In the program “New Russian Sensations” - one of the leaders of the Russian mafia in Western Europe Lenya McIntosh.
Leonid Fedorovich Bilunov, aka Lenya McIntosh. Born on May 5, 1949 in the city of Belaya Tserkov, Kyiv region. Registered: Kaluga region, village. Panino.
Six convictions, 20 years in prison and camps (robbery, armed robbery, rape, fraud, hooliganism, etc.).
Under Yeltsin, he was the “roof” of the Stolichny bank of the oligarch Alexander Smolensky, a member of the powerful Semibankirshchina. In the 90s he moved to France, where he went from being a crime boss to becoming a reputable philanthropist.
According to operational data, the former leader of the Lyubertsy organized crime group was involved in organizing and carrying out about 20 contract killings. For a long time he lived in Cyprus, Hungary, and now lives permanently in France. The closest connections are the “Serpukhov” and “Chechen” organized crime groups.
According to unofficial information, he is “the holder of the thieves’ common fund of Russian organized crime groups in Western Europe. Acted as an intermediary in a number of trade transactions with Russian weapons.
His journey from camera to TV camera is the dark history of Russia with big names and unsolved crimes.
How did he participate in the release of French hostages from captivity in Ichkeria in the 90s? And why did France give the godfather a passport? What connects him with gangster Ukraine and with the top of the current Kyiv government? How many assassination attempts did he survive and why did he spare his sworn enemy? And why does it support Orthodox church in Cannes?
He is mortally feared in Europe and is being watched by FBI agents. For the first time on NTV - crime boss Lenya McIntosh. The revelations of the real godfather are in “New Russian Sensations”.
Lenya McIntosh in the program "New Russian Sensations"
The path abroad for Bilunov was predetermined since childhood. True, initially its direction looked somewhat different.
An athletic teenager who showed great promise in athletics, studied at the Lvov special boarding school, whose graduates invariably joined the ranks of the KGB, where they were supposed to become intelligence officers or saboteurs. Preparation for a future profession began from an early age.
One weekend, Leonid accidentally met some guys a little older than him, who described to him the prospects of a vacation on the Black Sea shore so colorfully that the future “committee member” agreed to take part in a risky event that promised the fulfillment of a dream that suddenly arose - robbing a collector. Leonid coped with his role “excellently,” but the “initiators” let him down. They were quickly caught by the police and immediately “split”, handing over their accomplice wholeheartedly.
At the age of 15, Bilunov went to a “youngster” in the village of Gorodok, Lviv region, for 2 years.
After his release, Leonid Bilunov, who had already received the nickname Lenya Mackintosh, did not stay free for long. He was sentenced to 6 years for rape and went to continue his prison journey to a colony for juvenile offenders in the town of Priluki, Chernigov region. There he first showed the strength of his character, taking an active part in the murder of an over-aged sadistic “bug.” The court extended the term by another 6 years, but the cassation court later reduced it to 2 years.
Nevertheless, McIntosh had to become familiar with the peculiarities of the strict regime of detention in the Sambir special prison. Having crossed the equator of adulthood, he ended up in Drohobych. By that time, he had established himself as a persistent violator of the regime, constantly refusing to go to work and follow other routine rules. Bilunov’s sentence was extended, he was sent for treatment with sulfazine to the Dnepropetrovsk mental hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and was again sent to a punishment cell.
In 1981, having once again left prison, Lenya McIntosh did not think that he would never go to jail again. On the contrary, he did not “give up”, but took up a very risky from the point of view of the law, but profitable business - trading in certificates of the Berezka chain of stores. In the USSR, a number of categories of professions at that time enjoyed the right to exchange currency earned abroad for special certificates granting the right to purchase acutely scarce goods that were never supplied to regular retail trade.
Things went so well that he soon moved from Lvov, which was well known to him, but small for the scale of his real activity, to huge Moscow, where he created a whole network of unofficial exchangers. He not only had to be careful with the police, who were pursuing speculators, and the KGB, who were vigilantly monitoring any attempts at illegal currency trafficking, but also had to deal with competitors or swindlers, often trying to slip a “doll”.
In addition to courage and determination, Bilunov, who has a developed intellect, became interested in cards and doubled his capital with this activity.
By the beginning of the 90s, nouveau riche Lenya McIntosh felt quite well in democratic Russia and did not think about going abroad. In his business, he had a partner - banker Alexander Smolensky. The financier attracted Bilunov’s money to his financial structure “Capital Savings Bank”, put its owner in an office in the office of a credit institution and provided him with a completely legal source of income. In return, his partner, who had enormous connections in the criminal world, had to advise him and carry out some delicate assignments.
Smolensky was dishonest and very often acted beyond what was permitted by law. Operations with false advice notes, laundering of “gray” income, concealment of taxes - all this has become the banker’s daily practice. Lenya Mackintosh sensed another feature of the character of Alexander Smolensky in time. He really didn't like to share.
At some point in time, he personally no longer needed Bilunov, and, on the contrary, the funds he invested in the business were very necessary. Three times the head of the Stolichny Bank organized assassination attempts on Bilunov. It was only by miracle that he survived. Smolensky bought the Moscow RUBOP, which sent 18 commandos and tried to storm Bilunov's apartment. Mackintosh fired furiously for 4 hours, feverishly gathering press representatives and lawyers under his windows, who ultimately did not allow him to be dealt with without witnesses.
Despite Leni Mackintosh’s enormous connections among the Lyubertsy and Serpukhov gangs, the divorce from the banker took place peacefully, without bloodshed. Alexander Smolensky lived happily until 2003, when he retired and began to describe his turbulent life in his memoirs. With others who allowed themselves to become an obstacle in his path, Bilunov acted much harsher.
IN law enforcement agencies claim that there are facts of his involvement in 20 contract killings, the victims of which were not only businessmen, but also thieves in law and crime bosses.
Lenya McIntosh decided to leave Russia, which had become restless and unpredictable, forever. He lived briefly in Austria, Cyprus and Hungary before finding his ideal residence in Paris. At first, the French government treated him with caution. The intelligence services were aware of Mackintosh's adventures in his youth.
In 1995, they started talking about him as the organizer of a conspiracy against President Yeltsin. Someone floated a duck, what's first? Russian President must be killed during his visit to France. Bilunov again miraculously escaped arrest that time by leaving for Israel. Instead, his wife and daughter became the prey of the authorities.
Through his lawyers, he managed to negotiate his return to Paris in exchange for guarantees to remain free until the day of his trial. At the trial, he had to defend himself against charges of illegal possession and trafficking of weapons, facilitating drug trafficking and using a false passport. Bilunov was sentenced to 5 years of suspended imprisonment. Perhaps attempts to get rid of the presence of a dangerous resident on his territory would have continued in the future, but here McIntosh was helped by a lucky chance.
In Makhachkala, a mission of the charitable organization “Esklibre”, which included 4 French citizens, was captured by North Caucasian terrorists. French counterintelligence approached Bilunov with a request to assist in their release. Leonid Bilunov completed the task perfectly within 2 weeks. Through his criminal friends, he quickly found Chechen authorities he knew personally and sorted out all the details of the liberation of the French, which still remained a secret. The captives soon returned to their homeland, and Bilunov was given a real French passport and stated that there were no claims against him from the local Themis.
Being a respectable citizen, Leonid Bilunov leads an exclusively secular lifestyle. He gained fame as an art collector and a member of a charitable foundation raising funds for the construction of the Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Cannes. In addition, he found time to pick up a pen and describe in detail his adventures in the chronicle novel “Three Lives,” only slightly changing the names of some acquaintances and adding a certain touch of nobility to his actions.
Now he has settled in France, where, according to unofficial information, he is the holder of the common fund of thieves of Russian organized crime groups in Western Europe.
In one of his interviews he said that even if “you gave me a check for 2-3 billion euros with one condition - return to Moscow, I would still refuse.”
At the same time, Bilunov claims that he is not afraid of anything.
“What should I be afraid of? I’m having a great time in France, after talking with you I’ll go to the club, meet friends, drink champagne... I was able to realize myself, achieve a lot. And this is after what I had to endure in Russia - the camps , transfers... You wouldn’t see anything like what I saw even in a dream; we constantly had to fight for survival,” said the authority.
In 2007, a book by Leonid Bilunov was published "Three Lives", which consists of three parts: the first describes childhood, in the second Lenya talks about her “prison universities,” the third tells about the world of “first wave” businessmen and criminal showdowns.
Leonid Bilunov (Lenya Makintosh)
I saw the very beginning of big business in Moscow. It became clear that money was beginning to play an increasingly important role and was turning into real power...
One day I was driving around spring Moscow in a new car. This was my first Mercedes - model 280, the color of wet asphalt... With a look bored from anticipation, I glanced at the left neighbor, a not very new Zhiguli, which was patiently waiting for the green light. And suddenly I noticed that the driver of the Zhiguli was making some desperate signs to me...
Listen! - he shouted. - There is a case. If you're not in a hurry, we'll move aside...
We carefully got out of the stream that rushed forward and pressed ourselves to the edge of the sidewalk. The driver of the Zhiguli barely got out of his car and walked towards me, smiling in advance.
Would you like to sell your car? Don’t worry, I have money,” he began without preamble.
I examined him carefully. Younger than me, of average height, large face, with fleshy cheeks... The eyes are bulging, tearing out, like a Chinese dog, and at the bottom it’s as if the remnants of yesterday’s laughter are stuck...
I promised him to find out if it was possible, using my connections, to get a similar car, and we exchanged phone numbers. So, on one of the warm spring days in Moscow, I met someone who eventually became, not without my modest participation, one of the largest bankers in Russia, Alexander Saratovsky.
He called me a couple of days later and invited me to his place on Pyatnitskaya, where his small office was located in the semi-basement under the modest sign “Stalechny Bank”...
One day, at the end of the working day, I drove up to the Saratovsky barracks (that’s what I privately called its bank): we agreed to have dinner together. Going down steep steps into his semi-underground treasury, I saw the unusually pale face of the secretary...
Oh, Leonid Fedorovich! - she spoke in a barely audible whisper. - Don't go there! There are bandits...
I pushed her aside and opened the office door wide. Alexander Saratovsky clearly had no time for dinner. With a trembling chin, and with even more bulging eyes than usual, the Pekingese hero of the free banking business of Russia crawled from his director's chair, and next to him stood a tall, broad-shouldered Tatar, playing with a sharply sharpened scimitar in his face with an obvious threat. As it turned out later, it was Mansur, known in gangster circles.
Why do you need ears? - said Mansur. - If you still can’t hear us... In front of the bank director’s table, in a chair for visitors, leaning back, sat my old acquaintance Leonid Zavadsky...
Lenya introduced Mansur to me, and it became clear to him that I would have to wait a while with the scimitar. So my chance presence that evening saved the decoration of the head of one of the most prominent businessmen of modern Russia.
Zavadsky told me the whole story. It turned out that Saratovsky had cleverly cheated him out of seventy-six million rubles. Lenya entrusted him with rubles to convert into dollars... Zavadsky demanded that he give him the currency, but Saratovsky was stalling for time. A month later, he received Zavadsky and gave him a third of what he owed.
Inflation! - he shrugged his shoulders.
I felt that Saratovsky was plotting to get rid of me. For him, I became waste material, an unpleasant person. Alexander Saratovsky hated the people to whom he owed money. The greater the debt, the more I hated... Saratovsky made one of the attempts to destroy me when I lived with my family in Vienna. It was the end of 1993. My old acquaintance Seryozha Mikhailov called me, for friends Mikhas, who also recently settled in Austria...
After dinner, when we were left alone to finish a bottle of thick old Bordeaux, Mikhas told me an interesting story about me. Three days ago, a compatriot came to him, a huge fellow with unshaven cheeks and small pig eyes... The fellow took out a crumpled photograph, and Mikhas could not contain his surprise.
And who do I see in the photo? - Mikhas told me. - My old friend comes out of the entrance of a beautiful western house! Which someone really wants to see in the coffin! And as soon as possible...
In 1993, the Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case against the management of the Steel Savings Bank, accusing him of laundering dirty money proceeds from the sale of drugs, nuclear raw materials and weapons. One can only imagine what a high-profile trial this accusation would have led to if it had reached the courtroom. However, the case was dropped. Why? No answer...
Who doesn’t remember the famous default – “Black August” of 1998. A huge number of investors lost everything they had accumulated over several years. Saratovsky Bank was among those who shamelessly robbed hundreds of thousands of small depositors. But the unsinkable Saratov managed to make money here too.
In October of the same year, the Central Bank of Russia allocated a loan to Saratov in the amount of about six billion rubles (about two hundred million dollars at the then exchange rate) - just to support the unfortunate investors. Most of this money did not reach investors. Money disappeared into thin air...
His biography includes six convictions and 20 years in prisons and camps. Under Yeltsin, he was the “roof” of the Stolichny bank of the oligarch Alexander Smolensky, a member of the powerful Semibankerschyna. In the 90s he moved to France, where he went from being a crime boss to becoming a reputable philanthropist.
His journey from camera to TV camera is the dark history of Russia with big names and unsolved crimes. How did he participate in the release of French hostages from captivity in Ichkeria in the 90s? And why did France give the godfather a passport? What connects him with gangster Ukraine and with the top of the current Kyiv government? How many assassination attempts did he survive and why did he spare his sworn enemy? And why does he support the Orthodox Church in Cannes?
A life-long criminal saga - in the episode of the "New Russian Sensations" program.
“New Russian Sensations” is a weekly program made in the genre of investigative journalism.
Each issue is a high-profile exclusive, an information bomb or a piercing, touching mono-story of a celebrity whose name is known throughout the country, and whose life is full of dramatic events.
A frank interview in the style of a television confession, unexpected meetings with people with whom we shared years, distances and past grievances, unknown facts, family secrets and “skeletons in the closet” - viewers will see all this on television for the first time.
Year of manufacture: 2017
Released: Russia, LLC "PPK" commissioned by NTV
“New Russian Sensations” is, first of all, a high-profile exclusive, an information bomb or a piercing, touching mono-story of a celebrity whose name is known throughout the country, and whose life is full of dramatic events.
New Russian sensations - Confession of a crime boss (02/05/2017)
His biography includes six convictions and 20 years in prisons and camps. Under Yeltsin, he was the “roof” of the Stolichny bank of the oligarch Alexander Smolensky, a member of the powerful Semibankerschyna. In the 90s he moved to France, where he went from being a crime boss to becoming a reputable philanthropist.
His journey from camera to TV camera is the dark history of Russia with big names and unsolved crimes. How did he participate in the release of French hostages from captivity in Ichkeria in the 90s? And why did France give the godfather a passport? What connects him with gangster Ukraine and with the top of the current Kyiv government? How many assassination attempts did he survive and why did he spare his sworn enemy? And why does he support the Orthodox Church in Cannes?
New Russian sensations issue dated 02/05/2017
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- Russian sensations watch the latest episode
- Russian sensations issue from 02/05/2017
- program “Russian Sensations” episode dated 02/05/2017
New Russian sensations - Confession of a crime boss (02/05/2017) watch online