Whatever risk Nikolai faced, it was compounded in early 2017, when he made another important discovery in the case. That was when he came into possession of a tranche of emails showing that Andrei Pavlov had been colluding with the Russian Interior Ministry to cover up the authorities’ involvement in the $230 million crime. Nikolai felt that if these emails came to light, they would undermine one of the foundational pillars of the Russian government’s false narrative—that the police were not involved in any way. Nikolai was scheduled to present these emails to a Russian judge on March 22,
...more
