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Akistata ( Eye to eye ) 12/08/10 Latvia s *** ring is related to pedophiles
in Lithuania Good evening. We bring Eye to Eye (Akistata) to your attention again. This
time you ll see a special international investigation by our reporters. At this time we are at the
very center of Riga, in one of the fanciest hotels of Riga s old town. We have evidence
to support that A. Usas stayed in one of the rooms in this building on 08/18 evening of
2008. Someone may say this does not make any news. A man came to Riga, found a hotel, and
stayed in a fancy room that costs approximately 700 Litas. The fact would not bring much attention,
if not for one very important circumstance. A few years ago, with the help of journalists
there was uncovered a clan of pedophiles in Riga that involved very high-level Latvian
officials. The clan worked as a very well organized system and it was connected to members
of the government of Latvia. Two famous Latvia politicians had to resign after accusations
of child ***: Latvia s minister of justice ValdisBirkavs and Prime minister AndrisShkele.
Here we should also remember that A. Usaswas not just a common businessman, but at some
point he worked as an assistant/consultant to the speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament.
The branches of the *** clan in Latvia according to the investigators of that time
were also leading to Lithuania. Can it be that the footsteps of Usas that our journalists
have discovered in Latvia and the branches of the *** clan here would bring us
at the end to the Lithuanian government? Can it be that Usas was a reliable middle man
between the members of the clan that were holding very high positions in Latvia and
Lithuania? Soon you will be able to judge for yourself. The copies of the bills of Usas
obtained by Akistata reveal that the footsteps of the *** case are leading to Latvia.
Those people had contacts with Lithuania and Latvia s branches were reaching to Lithuania
for sure. After being suspected of raping children, two high-ranking Latvian politicians
have resigned; the minister of Justice ValdisBirkav and the Prime Minister of Latvia AndrisShkele.
Can it be that the branches of the *** clan are leading to the Lithuanian government
as well? So, let s go back to 8/18/08. One small detail. This is only one week after
the baptism of the little girl (reference to Deimante). A. Usas stayed in one of the
rooms in this hotel. Can it be that he was in the company of those well known as having
a bad reputation that night? Soon we ll open the door of this hotel and ask the people
that work there with whom A. Usas came to the hotel that day. We ll show to them the
pictures of Jonas Furmonavicius, VioletaNaruseviciene, LaimuteStankunaite, and the little girl. Maybe,
we will be successful in finding some important evidence here that the prosecutors of Lithuania
would not be able to deny anymore. This is a special investigation by Akistata for your
attention. -Good afternoon. We re journalists from Tele 3, and we re interested in one of
your clients. I have a bank account here. Could you please confirm to me that this is
your hotel? -Yes, the hotel is ours. -We would like to ask you whether you recognize other
people that could be with this person at your hotel. -Unfortunately, we can t reveal such
information about our guests. -You can only publish the name of the hotel, but nothing
else. -Could you please at least look at these pictures? Soon you ll find out more about
A. Usas trips to Riga. Was he living alone in this fancy hotel, or maybe with one of
the other members of the *** scandal? Please keep in mind that A. Usas visited Riga
just 1 week after the baptism of the little girl. JurgaTvaskiene (journalist). If we say
that there is a *** ring in Lithuania, and we can t really deny such a possibility,
it is logical to assume that a leader(s) of such a ring would not be some simple people
who dig ditches or anything like that, but some influential and educated people with
high-level connections. And if there are influential people with high-level connections, they have
many tools to conceal their identity, so that their names would not become public. What
does Lithuanian s *** scandal has in common with Latvia? This is the country where
some years ago there was uncovered a massive *** ring, which was found to be leading
to Lithuania as well. (5:55) Can it be that the *** clan in Latvia is directly
related with the DrasiusKedys case in Lithuania? JurgaTvaskiene (Journalist). The criminalists
of Latvia stated that the links of the *** scandal in Latvia were also leading to Lithuania.
Unfortunately, there was a period placed after that statement, since we don t know any details
about what kind, on what levels, and to whom they lead. Latvians didn t investigate that,
and Lithuanians didn t want to investigate? Latvians were occupied with their troubles
at home. And Lithuanians remained silent about this problem. Journalist JurgaTvaskiene was
investigating the *** scandal in Latvia on multiple occasions. Things that happened
in Latvia remind very much about Lithuania. Even the general prosecutor was trying to
cover up until the very end the highest governmental officials who were suspected of child ***,
said the journalist. JurgaTvaskiene (journalist): If members of Latvia s Parliament committee
were stating that they discovered an octopus, but couldn t kill it, we can assume that it
is still active. The legal investigators of Latvia stated that the octopus will only grow,
spread, and get stronger, if its legs will not be permanently cut. VairisStashanas, a
Latvian journalist, is meeting us in Riga. He is the one who managed to get interviews
from the victims of pedophiles. When his TV program came out, he received threats to face
sentencing, since the boys named their rapists, the Justice Minister and Prime Minister. The
journalist was also told to stop investigating the story, otherwise he was risking his life.
VairisStashanas(Latvian journalist the head of the news agency TV3 Latvia): I live in
the part of the city where there are narrow, little streets. I was driving on a main street
when an industrial truck came from a side street and passed me at high speed. I barely
was able to stop. I was exercising at that time and had good reflexes. Then I understood
that it was a warning. JurgaTvaskiene: I ve heard from Latvia s journalists that a head
criminalist of Latvia at that time who was very active in gathering information and leading
his team inthat direction, but the evidence died in a mysterious way in the very heat
of the case. Suddenly, this healthy individual was diagnosed with the last stage of a terminal
illness and he died two weeks after the diagnosis was announced. Latvians are saying that the
people who were investigating that case had to leave work unwillingly, and others switched
to different positions. Thus, those who were working on the *** case at that time
are not to be found in the same work division anymore. A massive *** clan in Latvia,
the closest neighbor of our state: it has been revealed that children by the thousands
were being supplied to the highest Latvian officials and to the representatives of the
elite in the society. 15 individuals weresentenced and almost 200 cases of *** were determined.
Can it be that our country was not involved at all when a *** clan was flourishing
in neighboring Latvia? VairisStashanas(Latvian journalist): They were driving to Lithuania
with children, namely to Palanga. I can remember that Palanga was certainly mentioned. -Interviewer:
For what reasons did they take the children there? -VS: I saw the letters that pimps were
exchanging. They did not state things in a concrete manner in the letters, but used vague
sentences to assure one another that everything was fine in Palanga, and they were able to
live and fit in well. -Who would believe that pedophiles *** are happening in the resort
city of Palanga? Look at what else Akistata found as it was doing this investigative reporting.
A modeling agency was almost openly offering under-aged children for sex services -very
fancy trips to Thailand. Although officially, the *** case in Latvia is finished,
this is a very profitable business; the child sex trafficking is still flourishing. AndriusUsas
used to have a business in Riga. Is this one more coincidence? VairisStashanas: The prosecution
said you named the pimps and we caught them. On the other hand, the pimps exists because
they have clients. If no big money would come from that, they would not be doing that. They
are running child prostitution because it is more profitable; they re getting ten times
more money. At that time, minors were costing ten times more than regular prostitutes. In
Latvia, everything started in a similar manner as in Lithuania. There were attempts to delay
the investigation of the case and cover up the government officials. The victims of ***
and those that were supporting them were accused of libel and of trying to destroy the foundation
of the state. The difference is only that the government was forced to resign in Latvia
and the case reached the court. VairisStashanas: They were investigating something, but I believe
that there could have been more results from that. Of course, they will say that I don
t have a legal education, that all testimonies have to be verified, that facts have to be
found, and they remind about the presumption of innocence. They will ask who they should
believe, the minister, or a 12-year-old child. So, one testimony is against another testimony.
First were the journalists that found out about the existence of the *** ring.
Everything started when an article was published by the media that one of the leaders of the
Miss Latvia pageant is using the services of under-aged prostitutes. This attracted
our attention and I started a journalistic investigation. It became clear that there
is a prostitution ring. It involved some full-aged individuals, but most of them were minors.
And their clients were politicians and businessmen. We found people who told us, Yes, I had a
*** contact with the minister, and I was not of full age at that time. We asked, Did
you agree? Well, maybe so. So, how did everything start? When I was 14, I was forced and ***.
After that I was blackmailed. I was told that the pictures will be shown to parents and
friends, if I don t cooperate. They used to give them some money and involved them like
that At that point, criminalists started to investigate. There was uncovered a massive
*** ring. At the center of which there were the owners of the model agency and tourist
agency, and an organized beauty pageant. These individuals supplied children to the country
s elite according to their order. They could choose the child they liked by a picture.
All were so called models. JurgaTvaskiene: First off all, they are children from orphanages,
children from the streets, who don t have where to live and need money, so they agree
to provide *** services. They look for their subjects at the schools looking for
lonely and unaccompanied children. They are either asked to take part in videotaping,
or they are given money. There are also children from good families who are promised that they
would be models. Latvians have established that there were 3000 children in the databases
of this agency of which the head was arrested. In fact, that many pictures were found in
this database. The youngest was 13 years old. VairisStashanas: During the hearing they claimed
that they were doing this by themselves and were not linked with any clients. However,
it was not clear then where the huge money came from that they were enjoying and using
for their fancy living. However, no one was interested in finding out where they got such
income in court. One of them was renting presidential apartments at the hotel Latvia just in front
of the government palace, but no one was interested in that fact. Another one had eight cars,
but no one was interested to look into that. JurgaTvaskiene: The space was rented by the
tourism agency from the Latvian Ministry of Education. There was sauna there as well.
Children were taken there by order. The clients could choose children from catalogues, since
the children were considered to be models, and their pictures were taken. The children
were taken to certain officials there. Maybe the *** ring in Latvia would get destroyed
without any big noise, but the minor victims started saying that they were *** by the
highest officials of the country: the Justice Minister and ex-vice president,ValdisBirkavs,
and the Prime Minister,AndrisShkele. These accusations were like the explosion of a bomb.
And the scenario of the *** case started to develop according to the scheme that we
all know quite well now. At any price, everything must be covered up. VairisStashanas: In the
beginning, everyone was interested and horrified by this, but the investigation became very
long. I believe that they were delaying it on purpose. One month passes by, two, three,
six, and the public looses interested in the case. The general prosecutor started to defend
the suspected pedophiles right away. Without completing an investigation, he declared that
the Minister and Prime Minister are innocent (16:08) that this is libel. JurgaTvaskiene:After
the program came out where the victims were witnessing, the prosecutor general of Latvia
called the TV to make a statement and started to statethat the information is incorrect,
that it could not happen, and that all the high officials that are named there are innocent.
-Interviewer: This happened without any investigation? JurgaTvaskiene: Yes, it happened the next
day after the TV program, without any investigation. VairisStashanas: I was called by the prosecution
many times and questioned for several hoursabout how I, according to them, had falsified everything.
There were prosecutors that suggested putting me in prison. However, the general prosecutor
stated on TV that they should wait and not do that yet. As if he was doing a favor for
me and saying to me, look how good I am to you. I understood that this is a war, that
there is something there for sure, and I wasn t wrong. They started to worry and zigzag.
Then I understood that there is something for sure. JurgaTvaskiene: There were clients,
and the clients were not investigated much in Latvia. The same as in Lithuania, if you
want to compare. When the parliamentary committee finished its work, they transferred the material
of their investigation to Latvia s internal security/intelligence agency. Latvian intelligence
declared that the collected materials are secret. A few days later, Mr. Birkovs (he
was a Prime Minister at that time?) declared publically that Latvian intelligence determined
that there is no big deal there. Soon the material ended in the hands of the prosecution
that was very much against the investigation of this case. VairisStashanas: I thought that
they didn t want to investigate anything, and want to only to put out the fire in this
scandal. 52 deputies (or parliament members ?) wanted to remove the prosecutor general,
but he left himself before the removal came. I hold this as the evidence that everything
was the truth. According to the local journalists, the investigation of the *** case was
delayed in various ways. Either way, the case reached the court. However, the clients among
which there were two well known politicians as well as other influential men were not
punished. VairisStashanas: We were trying to prove it, and suggested that the boys that
were witnessing can be checked with a lie detector. We were told that it was impossible.
A few weeks later, there was a declaration that the ministers successfully passed the
test of the lie detector and that s why the cases were going to be discontinued. However,
it was strange that the boys testimony against the pimps was accepted, but against the politicians
was not accepted. That was really strange. So, the most famous Latvian politicians, Mr.
Birkavs and Shkele, were not prosecuted. However, their names, as the names of the child rapists,
were announced in the Latvian Parliament by the head of the Parliament commission, Janis
Adamsonas, who was investigating the *** scandal (19:11). JurgaTvaskiene: Latvian President
ring. The coming out shook Latvia because it nameed the elite of the country among which
there were Prime Minister, a head of the post office, a director of a prestigious gymnasium,
and several other high-level officials. A phone conversation with an ex-parliament member,
Janis Adomsonas: Interviewer: So, you re sure that Mrs. Shkele and Birkavs had *** relationships
with minors? J. Adomson: I can rely only on the conclusions of the commission. In total,
there were 67 names of the high-level officials there. Interviewer: Were Shkele and Birkavs
among those names? J. Adomson: Of course they were there. Interviewer: Why they were not
punished? J. Adomson: It happened that the commission had to fight with the structure
of the mafia, and the prosecution was involved with it as well in order to shadow those actions.
The government was thinking that there was no need to take the garbage out of the house,
that there was no need to humiliate the image of the state. But I think that those who do
these disgusting crimes are destroying the prestige of the state. In the end, things
ended up in the *** scandal in Latvia by hurting not the criminals, but those who
wanted to pull them out into the daylight. The career of the head of the commission of
the Parliament (that was investigating the *** scandal), Janis Adomson, was absolutely
destroyed after he dared to announce the names of the famous politicians who possibly ***
the children. J. Adomson: Formally, the prosecution started a case against those high-level governmental
officials, but it was discontinued after six days. That case was just a pure formality,
since they said right away that nothing happened here. If you tell me that any investigation
can be done during six days, I ll laugh at that. JurgaTvaskiene:The head of the parliamentary
commission, J. Adamson, was accused of treason right after the investigation was done, and
the material of the investigation of the *** wasn t examined and transferred to the courts,
but attached to the accusations produced against him. As far as I know, this man tried for
10 years to fight the accusations that were following him, and only now have they been
eliminated, and he is starting to slowly recover from the damage to his political career. Latvia
s law enforcement has understood in the beginning of their investigation of the *** ring
that the links of the clan lead to other Eastern European countries, including Lithuania. There
is some evidence witnessing that they wanted to transfer some relevant information to Lithuanian
law enforcement agencies. JurgaTvaskiene: Those people had contacts in Lithuania. Investigators
in Latvia with whom I talked clearly stated that the links with their *** scandal
were leading to Lithuania as well. As they said themselves, since they had to examine
the actions of 70 people in one case, the Lithuanian side remained ignored. Interviewer:
So, Lithuanians were not interested? JurgaTvaskiene: Latvians are saying that their criminal police
were working with Lithuanians. That means that they were supposed to provide this information
to certain Lithuanian officials. I was also told that when Lithuanians received those
reports, they responded that pedophiles in Lithuania represent elite, and the elite in
Lithuania are above the law. Interviewer:Is it true that the information about the ***
ring was uninteresting to the prosecution in Lithuania, or maybe it was known to them
even before that? JurgaTvaskiene: I believe it would be impossible to say that there is
a big children hunting business going on in Latvia and that Lithuania is isolated from
that. The high-level officials have interpersonal relationships based on business and leisure.
So, it is possible to conclude that Lithuanians could know what was going on in Latvia and
could be related with that. s return to the *** scandal that overthrew the Latvian
government. The case ended with the court verdict. Although not everyone faced the deserved
legal consequences for their actions, they at least were named differently than in Lithuania
where the *** case was being delayed and ruined. The suspects were defended by
the prosecutors instead of attorneys in Lithuania; the victims were accused by made-up stories
of terrible things, and the witnesses died one after another in mysterious ways. There
is only one question. What kind of high-level officials does the system want to hide? VairisStashanas:
I believe that the clients in Lithuania were not just the judge and the other man, but
even more important people are involved. That is why the yarn is fracturing here. I m very
positive that there are some other people involved there. JurgaTvaskiene:The links are
there. If we looked deeper at the situation in Russia and Great Britain, where ***
scandals are quite frequent, the scenario is quite similar. The people, the officers
that have to do their work don t want to admit Some of them may not really believe that such
a wide ring can exist, others may have their own interests, still others may be impacted
by interests groups. The attempt to kill the *** case and the unwillingness to find
out the real situation in Lithuania as well as in Latvia is very obvious. It looks like
Lithuania is repeating the scenario of Latvia. Special agencies are denying such possibilities.
Politicians, first responded with distress and later attempted to form one front On the
one hand, it is possible to understand them, since this does not add any good reputation
to the country. On the other hand, if the country does not protect its children, then
we cannot talk about a trust in the capabilities of the state. 17 pimps were sentenced in Latvia
and none of clients that used their services were sentenced. Furthermore, even the punishment
for the pimps is very light. It can be just a few year of sentencing to a house of correction.
It looks like it wasn t possible to eliminate this ring of *** completely. Look,
this is one of the sentenced individuals; his name is Ingusas Tunas (26:52). He is continuing
his business after leaving prison. He organizes trips to Thailand that are exceptionally luxurious.
This webpage is also active in the Lithuanian language. However, it seems to be very secretive.
Clients can reach the organizers only via e-mails. There is no address and no phone
number included. The people who were sentenced spent from 2-4 years at the officials prison
and now their biography is very much related with their previous business. VairisStashanas:
The clan was very secret even at that time, and now it is even more hidden. How do they
work? If I need an under-aged *** I call the ***. He is surprised and asks what
I m searching for. After that, he asks how I know his number. I tell who gave it to me,
and the *** calls after sometime after talking with the person who gave the number to me.
So, this is like a magic circle. We found something else that was shocking on the Internet
a so-called models agency (28:07) where you can see pictures of only young boys. The name
of this agency surfaced in Latvia s *** case, but even now it is working as if nothing
has happened since. There are hundreds of pictures where so-called models are without
clothes. The perverts only need to choose and pay the money. JurgaTvaskiene:According
to Latvians, they say that from Lithuania and other post-soviet countries through tourist
agencies that are opened just for that purpose, children were taken to Bratislava. There you
can find an official tourism agency. If you check on the Internet you ll see pornographic
pictures of children. There is talk that the people that deal with this know that agency
and the contacts and everything else. According to the case material, A. Usas, who was accused
of D. Kedys daughter s molestation, often went to Riga. These are copies of his bank
accounts (29:11), and this is the luxurious hotel in the very center of Riga where the
major suspects of the *** case used to stay. re journalists from Tele 3 and are
interested in one of your clients. Is this your hotel? -Yes. -Can you recognize these
people? -We don t provide such information about our clients. -Please at least look at
these pictures. -If you were from the prosecutors office, it would be different. re journalists,
but there is a legal case regarding this matter in Lithuania. -Unfortunately, I can t help you. This would
be against our internal rules. -The hotel workers refused to provide information to
us journalists, but they could provide some valuable information to the prosecutors. Could
it be that A.Usas visited Riga with the womanStankunaite, or Furmonavicius; maybe he himself used the
services of the children s pimps, or he was a representative between the *** clan
in Latvia and Lithuania.It looks like the investigators in this case did not even look
into the fact of A. Usas visiting Riga and did not show any interest in that as well
as other facts that could bring them to the highest layers of the government. JurgaTvaskiene:Latvia
was victimized because there were not enough resolve to investigate everything to the very bottom. When the *** scandal
started in Lithuania, Latvians were saying they were hoping that maybe everything will
be inves gdG/{ tigated until the very end in Lithuania and that would bring justice
to Latvia as well, since these countries are very closely related. Now, it appears Lithuania
is still very far from the self-cleaning process. Thus, all people are victimized, since they
don t know whether it is safe in their country. Producer and presenter: KristupasKrivickas
Journalists:VestaGrainiene and Tomas Grainys Operators: German Bondarev and AidasBubinas
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