My Counterterrorism Magazine Piece On Colonel Yuri's Murder Squad: Russian Intelligence Conspired To Finance Terrorism And Commit Murder In The U.S.

Counterterrorism magazine published my piece on a Russian murder squad operating in the U,S,

 You can read the piece via the pages above and below or the following text:

 Colonel Yuri's Murder Squad: Russian Intelligence Conspired To Finance 

Terrorism and Commit Murder for Hire in the U.S. 

By Paul Davis

Back in 2019 the Washington Times ran my review of Heidi Black’s “From Russia With Blood.”

I opened the review by quoting Ben Macintyre, a columnist for the London Times and the author of “The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War,” “A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal,” and more recently, “Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War’s Most Extraordinary Spy.”

Macintyre wrote about a Russian GRU (military intelligence) assassination group operating in Europe that is the descendant of the Soviet assassination organization SMERSH, (Smertʹ Shpionam, or “Death To Spies.”).

“If the idea of a ruthless spy-killing unit sounds like the stuff of fiction, that’s because it became precisely that,” Ben Macintyre wrote in his London Times column. “In the James Bond novels, Ian Fleming portrayed SMERSH as a massive counterintelligence network that more closely resembled the KGB.”

In Ian Fleming’s classic 1957 thriller “From Russia With Love,” James Bond was the target of a SMERSH plot to assassinate him and discredit British intelligence in a sex scandal. SMERSH sent out from Russia a psychopath assassin named Red Grant to kill Bond and used a beautiful Russian girl as bait to lure 007 to Istanbul.

Ben Macintyre wrote in his London Times column that the real SMERSH was effective in not only murdering Soviet traitors (some of whom were undoubtedly innocent, he noted), but SMERSH also instilled terror among potential enemies and enforced obedience in Soviet citizens.

“And now it is back, with a new name and a new remit but essentially the same purpose: to put the fear of God, and assassination, into Russia’s enemies, traitors and deserters,” Macintyre wrote. “According to intelligence sources, Unit 29155 is an elite sub-unit of GRU assassins that operated out of the Haute-Savoie in the French Alps, conducting a variety of wet jobs across Europe: notably the attempted poisoning in Salisbury of GRU officer-turned-MI6 spy Sergei Skripal, and the attempt to kill a Bulgarian arms dealer in 2015.”

Heidi Blake’s “From Russia With Blood” (a clever take on Ian Fleming’s “From Russia With Love” title), lifts the veil off a series of murders in the United Kingdom and places blame squarely on Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

And now, according to the U.S. Justice Department, Russia has a new murder squad headed by Yuri Khrameev, a Russian intelligence officer also known as “Colonel Yuri.”

The Justice Department announced on September 15^th the unsealing of charges against five individuals working for the intelligence services of the Russian Federation to conduct attacks and murders around the world, including in the United States. 

As detailed in the unsealed indictment, the network is alleged to have, among other things, paid and attempted to pay individuals within the United States and elsewhere to conduct pre-operational surveillance and carry out targeted killings, and commissioned associates to commit and attempt to commit acts of terrorism against civilian and military infrastructure in European countries that are aligned, or perceived to be aligned, with Ukraine. The defendants remain at large.

“It is our job to stop America’s adversaries from unleashing violence and terror on American soil,” said Attorney General Todd Blanche. “And that’s precisely what we are doing thanks to the work of the FBI and our Justice Department prosecutors.”

FBI Director Kash Patel added, “The charges announced reveal an alleged plot by the Russian intelligence services to murder a dissident on U.S. soil for daring to speak out against the Russian government. As alleged in the indictment, this plot exposes the lengths to which our adversaries will go to silence its critics and illustrates the grave threat transnational repression poses to the lives and freedoms of all who challenge authoritarian regimes. The FBI is committed to defending the free speech of everyone within our homeland and will not tolerate any attempts by foreign governments to violate our laws and threaten our freedoms.”

Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI New York Field Office James C. Barnacle Jr. stated, “As alleged in this indictment, members of the Russian Intelligence Services and their affiliates conspired to intimidate, threaten, or murder people on U.S. soil and around the world. The FBI disrupted this operation through relentless work and rock-solid partnership. The FBI is committed to confronting transnational repression wherever it occurs and protecting those targeted for exercising their fundamental rights. We thank the multiple FBI Field Offices and the U.S. Attorney’s Office whose coordination and commitment made this disruption possible.” 

According to the Justice Department, since at least 2024, a network of individuals working for the intelligence services of the Russian Federation (the “RIS Network”) has conspired to conduct and conducted attacks and murders around the world, including within the United States. The RIS Network is one arm of the Russian Federation’s apparatus to carry out external attacks, including murder, and has focused on Russian dissidents and defectors and, most recently, on nations perceived as allies of Ukraine. Most recently, members of the RIS Network have attempted to recruit multiple individuals within the United States to carry out pre-operational surveillance and murder within this country.

As the Justice department noted, three of the defendants are high-ranking members of the RIS Network. Those three defendants are:  Yuri Khrameev, or “Colonel Yuri,” 63, of Russia, a former colonel in the Russian intelligence services who has participated in the recruitment of multiple individuals to commit murder against perceived Russian dissidents; Kirill Khrameev, 27, of Russia, an officer in the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) and Yuri Khrameev’s son; and Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, 35, a Cuban national who is an influential member of the Cuban diaspora living in Russia who has coordinated attacks for the RIS Network. Two additional members of the RIS Network who are charged in the indictment are Yaidel Delgado Suarez, also known as “Viking,” 35, of Cuba, who is a prolific recruiter for the RIS Network and who has recruited or attempted to recruit multiple individuals in the United States; and Angel Eduardo Castro, 22, of Venezuela, who participated with Suarez in the recruitment of U.S.-based individuals to surveil and attempt to murder a prominent U.S.-based Russian dissident (Victim-1).

“The RIS Network has allegedly carried out or conspired to carry out multiple schemes around the world. Most recently, this summer, the RIS Network recruited an individual based in the United States (U.S. Resident-1) to surveil and murder a prominent Russian dissident they believed to be residing in the United States. Among other things, Suarez sent U.S. Resident-1 two locations associated with Victim-1 to surveil; provided U.S. Resident-1 with explicit instructions on how to conduct surveillance; and promised U.S. Resident-1 between $1,000 and $1,500 dollars to carry out the pre-operational surveillance, “the Justice Department stated. “In turn, U.S. Resident-1 conducted the requested surveillance and passed back to Suarez multiple photographs and videos of locations associated with Victim-1. Suarez and Castro further offered U.S. Resident-1 $40,000 to “eliminate” or “disappear” Victim-1 and, when U.S. Resident-1told them that he did not want to carry out the murder by his own hand, asked U.S. Resident-1 if he knew “someone [who] can do the work.”  Suarez also told U.S. Resident-1 that he had “people in Mexico” who could otherwise carry out the murder, but they were delayed in doing so. In addition, Suarez attempted to recruit multiple other individuals within the United States to conduct pre-operational surveillance and murder Victim-1 and other potential targets within the United States and offered them substantial sums of money to carry out the targeting of the U.S. based victims.”

The Justice Department explained that the alleged attempted murder of Victim-1 is the latest in the RIS Network’s efforts.

“Last year, as alleged in the indictment, the RIS Network solicited a U.S. Citizen (U.S. Citizen-1) to surveil and murder an individual located in Lithuania (Victim-2) who the RIS Network described as a “bad guy” who was “telling lies about Russia.”  Kirill Khrameev first recruited U.S. Citizen-1 to travel to Victim-2’s purported address and take pictures. After U.S. Citizen-1 accepted and completed the assignment in exchange for a promise of $200, Kirill Khrameev introduced U.S. Citizen-1 to someone he described as his “boss” and a “colonel,” later identified as Yuri Khrameev. Yuri Khrameev then offered U.S. Citizen-1 approximately $25,000 to “kill him” — that is, Victim-2. Yuri Khrameev further told U.S. Citizen-1 that they wanted Victim-2 dead because he was “spreading dirt about my country” and “distorting history.”  Yuri Khrameev then sent U.S. Citizen-1 a photograph of Victim-2 and described that he could be murdered by “throwing a bottle of gasoline” or “sticking a knife” in him. After U.S. Citizen-1 declined to carry out the murder, Yuri Khrameev offered to give him a “simpler job” which could include “set[ting] fire to a warehouse of property or food” or “throw[ing] a bottle of gasoline at an electrical substation.”  Yuri Khrameev made clear to U.S. Citizen-1 that the purpose was to target “all the countries that are helping Ukraine” and that he was offering “serious money for serious work.”  Finally, Yuri Khrameev confirmed that he was a “colonel of Russian intelligence agencies.””

The RIS Network has also allegedly recruited others to carry out acts of terrorism overseas. Oemis Romagoza Durruthy coordinated travel and logistics for the network. In or about June 2024, Durruthy coordinated an attack in Prague, Czechia, including by sending another participant potential attack sites and facilitating that participant’s travel. In or about September 2024, Durruthy coordinated another attack in Lithuania in which he booked travel reservations for another individual involved in the attack and had frequent and ongoing communications with an individual involved in the attack. Durruthy also communicated with Yuri Khrameev in or about November 2025, during which Durruthy obtained media of one of Victim-1’s dwellings, which was ultimately surveilled by U.S. Resident-1 this year. 

Yuri Khrameev, Kirill Khrameev, Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, Yaidel Delgado Suarez, and Angel Eduardo Castro are all charged with participating in a conspiracy to finance terrorism (Count One), which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Yuri Khrameev, Suarez, and Castro are also charged with participating in a conspiracy to commit murder for hire (Count Two), which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

The Counterintelligence Division of the FBI New York Field Office investigated the case, with the significant assistance of the Washington Field Office and Homeland Security Investigations. 

Paul Davis, a longtime contributor to the Journal, also writes the online Threatcon column that covers crime, espionage and terrorism. 

My Counterterrorism Magazine Q&A With James M. Scott, Author Of 'Empire Of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito And The Descent Into Total War'

Counterterrorism magazine published my Q&A with James M. Scott, the author of Empire of Ashes. 

You can read the interview via the pages above and below or the following text:

 The IACSP Q&A With James M. Scott, the Author of “Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito and The Descent Into Total War.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestseller, James M. Scott is a noted military historian and the author “Black Snow,” “Rampage,” “Target Tokyo,” “The War Below,” and “The Attack on the Liberty,” and co-author, with Jack Carr, of “Targeted: Beirut.”

His most recent book is “Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Decent Into Total War.”

Jame M. Scott, a former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, is also a sought-after public speaker who leads battlefield tours and lectures at institutions around the world. He lives with his wife and two children in Charleston, South Carolina, where he is the Scholar in Residence at The Citadel. 

James M. Scott was interviewed by Paul Davis

IACSP: I enjoyed your book very much, particularly from the Japanese side, which I hadn't read much about the Japanese side of the equation, and I found that quite interesting.

Scott: It was always something missing in the historic accounts, and now we have access to Japanese sources. Now we have survivors, such as people who were children then, and Japanese archival sources. So, it's important and readers expect that. They want to know all 360 degrees of the perspectives of what it was like. I've got a lot of great contacts over there and I go back pretty much yearly for tours. So, it's not as difficult these days to get access to the sources. I think it's an important part of the story.

IACSP: I served on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War, and we did an R&R visit to Japan in 1971. After a couple of days in Sasebo, I took a train ride to Nagasaki and visited the atomic bomb museum. There were a lot of elderly Japanese crying. It was fascinating, yet sad and horrible. But in my view, dropping the atomic bombs was quite necessary. Would you please tell us about your career and background as a historian and an author?

Scott: For my first job out of college when I graduated in 1997, I was a public-school teacher in Japan. So, I went over there. I had no background studies in Japanese, but Japan has a program where they bring in about the 2,400 each in the public schools system. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life at the time, but I had some friends who done it and really enjoyed it. I thought, well you know what I'm going to spend the abroad again and so what's Japan for a year and it was a really transformative experience for me. And it opened my eyes so much about World War II histories and planted a seed that subsequently blossomed into my career. I went to Hiroshima and weeks later, I flew to Hawaii to meet my parents. My father was a retired naval officer, so in a span of about two weeks, I saw the bookends of the America's experience and something just kind of clicked.

I got really interested in it, and I began reading everything I could get my hands on and when I finished up in Japan, I ultimately ended up as a journalist. I wanted to write and I wanted to do something creative and that was about the only job that would pay me to do that. I was a newspaper reporter for about eight years and when I was about 30, I did a Nieman fellowship at Harvard. We did a lot that year in the journalism program and I saw what was going to happen to journalism and I realized that I was going to be struggling, so I realized I needed to probably change gears. So, I switched and started writing books. That was 20 years ago.

I’ve written eight books and I was able to rekindle my interest in World War II, focusing on the war in the Pacific. I went back to school, and I got my master’s in military history and I’m wrapping up my PhD right now. So, I've gone from a circuitous route falling into academia the backway. I've been really lucky. I've focused on the battle of Manila, the Doolittle Raid, the firebombing of Japan, and the atomic bombing. I also lead tours of the National War Museum and the cultural experience in the UK. I spent a lot of time taking tourists to the Philippines and Japan and leading a tour for the 85th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.  

IACSP: I’ve read about Harry Truman and that side, although you have details I didn't know, but how did you research the book especially to find details about the Japanese emperor and his cabinet?

Scott: I spent a lot of time at the Truman Library, going through the personal papers of people like Henry Simpson on that side, and I've been in Japan where I did interviews with the survivors of the atomic bomb. I spent an entire weekend with a survivor and his wife. Japan has some amazing artifacts, such as the gramophone record that the emperor made in the NHK museum, so I spent time in Japan looking at these artifacts and kind of pulling it all together.

IACSP: Do you speak Japanese?

Scott: No, but having visited there many times I know phrases and whatnot, but I been really lucky that I’ve met some great folks over the years that have helped me out like translators, fixers, and things like. I can get Japanese books and use translation apps for research.

IACSP: How does the Pacific War differ from the European War?

Scott: I always like to say that the Pacific War is a more American experience, and by that, I mean that the war in Europe is an allied fight. We were fighting alongside our allies, but the Pacific War is a uniquely American theater. It's so dominated by the Americans, and every single service branch played a unique and vital role in that war. Naval aviation really came into its zenith at that time, the Battle of the Coral Sea being an example. It’s the first time two opposing navies fight the entire battle without ever actually seeing one another. They fought entirely with planes in the sky. The submarines also played a critical role in strangling Japan's economy, as well as the rise of the of amphibious warfare and how they figured out how to take Japanese-held islands and adapt their hardware. You go from the tragedy of Tarawa to the success of Saipan. And you have strategic bombings by the air service. On top of all that, add in the logistics, think of what it takes to fight a war on the opposite side of the ocean. The Nazis capture the imagination more than the Japanese. I think people just love Nazis.

IACSP: Yeah, Nazis make good cinematic villains. But the Imperial Japanese were equally evil in my view, and equally brutal.

Scott: It was a different type of brutality. Germans were industrializing on how they killed people using gas champers and bulldozers. The Japanese fought using bayonets and swords. Look at the battle of Manila. It’s a blood-soaked kind of barbarian all across Asia.

IACSP: I think you did a fine job of portraying Harry Truman as well as Japanese Emperor Hirohrito. Truman is clearly well known to Americans, but Hirohito is not. How would you briefly describe the two world leaders?

Scott: You could not have two more opposite figures. Probably the only thing that's the two men shared in common was the mutual love of history. Truman grew up reading about Alexander the Great and Hirohito had a bust of Abraham Lincoln and read Carl Sandberg’s biography of Lincoln. Other than being really interested in history, these guys came from completely different backgrounds. Truman was a product of poverty in rural America, and Hirohito was this lonely, isolated monarch. He’s not particularly bright or brilliant, just like Truman wasn't. 

Truman was really a hard-working individual, and Hirohito was isolated not just family but also culture. He was not a dominant personality. Truman had a much stronger personality. Hirohito was nervous and twitchy, although he kind of comes into his own during World War II, as he recognized the perilous path of the army. He is facing a very militaristic society, and his monarchy has come up alongside the rising power of the military in their efforts to eliminate democratic guardrails powers.

IACSP: You write in detail about the Manhattan Project. How would you describe the two main participants in the project, General Groves and Robert Oppenheimer, and was the film “Oppenheimer” accurate?

Scott: I love General Groves. He reminds me of Curtis Lemay. I wrote a previous book about LeMay. These two are hard-charging guys with engineering backgrounds.  Groves was a very difficult man to work for, and Oppenheimer gets all the attention as he’s morally conflicted. Nobody wants to watch a movie about a really good engineer. At the end of the day, Leslie Groves is like “Bob the Builder.” He just gets stuff done. 

“Oppenheimer” is a really accurate movie. They cut some Hollywood corners, such as stating that Henry Simpson spared Kyoto because he honeymooned there. That comes up all the time. Even Japanese tour guide talk about it. He honeymooned in New Hampshire. He had gone to Kyoto in his capacity while working in the Philippines for the American Governor General. Henry Simpson had a much bigger view than that as he understood what was happening behind the Iron Curtain. Bombing Kyoto would forever damage U.S. relations and a post-war world would need Japan in our camp.

IACSP: My late father, Edward M. Davis, was a Navy Chief Petty Officer and Underwater Demolition Team frogman in the Pacific during World War II. Before he died, I recall him telling me that he attended an intelligence briefing in 1945 in which the UDT frogmen were told they would suffer 90% fatalities when the U.S. invaded Japan, so I'm certainly thankful that Truman dropped the two atomic bombs and avoidance the mass killings of both American and Japanese.

If Japan had not surrendered what would the invasion of Japan look like and how would the US have invaded Japan and how would the Japanese have defended themselves?

Scott: Japanese battle tactics changed dramatically in the last year of the war. They switched over to more of a traditional warfare and the idea is that they wanted to extract the maximum effort to save the emperor and not have war crimes trials against their people. They had a whole list of demands, and they thought, well, if they could make this war as bloody as possible for the American public, they hoped the Americans would give up on the demand for unconditional surrender.

The Japanese army still had five million troops under arms. They were still a very potent enemy. Not only did they have that many troops, but they were also enlisting all their civilians, middle schoolers, grandparents, and they were teaching them how to fight. The idea was that meeting the Americans would be a bloodletting.

IACSP: How did Truman come to make this faithful decision, especially considering that he knew nothing about the involvement of the Manhattan Project prior to becoming president?

Scott: There isn't one pivotal meeting where that happened. What ultimately happens is he's in Potsdam and up until the 10th of July they don't know for certain that the bomb's going to work. When that test proves that they have a workable weapon, they rush Leslie Groves’ report over to Berlin. Truman holds a series of meetings with George Marshall and Churchill, and he kind of gets all the feedback from people, and then he finally records that decision in his diary on July 25^th. Hopefully, this will bring about an end to the war. The decision is made over several days as he's talking to different people and coming to grips with it all. He uses a phrase frequently, stating he wanted to prevent another Okinawa. Okinawa becomes synonymous to him, as it's just a horror of war. As a battle veteran of WWI, he was desperate to try and prevent that from happening again. The firebombing campaign against Japan, which I wrote a book about, is far more destructive in the long run. Japanese cities were burned out. Think of the force that came before the atomic bombs were even used, so it's really the ability to shock the Japanese leaders into surrender.

IACSP: Thank you for speaking to us.

Paul Davis, a Navy veteran, having served on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War, and a retired Defense Department civilian employee, is a longtime contributor to the Journal. He also writes the online Threatcon column. 

My Crime Fiction: 'The Hit"

The below story is chapter 23 of Olongapo, my crime thriller that I hope to publish this year.  

The story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine. 

The Hit

 By Paul Davis

Chief Boatswain’s Mate Mark Mackie was not a popular chief in the USS Kitty Hawk’s Deck Department. The veteran sailor from Nevada served 22 years in the U.S. Navy and worked on a variety of ships in his career. Prior to reporting to the USS Kitty Hawk in 1970, Mackie served on a 50-foot swift boat in Da Nang Harbor in South Vietnam. 

Six feet tall and built like a football lineman, Mackie was a tough, no nonsense senior enlisted leader who inspired respect, if not popularity. He was a stern taskmaster, and he rode his subordinates hard.  

He was especially hard on a 3^rd Class Boatswain’s Mate named Harold Smith, a thin and weak-chinned 25-year-old sailor from New Jersey. Mackie felt that petty officers should work harder than seamen, a notion that BM3 Smith did not agree with at all. Smith thought that once he became a petty officer, he would just tell seamen what to do. Mackie thought Smith was a piss-poor excuse for a petty officer and sailor, and the chief called him a “fuck-up” and a “non-hacker.” 

Also on Chief Mackie’s personal “shit list” was a seaman from Nebraska named Harry Stillman. Chief Mackie called Stillman a disgrace to the United States Navy and a disgrace to the human race. A slovenly, overweight, and somewhat dim 23-year-old, Stillman was a chronic marijuana user. In the days before mandatory drug tests, many young sailors smoked marijuana recreationally, but Stillman took it to an extreme. 

“Do you know why Harry is named Stillman?” a Navy wit asked the sailors in the Deck Department’s berthing compartment. “It’s because he is so fucking wasted on pot he can’t move.” 

Stillman was always buzzed from smoking pot, and the pot gave him the “munchies,” so he snacked continually on large amounts of Coke, Ritz crackers and small cans of Vienna Sausage. He purchased the soda and food from the “Gedunk,” which is what sailors call the ship’s store. 

Stillman was also always first in line at the galley for his three hearty meals a day, and he was a regular nightly visitor to the galley for Midnight Rations, called “MIDRATS.” MIDRATS offered hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and French fries to the sailors going on late watch, as well as to other sailors who liked a late-night fast-food meal.         

Having taken enough abuse from Chief Mackie, Smith suggested to Stillman that they pool their money and hire a Filipino hitman to murder Chief Mackie on the following day when the Kitty Hawk once again visited Subic Bay. Stillman was all for the conspiracy, as long as Smith did all of the planning and work. 

Smith was one of Lorino’s customers, and the meth dealer was asked to join the murder conspiracy and chip in to pay the killer. Lorino passed. Although Lorino was not much of a worker, he got along with Chief Mackie. And what did murdering a tough chief have to do with business? 

Upon the recommendation of Winston, Smith and Stillman went to the Americano in Olongapo and spoke to Walker. Walker introduced the petty officer and the seaman to Banoy Abad. Sitting across from Abad, Smith and Stillman were frightened, but Smith managed to propose that Abad “hit’ Mackie.  

“For one hundred dollar American, I kill the man, sure” Abad told Smith and Stillman. 

Smith, who had $800 dollars on him, was surprised that the scary Filipino criminal would murder Chief Mackie for so little. It was said that life was cheap in Olongapo. Apparently so was death. 

Banoy Abad was a needle-thin and pinched-faced psychopath even before he began to use shabu, but once he became a regular user of crystal meth, he was off the chart crazy and extremely violent. 

Abad, who never knew his father and whose mother was a street prostitute, grew up wild and crazy on the streets of Olongapo. He began his criminal career as a shoeshine boy. While giving a sailor a shoeshine, he would whip out a straight razor and hold it against the unsuspecting sailor’s Achilles Heel. 

The sailors were at first surprised that a little Filipino kid had a razor against their heel. But most sailors knew a laceration of the Achilles tendon was painful and would cripple them, so they pulled out their wallet and gave their cash over to the small street urchin.   

Abad grew up to be a frighting armed robber who preyed on drunk sailors, street vendors and bar girls. He and his partner in crime, Rizalino Cruz, another uber-thin and half-crazed meth-head, were notorious street bandits and murderers.    

Smith told Abad what bar the chief frequented while in Olongapo and he showed the Filipino hitman a photo of the chief. The photo of Chief Mackie had been posted on a bulletin board after he was named “Sailor of the Month.” Smith had ripped the photo off of the bulletin board.

 

Later that evening, as Mackie and a bar girl left the bar, the two Filipino hitmen attacked Mackie with Butterfly knives. Although Mackie was drunk on San Miguel beer, he saw the Filipinos rushing towards him out the corner of his eye. He pushed the girl aside and threw up a sharp elbow which Abad ran straight into, causing the assassin to fall backwards. Cruz stabbed Mackie in the chest, and the chief grabbed the shorter man’s head in a vice and threw him up against a jeepney in the street. 

Abad recovered quickly from Mackie’s blow and was up and charging the chief again. Mackie hit Abad in the throat with his open palm. The blow instantly killed Abad and he dropped to the street. Cruz started to run, but Mackie caught him by his wrist and elbow and broke the hitman’s arm. Cruz dropped his knife and screamed out in pain. Holding on to Cruz’s broken arm, Mackie used his right leg to sweep the Filipino’s legs out from under him, and Cruz landed on his behind. Still holding onto Cruz’s injured arm, Mackie kicked him several times in the side.

Officers from the Olongapo City Police Office, followed almost immediately by the U.S. Navy Shore Patrol, arrived on the scene of the attempted murder. The Philippine police officers took Cruz into custody. Lieutenant Colonel Cesar Rosa examined Abad as he lay in the street. Rosa looked up and announced to the other officers that the notorious criminal was dead. 

Rosa smiled. 

The Shore patrol took Mackie to the Subic Bay hospital and the Olongapo police took Cruz to a local hospital. Abad was taken to the morgue. Cruz was interrogated harshly by Rosa as a doctor treated him, and he gave up Smith and Stillman without hesitation. He did not mention Walker’s involvement, as he feared the Old Huk. 

Rosa passed the information from Cruz to the American NIS, and the special agents sought out and arrested Smith and Stillman. 

After he was arrested, Smith thought briefly about giving up Walker and Lorino the meth dealer as a means of getting a lighter sentence, but he thought better of it.   As Smith was not a particularly brave man, he feared making these two violent criminals his enemies. 

An Olongapo police officer on the Old Huk’s payroll called Camama and reported the attempted assassination to the gang leader. The officer gave all of the details to Camama. The Old Huk, who already knew that Walker had introduced the American sailors to Abad, was displeased at Walker’s reckless, and profitless, actions. 

The Old Huk ordered Jackie Sicat to reproach Walker for mixing up with that crazy man Abad and the even more crazy Americans. Sicat entered the Americano and beckoned Walker to come to him. Walker edged over to Sicat and stood silently as Sicat proceeded to call him an idiot and fool for mixing up with Abad and stupid Americans. 

“I just introduced them as a favor to a regular customer,” Walker explained. “I didn’t know what was going down.” 

“Old Huk say if police come here and involve us, you be face up dead in Shit River,” Sicat said. 

Lorino, who was standing nearby, was glad he passed on getting involved in the attempted murder. 

© 2024 By Paul Davis 

My Philly Daily On Crime Column: Redwood - A Look Back At The Islamist Iranians, A Soviet KGB Spy, And A British Spy Handler

 Philly Daily ran my On Crime column today. 

You can read the column via the link below or the following text:

 Paul Davis: Redwood — A look back at the Islamist Iranians, a Soviet KGB spy, and a British spy handler  – Philly Daily  

 I don’t know what classified advice President Trump’s military advisors are whispering in his ear, but I wish the president would take out Iran’s fanatical mullahs and ruthless military once and for all. 

I support the president’s war on Iran. The Iranians have been killing Americans for more than 49 years and they have been slaughtering their own people in the same timeframe, most recently murdering thousands of protestors who dared to take to the streets and challenge the country’s leadership.  

Trump, as he has stated many times since the conflict began, took military action to prevent the Iranians from developing a nuclear weapon. If the Iranians had a nuclear weapon, Trump rightly noted, Iran’s religious fanatics would actually use it. Now that the mid-term elections are over, we’ll see what Trump will do to end the conflict.  

As I followed the news about the Iran conflict, I happened to have been reading Ben Macintyre’s outstanding nonfiction book on how a Soviet KGB spy stationed in Iran came over to the British.

“In 1981, KGB Major Vladimir Kuzichkin, codenamed “Redwood,” was the best Soviet officer in Iran, running spies in the wake of the Islamic revolution and working with a hidden network of Iranian communists to undermine the new regime,” Crown, Macintyre’s publisher, wrote. “But Kuzichkin had a problem, a sexual secret that, if revealed, would humiliate him with his colleagues, cost him his job, and send him into exile. Desperate for a solution, he reached out to the only place he believed could help: Britain’s MI6.

“So begins one of the most astounding true spy stories of the Cold War, set against the terrifying prospect of nuclear Armageddon. Taking readers through shadowy back alleys of Tehran, across bloody streets and into cloistered intelligence offices, Ben Macintyre unfolds a world in turmoil, where no one’s motive is what it seems, and exposure means death. As Kuzichkin helps the Soviet leadership plot an overthrow of the Ayatollah’s fledgling regime - and the American government secretly contemplates a nuclear response if they do - it falls on MI6’s resourceful young undercover officer Ian McCredie to spirit Kuzichkin’s vital information back to the West. But when both Iranian intelligence and the KGB close in on the Russian double-agent, McCredie must design an improbable high-stakes escape plan for Kuzichkin, in which failure is almost certain, and the direction of the Cold War hangs in the balance.”

Macintyre (seen in the above photo), the author of several excellent books on the history of espionage, including “The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War” and “Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory,” offers another fine historical book about a 6-foot-4 KGB officer (why he was code-named “Redwood”) named Vladimir Kuzichkin who wished to defect to the United Kingdom because he was disillusioned with the Soviet Union and the corrupt KGB. He also wanted to defect to the west so he would be able to be treated for impotence, which was caused by alcoholism and stress.

"Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy" covers Kuzichkin’s Soviet background and his intelligence activity in Iran. A well-regarded KGB officer, he kept his true feelings to himself and ran KGB sleeper agents in Tehran and supported the Tuden, the Iranian communist party. The KGB and the Tuden conspired to overthrow the Iranian government and planned a Soviet invasion of the country.     

Kuzichkin decided to defect and contacted a British intelligence officer after reading a copy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago.” Reading the great book on the Soviet Union’s terrible prison system was an act that would have him placed him in the Gulags. He was also critical of the drunken and crooked way the KGB operated.

This is a fine tale about espionage, but the book also details the dictatorial and murderous way the Iranian government dealt with their own people.

For those interested in the background of the U.S. - Iran conflict, “Redwood” provides a primer on the ruthless and evil Iranians. It is also a damn good spy story.

As former CIA officer Gary Berntsen, who fought against the Iranians for many years, told me, the Iranians are like the Nazis.   

Thankfully, President Trump stopped the worst people in the world from developing the world’s most lethal weapon.

Paul Davis’s On Crime column appears here each week. He can be reached vis pauldavisoncrime.com.   

My South Philly Review Crime Beat Column: Beware Of Social Security Scams

The South Philly Review ran my Crime Beat column on Social Security scams.

You can read the column above.

U.S. Department of Justice To Monitor Elections In All 50 States For First Time

 The U.S. Justice Department released the information below:

One of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) most important missions is ensuring election integrity, supporting free and fair elections, and protecting the right to vote for U.S. citizens across the United States. The DOJ has sent election monitors in support of this mission since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 across all Administrations.

Today, the DOJ will further this mission by engaging in its largest monitoring effort in history—with approximately 1,000 election monitors and observers deployed, and, for the first time, in all 50 states. The effort is coordinated by the Civil Rights Division. Monitors will include personnel from the Division, other DOJ divisions/components, U.S. Attorney’s Offices and federal observers from the Office of Personnel Management. Throughout Election Day, Division personnel will maintain contact with state and local election officials.

“Election integrity has been one of the top priorities for this Administration and this Division,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. “I am very proud we are deploying the largest monitoring effort in DOJ history, and pursuing transparency for elections in an assertive and nondiscriminatory manner.”

Election monitors will be checking for compliance with the federal voting rights statutes that fall within the jurisdiction of the Division. The Division’s Voting Section enforces the civil provisions of federal statutes that protect the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act, National Voter Registration Act, Help America Vote Act, Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, and Civil Rights Acts.

The Division’s Disability Rights Section enforces the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to ensure that persons with disabilities have a full and equal opportunity to vote. The Division’s Criminal Section enforces federal criminal statutes that prohibit voter intimidation and voter suppression based on race, color, national origin, or religion.

Throughout the day and week, Division personnel will be available to receive questions and complaints from the public related to federal voting rights laws. If you have a question or complaint, please call our election issues hotline at 1-800-253-3931, email us at VEM@usdoj.gov, or submit a complaint through our website at www.civilrights.justice.gov/report.

Individuals with questions or complaints related to the ADA may call the Division’s toll-free ADA information hotline at 1-800-514-0301 or 1-833-610-1264 (TTY) or submit a complaint through our ADA website at www.ada.gov.

Complaints related to any disruptions at a polling place should always be reported to local election officials (including officials based in the polling place). Complaints related to violence, threats of violence or intimidation at a polling place should be reported immediately to local police authorities by calling 911. These complaints should also be reported to the department after local authorities have been contacted.

To learn more about what the DOJ and the Civil Rights Division has done historically to protect the vote and ensure free and fair elections, go to www.civilrights.justice.gov/electionintegrity. 

My Crime Fiction: 'The Moonlighter'

The story below is another chapter in my work in progress crime novel about Cosa Nostra from South Philly to Sicily. 

The story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine.

 The Moonlighter

By Paul Davis

For this weekly interview session with former Philadelphia Cosa Nostra capo and government cooperator Salvatore Stilitano, I asked him to meet me at 13^th and Oregon Avenue in South Philadelphia.

I had been meeting Stillitano each week and running our conversations in my crime column in the local paper. The idea was to later compile the columns into a book. 

I stood on the corner of 13^th and Oregon Avenue and looked across Oregon Avenue at the park where we played basketball, baseball and football when I was a teenager. I remember the many nights I stood here on the corner as a teenager in front of a luncheonette where we hung out nearly every night in the late 1960s.

I recalled how my crowd stood on the corner, sometimes with beer and pot and sometimes with a bunch of young girls we called “crews.” We were known as a party corner.  

I saw Stillitano park his car next to the park and watched him walk across the four-lane avenue to meet me. It was Stillitano’s idea that we do a “walk & talk,” like the old Cosa Nostra members did to avoid law enforcement surveillance bugs in the clubhouses.    

Although Stillitano and I were about the same age – two old South Philly street guys, one an old mobster and the other an old reporter -- I did not know him from the old days. But Stillitano told me that he knew several of my good friends from 13^th & Oregon. He said he stopped here to visit those friends on several occasions during the late 1960s.    

Stillitano pulled out two Cohiba cigars, cut the ends off, handed me one and lit mine then his own. We walked over to 2600 S. Iseminger Street, a nice street of rowhouses where I lived until I joined the U.S. Navy when I was 17 in 1970.  

Then, while smoking our fine cigars, we turned off Iseminger and turned left on Shunk street and walked to 13^th Street. I wanted to see the site where my old bar, the Moonlighter, was located in the early 1970s.

When I returned home from the Navy in 1972 after serving on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War, I discovered that my crowd had moved exactly one block north from the luncheonette on 13^th & Oregon to the bar on 13^th & Shunk.

Stillitano, who had surprised me by telling me we had teenage friends in common, surprised me again by stating that he too was a regular at the Moonlighter. Stillitano by his own admission, said he was a loud and aggressive young man, so I wondered how I missed meeting him back then.

The Moonlighter was owned and managed by Albert “Al Tuna” Galli, a big and heavy 50-year-old Cosa Nostra associate. Galli was a pleasant man until angered by a customer. He was originally from Altoona, Pennsylvania, hence his nickname, and he moved to South Philly in the early 1960s.

His partner was Gene Urban, an experienced businessman in the bar and music industry from the Fishtown section of Philadelphia. He looked different from the South Philly crowd in this predominantly Italian American neighborhood. With his long and thin blonde hair and droopy mustache, he looked like one of the Allman Brothers, a popular band in the 1970s. Like Galli, Urban was a genuine tough guy that the customers at the Moonlighter respected. 

The Moonlighter brought in many of young, pretty girls, as well as the 20-something former South Philly street corner boys that as teenagers were mortal enemies. Many of the street corners gangs battled each other in parks, playgrounds and on the streets during the late 1960s. There were many injuries and even a couple of murders, but in 1972, the corner boys had matured somewhat, and they were then united by drink, drugs and dancing with girls at the great bar.

The former 13^th & Oregon street corner crowd considered the Moonlighter to be our bar, as we were the closest corner. And although we were a small corner, and we were considered to be more of a party corner than a combative one, we had several respected tough guys, such as Joe Villotti and Chick and Stevie Saccone.         

I recall that Gene Urban, who became a good friend of mine, had a stage built two feet off of the floor at the end of the bar and on weekends he brought in bands that played live music. In front of the stage was a hard wood dance floor where customers danced to the performing bands. This was a few years before recorded dance music would replace live bands in the clubs. (We called the music club music, and I never heard anyone call it Disco).   

Even though I was a veteran, I was only 19 and a half and so I was underaged at the time. Twenty-one was the legal drinking age in Pennsylvania, but thankfully Al Tuna and Gene allowed me to drink at the bar, and I was there nearly every night.      

Stillitano wanted to talk about the Moonlighter and how his late father, a Philadelphia Cosa Nostra capo of the Wildwood, New Jersey crew, and a national boxing promotor, illegal gambler and fixer for Philadelphia boss Angelo Bruno, became involved in a dispute at the popular South Philly bar in 1972 between the outlaw motorcycle club the Renegades and the notorious drug gang from Dalton and Oregon Avenue known as the D&O gang.

Although I later heard about the altercation at the Moonlighter during the summer of 1972, I was away from South Philly attending a summer semester at Pennsylvania State University at State College, PA.

Stillitano puffed on his cigar and pointed at the front of the building that once housed the old Moonlighter. He spoke of the time three bikers entered the Moonlighter on a Friday night.    

“The problem was the Renegades and the D&O gang were competitors in the heroin drug trade at the time,” Stillitano explained. “Gene did his usual thing and frisked the three bikers and disarmed them. All three bikers carried knives, which Gene placed under the bar.

“Bikers did not usually drink at the Moonlighter, and Al Tuna warned the bikers that he didn’t want any fighting or drug dealing in the bar. The bikers, who knew Al Tuna’s reputation, said they understood. But it was not long before the two drug gangs clashed.”

Stillitano said that a D&O guy, Joesph “Joey D” D’Alo started the fight when one of the bikers asked a neighborhood Italian girl to dance. She said no and the biker shrugged and walked away, but D’Alo took offense and smashed his beer bottle against the back of the biker’s head.        

The biker went down and his two friends rushed to his aid. The other D&O gang members jumped in and began to beat the bikers. Gene Urban, Tony Tuna, a bartender, and other customers broke up the fight. The bikers left the bar and threatened to come back in force.

Tony Tuna apologized to the bikers outside of the bar and said that Joey D would be banned from the bar, but if they came back looking for trouble, well… Tony Tuna lifted his shirt and showed the bikers the butt of his revolver in a holster.

Thankfully, the Renegades did not return to the bar, but the D&O gang members drove three carloads of the gang to the Renegades’ bar and club house. At four in the morning, four D&O hoodlums aimed their shotguns at the front of the bar and opened fire. No one was in the bar, so no one was injured, but the shotgun blasts caused considerable property damage.  

The Renegades’ leader, Roland “Outlaw Santa” Simpson, a 60-year-old, white-haired biker with a long white beard and huge belly who did in fact resemble Santa Claus and even portrayed Santa at a Center City department store during the holidays, spoke to a  Cosa Nostra soldier he did business with. He told the mobster that the outlaw bikers were going to retaliate against the D&O gang.   

The mobster reported the conversation to the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family boss Angelo Bruno. Bruno was not happy. His soldiers had trouble with the D&O gang in the past. They were fearless and reckless, in other words, stupid, Bruno thought. Bruno’s capos had asked for approval to whack the D&O leaders, but Bruno knew a shooting war was bad for business.

Dead bodies in the street and injured innocent bystanders would cause the newspapers and the TV stations to crusade against violent crime, which would lead the Philly cops and the feds to come down in force and close the mob’s lucrative criminal enterprises.

Bruno knew that a South Philly street war between the bikers and the D&O gang would be especially violent. Bruno called his capo Nick Stillitano. The capo, called “Nick the Broker,” was known for deescalating violent disputes.

Nick Stillitano called for a sitdown meeting between Simpson and the D&O’s boss, a 40-year-old grim-faced, humorless hoodlum named Rocky Rotta. Stillitano called for the sitdown to be held at the Moonlighter, the scene of the original alteration.

Nick Stillitano arrived at the bar after closing hours at three in the morning. Despite the late hour, Stillitano was impeccably dressed in a dark business suit, a white shirt and black tie. He looked more like a business executive than a mob boss. Walking in behind him was his young son Salvatore, who was a Moonlighter regular and was there during the bar fight.

Tony Tuna welcomed Nick Stillitano with a hug and led him to a table where Outlaw Santa Simpson and Rocky Rotta sat. Noticeably absent from the sitdown were the two combatants, the biker and the D&O gang member.

“My father was smooth, He did not threaten. He did not raise his voice. He did not get emotional. He suggested rather than ordered,” Salvie Stillitano recalled.

Nick Stillitano told Simpson and Rotta that a violent gang war would be bad for everyone’s business. He offered a peace deal. The D&O would do business in South Philly and in the New Jersey resort shore towns.

The Renegades would operate in the Philly suburbs and the New Jersey towns along the Black Horse Pike before the shore points. Both the Renegades and the D&O gang would pay a small tribute to the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra family.  

Stillitano also suggested that Rotta discipline his underling, Joey D, the instigator of the situation. And he suggested that Simpson keep his bikers away from the Moonlighter and other mobbed-up South Philly bars and clubs in order to prevent similar incidents.

“Done,” Rotta said, quickly realizing that the territory deal would nearly double the drug gang’s income.

Simpson also agreed, knowing how lucrative the deal was for the outlaw biker gang.     

Tony Tuna brought out a bottle, and everyone had a drink to celebrate the new peace.

"So, my dad stopped a major drug gang war in South Philly,” Salvatore Stillitano said to me as we walked away from 13th and Shunk. “And Joey D was later whacked in Wildwood. He went to the shore to get away from the trouble, but Rocky Rotta clipped him with a double blast from a shotgun.”  

© 2026 Paul Davis  

You can read earlier posted chapters via the links below:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Rigano Murders'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'From South Philly To Sicily'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Salvie Shotgun'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Nick The Broker'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Upton "Uppercut" Clarke'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Face'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Three Soldiers' 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Jadroll'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Up And Coming'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Tony Ball-Peen'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Passyunk Avenue'