uh these Emerging Markets it's always useful to have someone who knows how the system works for Mark seidenfeld that man was Murat zuno Anna shareholder local Mr Fixit and power broker Murat makes a tremendous first impression he's an extremely physically fit individual he has a black Bel in iido he dresses in the finest and latest Italian Fashions which if I remember correctly he makes a biannual trip to Milan to uh you know to stock up his English is very very good and in general gave a very very good impression of someone that I'd be able to work with when they hired me I was told that I have this tremendously easy job because all of these issues that had to deal with politics government licensing all of this would be taken off my shoulders and morat this would be his full-time job dealing with these issues morat zof is an interesting character and when you meet him you meet a very aane very well educated very pleasant very personal individual um it's only when one gets to know him a little better that perhaps the things that he says uh are not the things that he's going to do and perhaps the methods that he uses to achieve whatever ends he's seeking uh a less than fair and less than above for thanks to Mark 6 months after joining Anna the phone company was booming when I got to Arna we were dealing in voice only and in one city on a month-to-month basis we had already doubled revenues we were in five cities we were doing data Internet satellite you name it and it was a company that everyone knew and had a reputation for being Dynamic ahead of the curve on top of Technology life in general was you know about as good as it gets to get there Mark had to make some tough decisions the company had more employees than it needed to get the job done a lot of those were people that had been hired because they were friends of or relatives of either current or past shareholders or high level employees going to have to let you go there were a number of um positions which were filled by people who technically weren't really up to the job or had no technical knowledge whatsoever many of those people owed their jobs to influential Anna shareholder and fixer morat zenov [Music] usually I would have a talk with them explaining that you actually have to earn your salary which for some people was a very radical concept I need you to do so there were some difficult decisions that Mark had to make most of these people because of their friendship to morat they felt that they were Untouchable and at first they would say well do you know who I am or that morat hired me know that's that's really wonderful I understand that morat's involved in a variety of different businesses and I think you can ask him for a job in one of them but here at Arna you know this is you you got to earn your keep this is your seventh package and of course this is quite a dangerous thing to do in uh an environment like Kazakhstan because uh this would be seen as a rejection not of the individual but of the person who was promoting [Music] him who do you think you're talking to huh I am m m you remember m huh when morat heard that his cronies had been fired he began threatening his chief executive Mark seidenfeld I came to the realization that you know morat has sort of two sides to him one is the rational business side he then becomes this you know emotional uncontrollable Mr Hyde and you know that definitely created uh a certain amount of fear no one really expected myself included for any of those threats to transpire into anything tangible he did not attend another board meeting after that um one can only suppose that he was not a happy man but his anger didn't stop Mark now Anna's CEO turned his sights on morat himself he had a fixed salary but in addition to that fixed salary he had U basically unlimited expenses we paid rent on a fairly nice house uh full-time security guards both for the house and for him personally car driver and all of this amount you know generally came out to between1 and $200,000 a year Mor would hand in let's say in a month you know $1,000 worth of restaurant bills I'd say Mor what's that for and he would say oh it was for taking various people out to dinner or to discuss various strategy or a new contract But as time went on and we're not getting the contracts and we're not getting our issues taken care of then it calls into question as to why are we spending this money he was costing us this significant amount of money yet uh virtually none of the tasks that he had been assigned none of them were being accomplished it was agreed that this contract should be terminated but unfortunately it was Mark who had to actually sit down with him and say the contract is not an in what has to be done has to be done so I can't say that there was a fear of giving him the news although by this time we knew him well enough to expect that he would attempt some type of uh Revenge sure this is what you want but I think we just made a very very bad decision he lost his contract and at that time I guess it was probably one or his only source of livelihood and he saw Mark as the instrument by which these actions were executed but I don't think any of us um thought that uh uh he would take the actions that he did as you can see over the last four years with Murat out of the way Mark was able to get back to the business of growing Anor by 2004 after 2 years running the company its profits had tripled it was time to put Anor on the market and for Mark and his European investors to cash in selling the company or finding buyers for the company was about as easy as as you could imagine 10 different buyers came forward to express interest one of them was shareholder Murad zenov himself I was at a telecom show in Europe at the time and received a hysterical phone call from morat this is not problem this is your problem threatening yelling it was really difficult to make sense of what he was saying he was absolutely livid that we would have the uh the audacity to go in there and offer a competing bid which was actually better for the shareholders but you kill everybody who loves you you understand morat finally succeeded in buying Anor but it was only through bidding $5 million more than he'd originally bargained for 5 million that would come back to haunt Mark seidenfeld Mor has said quite openly that Mark was responsible for him paying I think $5 million too much for the business within just a couple of hours of morat taking control of Anna Mark and his senior management team were fired Mark himself was accused of embezzling $40,000 of Anna's money the wording that they used was that we were temporarily being dismissed pending an investigation into the finances of the company we did register with the US Embassy and the US Embassy for whatever reason said look you know this is you know you're not in Kansas anymore so to speak and gave us their uh their 24-hour hotline and said you know we're not expecting anything to happen but if anything does or if you feel in any type of danger why don't you give us a call although an independent investigation quickly cleared his name mark decided to leave Kazakhstan thinking that would be the last he would ever hear of Muran [Music] [Applause] zenov he moved to Moscow and soon found a new job with a large Russian mobile phone company I was able to land a good position with the top telecoms company uh in Russia with a very bright career path in front of me now fluent in Russian Mark quickly settled into life in the capital with him was his new Russian girlfriend natia we met for the first time when he asked me to lunch we worked in the same office when I saw him he was handsome and well-dressed like a James Bond character we had a good conversation which led to a relationship Mark's new role involved traveling all over Russia drumming up business one such trip in late 2005 took him to the remote Siberian town of bovens close to the border with [Music] China this was the last business trip that I was going to be making during that calendar year and Nati and I were scheduled to go to Morocco on vacation with some friends of ours he was at the airport about to board a plane home when he was cool aside the ticket agent turns to a policeman that was standing nearby and based on what usually happens I just thought that this guy is going to check my papers and my registration which is something normally done to foreigners he starts opening and looking and checking my passport against this paper and I see the words on this paper Kazakhstan and Arna I suddenly get this sinking feeling that things are not going as planned what's going on [Music] when I get to the police station that's when they start telling me that oh you're there's a warrant out from kazakstan we're going to extradite you and you're going to be placed in prison probably by that time you I've crossed the border and or gone through airports on maybe 30 40 occasions since leaving Kazakhstan it it just didn't compute emotionally it is very insane and shocking to to have this happen but the emotions didn't kick in first Mark was thrown into a police cell with other local criminals but he was allowed one phone call to his girlfriend natia hi NAA remember the threats that morat made in Kazakhstan it seems that they've come true I've been arrested I hope this works out as soon as you know as soon as possible whatever happens I want you to know that I love you and that was the end of the phone call it was early in the morning around 5:00 the phone rang and it was kind of unexpected I was shocked and I expected it to be a wrong number it turned out that Mark was wanted in Kazakhstan on the same old trumped up charges of embezzling Anna's funds the accusations had been spelled out previously in great detail they had been proven false the charges that Kazakhstan was seeking my extradition for were those exact same charges with the exact same so to speak proofs American telecoms Executive Mark seidenfeld had been arrested on the way home to Moscow from a business trip to Siberia it looked as if his old adversary morat zenov was behind it the reason for arresting me there is very simple uh if I would be in Moscow all my friends uh NAA people from work would be able to come and give me moral support by having me arrested in blavin that's even more disorienting this is not a hop skip and a jump you know the flights aren't even you know daily or anything like that it put that much more pressure on me and it was that much more of a Revenge if found guilty by a kazak court Mark faced up to 10 years in prison second or third day is I probably when I started the the really most probably the most difficult period in my life ever because that's when it's hit home that I am now behind a lock and key in a prison and all that starts to really really get to you BL ofish is an extremely cold place and it can get down to -40 -50 uh celsus and just to be able to sleep we would take plastic soda bottles and warm up water this hot water bottle would give you enough warmth to allow you to go to sleep after a couple hours I would be waking up from the cold and then have to go through the whole process again of getting more hot water to put into these bottles so to get 6 hours of sleep there were at least you know three changes of water [Music] you are in your cell for 23 hours a day there's 1 hour of exercise and you get taken out to this uh it's not even a yard it's basically a concrete patio if you will and to keep my health I would just circle around the perimeter first couple of months I did this I did it running but when you're running in such a small perimeter you have to constantly lean and that eventually caused some major pain in my knee and I had to stop that so I I uh changed over to just fast walking by my measurements I was able to do between uh 3 and 4 km a day of walking the question comes up of do you think did you ever think of escaping if you for one thing is how there are armed guards High walls barbed wire and and number two from a practical sense okay let's say you've made it out of the Prison Walls I'm an American I'm in Siberia where am I going to [Music] go after 23 days behind bars Mark's lawyer finally arrived with an extraordinary offer from Murat himself morat will make sure that I am kept in prison unless Ransom is paid to him in the amount of $5 million $5 million the exact same amount that Murat thought he'd overpaid when he bought Anna I have no idea where morat could conceive that I would come up with anywhere near that amount of cash it was quite obvious that morat had used either money influence or both to uh have the the police pursue this and issue an extradition warrant my thoughts about Morata at that time was that I think this gentleman means psychological care because he can't let go of something that was fought out if you will honest and fair I did my job I'm proud that I did it and I wouldn't have done it any other way prison's not a nice place there's no customer service hotline if you're not happy with the conditions now there are definitely sadistic guards around in the prison systems that you know that beat that break ribs that break arms you know the less friendly guards obviously sort of took I guess pleasure in the fact that they see you suffering at one point this gorilla basically slams me against the wall because he's a foreigner Mark was moved into a cell alone while his lawyers tried to secure his release maybe the first while that I was in solitary there was a perception of this might be [Music] good but then the tricks that your mind starts playing and and the tremendous psychological pressure your mind is used to actually working doing something thinking of things you're used to solving problem problems all of this is gone you're basically an an animal in a cage you don't have any freedom you don't have any control over anything you're isolated and boredom is torture Not only was there the shock of of being arrested and now having my freedom taken away from me but I have no one to talk to I have no one to commiserate with and I'm bored as hell with nothing nothing to do but to think about the process which is a vicious cycle cuz the more you think about it the worse it gets [Music] [Music] well all all three meals were sort of mystery goulash type of stuff this is the food that's served three times a day 7 days a week 365 a year occasionally mark would get an old newspaper or magazine when I got this reading material what I would force myself to do is read up to a certain amount and then try to space out try to daydream try to sleep or do something so that you know the the magazine or the book at that time was by far my most treasured possession by the time I had been under arrest for about 5 weeks I get called out and I think I'm just going to someone in the administration or maybe another medical check and I get taken to the the visitation room and not his sitting over [Music] there of course I was very nervous and I didn't want to let him know I was I I I was just o overcome with so many emotions at once because I'm one hand I'm feeling so guilty for putting her through all this yet at the same time I'm I'm Overjoyed that she is supporting me and that she has come out here [Music] here for a long time he hadn't seen anyone there was no support or even a lawyer so naturally there was a whole confusion of emotions fear love everything natia decided to stay in Siberia to support mark couldn't afford to abandon him or give him an excuse to break down after 4 weeks of solitary confinement Mark's legal team was no nearer to securing his release firing his lawyers he finally decided that he had no alternative but to return to Kazakhstan to face trial but there was a very real risk the much could be in the pay of Murat [Music] zov I was not certain at all that there would be a fair trial you know you're dealing with what essentially is a third world country that does not have a Judicial tradition I had absolutely no expectations Russia has a system for transporting prisoners over their vast territory and they transport prisoners by train the 2 and 1 half th000 M train journey from blav vens to almati would take over a month stopping along the way to pick up and drop off prisoners at some of Russia's most notorious jails in my case it was seven stops between Flavin and almati prison and basically get on a train spend anywhere between 4 and 72 hours on that train and then be let off at the local prison where that you know the prison truck would transport you and then you go through all the procedures of being booked in and registered and staying in that local prison anywhere from uh 48 hours up to uh 8 days I am nervous I haven't been able to sleep with each kilometer down I felt I'm getting closer to some type of resolution the demeanor of the guards would range for the whole spectrum of human personalities and you'd have some guys who would actually interact with you as with another human being you know all the way to the other end of some really sadistic guys who would treat you like you're just a piece of garbage the worst thing about the prison train has to be the bathrooms in each car there's there can be 50 60 prisoners there's one bathroom by the time you're a couple hours into the trip by the time the first time they've made the runs and let everyone go to the bathroom this is is not someplace you want to visit there was one thing that kept Mark going natia who followed the train as it rumbled across the Siberian landscape natia managed to come to every city that I was during my train trip at every stop at every station I tried to catch a glimpse of him and to make sure that he saw me so that we could support each other with a glance I would instruct a lawyer to see him every day pass food to him so that he wouldn't be alone if NAA hadn't been involved the whole way through I would be you one of two two things I'd either be dead or I'd be on a Funny Farm after 32 days on the prison train Mark finally arrived in almati for his day in court accused of embezzling 4 ,000 from his old company Anna he was facing a trial that could see him imprisoned for a [Music] decade I always knew that I was innocent and I always knew that the facts and the documentation proved that it had been very obvious that the only way they even got the case started was through corruption as far as I understand in most of the former Soviet Union if you have been accused of a crime have spent any time Behind Bars even if it's something that you have obviously not committed the 99% chance is that you will be convicted the allegations against Mark had already been investigated by independent auditors and dismissed there was only one reason they'd been dragged up again Murat zenov and his Vendetta against Mark I was enormously um frightened and apprehensive because to sustain the charges clearly the system was not being allowed to operate in the normal way the charges had no substance uh but of course Mark being in prison in the first place meant that the system had been interfered with extradited from Russia American Executive Mark seidenfeld was back in the kazak capital of almati on trial for fraud we're getting conflicting reports to the to the very end as to this is going to be a fear trial this is not going to be a fear trial I'm nervous my lawyer's nervous Na's nervous a succession of prosecution witnesses were called to testify against Mark all of them proteges of Anna's new owner Murat zenov at the heart of the case was the evidence of Anna's former cashier I think one moment during the trial really stands out in my mind which was when the cashier herself was forced to admit under the cross-exam ination of the judge that she had not written the complaint or the accusation on her own but that she had been put up to it and had not even written it had basically signed her name at the bottom of a paper that murat's lawyers had prepared for her the evidence that this cashier had presented was complete rubbish manipulated partial information which no counter was going to place any value on despite the fact that every single witness for the prosecution had been totally discredited totally ripped to shreds there was still no way to know where the trial would go because by declaring me innocent the judge was basically declaring the law enforcement agencies as incompetent and in the worst case corrupt and that is not usually done in the former Soviet Union the trial was becoming a battle between Mark's word and that of the man pulling the strings behind the scenes Murat we made a motion to the court that morat must be called as a witness morat Z Miss and the judge asked well where is morat and they said oh it turns out that he is running a marathon in China the judge herself actually laughed a little bit and said oh sure and nobody knew about this on Friday well I guess he's just you know not a man enough to come here and actually see this through at the end of a long week of testimony a tangled web of false accusations and forged documentation had clouded the truth Mark's Freedom now depended on whether the judge would take an honest view of the evidence before her nervous as hell the judge starts reading and I'm just hearing the judge recount word for word the accusation and I'm thinking this is not good oh my God I'm going to be convicted na is listening I'm looking at her and I'm seeing that she's starting to cry we well knew what kind of country this was and what could be in store for us so I couldn't be 100% sure whether he would get off or be sentenced worst comes to worse they'll send me to a penal colony when we heard those manic Words aan which is acquitted the court room literally started cheering and [Applause] clapping and Mark is entitled to full compensation for moral and actual damages which which is a verdict that that happens maybe one in 500 in the former Soviet Union in a legal system notorious for its corruption Mark had been saved by an honest judge when the judge read the verdict of not guilty of course I was very happy to hear it because that is what we had all hoped for such a very long time [Music] a as a free person finally be able to give her a tremendous hug I it's the hug that finally has the promise of future and Freedom the court marshall uh just according to protocol is supposed to take me back down to the holding cell until my papers are signed and sealed so they can release me and as he started to do that the judge sees this from across the room calls out saying do do not take him back down to the holding cell take him straight to my Chambers I will sign the papers immediately this guy sat long enough he's not going to sit a minute more relieved is an understatement right he was he was pleased uh that he could actually walk in the open street again that he could go and buy a pizza he could just spend time with NAA if it hadn't been for Nia's devotion and love I wouldn't be here today I would either not be among the living or I'd probably be in a padded cell somewhere laughing and screaming but though the trial was over the threat from morat had not gone [Applause] away we were of course worried that you know having not been able to punish me in the way that he wanted to using or bending the legal system that there is a possibility of course that he could resort to something more primitive and crude wasted no time I immediately traveled across the border to kirgistan [Music] today Mark is back in Moscow still working in the telecoms business he and natia are still together and engaged to be married Mark seidenfeld has no plans to return to Kazakhstan this whole experience has definitely made me a bit more careful I think that any expat who goes out to these places should be well aware that the danger exists take the proper precautions as much as you can and then cross your fingers and pray because all of those precautions may not help you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: True Crime Central

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Keywords: Australian Crime, Crime Stories, Jeffrey Dahmer, Serial Killers, Ted Bundy, True Crime, True Crime Central, asmr, cases, cold cases, community, crim, crime, crime recaps, doco, documentary, full episodes, gangsters, murder, murder mystery, podcast, podcasts, recap, treu crime, true crime, true crime addict, true crime asmr, true crime podcast, true crime recaps

Id: xBJIyzUzOPE

Length: 44min 44sec (2684 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 03 2024