FBIS4-40805 "drsov119_a_94007"
FBIS-SOV-94-119 Daily Report 18 Jun 1994
RUSSIA INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Freeh Visit Denotes `Friendly Terms' of Links With FBI

Freeh Visit Denotes `Friendly Terms' of Links With FBI PM2006124194 Moscow KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA in Russian 18 Jun 94 p 1 PM2006124194 Moscow KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA Russian BFN [Report by Stanislav Kucher under "Foreign News" rubric: "FBI Chief To Visit Us"] [Text] FBI Director Louis Freeh will be visiting Moscow from 3 through 6 July (incidentally, he will also celebrate American Independence Day here) at the official invitation of Internal Affairs Minister Viktor Yerin. During the visit he will take in various Russian Federation MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs] structures, the Russian Justice Ministry, the General Prosecutor's Office, the Federal Counterintelligence Service, and the Foreign Ministry with his assistants and advisers, and will also be talking to students at the MVD Academy. The signing of a protocol on opening an official FBI office in Moscow is also scheduled. The "G-men" will have their own office on a floor of the U.S. Embassy equipped with the most modern methods of communicating with Washington. "We have been on friendly terms with the FBI for three years now," Mikhail Yegorov, chief of the Russian Federation MVD Main Administration for Combating Organized Crime, said. "We are cooperating in the fight against the mafia, which operates in both Russia and the United States. Currently our administration is pursuing over 30 criminal cases with the FBI -- we are investigating the activity of 30 Russian criminal groups closely linked to the American mafia, mainly in the sphere of major financial irregularities. We are looking for both the criminals and 'dirty' money leaving our country. In Moscow we will discuss tactics for joint work and summarize the results of what has been done." The upcoming meeting is not the first in the history of the MVD and FBI. There were such meetings the year before last and last year, and this past winter Yegorov "went to the States himself."