A Belarusian model who claimed to have evidence of possible Russian help for U.S. President Donald Trump’s election was detained at Moscow airport yesterday.
Anastasia Vashukevich and a group of associates was taken into custody after being deported from Thailand.
The were arrested on suspicion of suspected of recruiting for prostitution, a crime punishable by up to six years in jail.
Vashukevich, 21, and Alexander Kirillov were imprisoned in Thailand last year for running a sex workshop for tourists in Pattaya.
She claims she has audio recordings of a Russian billionaire tycoon which show a possible link to the Trump campaign.
Vashukevich, 21, and Alexander Kirillov were imprisoned in Thailand last year for running a sex workshop for tourists in Pattaya.
Anastasia Vashukevich travelled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in the political scandal
Vashukevich was detained alongside several others including Kirillov, a self-styled Russian seduction guru, witnesses said.
Plain-clothes officials led away four of the group from the airport including Vashukevich and Kirillov.
Vashukevich, Kirillov and others had been caught up in a police raid last year on their seduction seminar in the seaside resort of Pattaya in Thailand.
They were freed from a Thai prison and put on a flight to the Russian capital.
They believe the Kremlin ordered their arrest because they did not want them to expose corruption within the government.
Vashukevich claims she is the former mistress of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska who has strong ties to the Kremlin.
Among Deripaska’s associates is Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign adviser, and Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin’s personal chef and one of the 13 people charged in Robert Mueller’s recent indictment.
Manafort allegedly offered to give him briefings on Trump’s progress during the campaign.
Vashukevich, Kirillov and the group were led away by plain clothed police officers, according to a woman named Kristina, who said she was Kirillov’s wife,
Kristina said she heard the group shouting and asking for an explanation of ‘why they were being detained’ and saying they were suspected of recruiting for prostitution, a crime punishable by up to six years in jail.
A law enforcement source told TASS state news agency that four including Vashukevich and Kirillov were detained at the airport over recruiting for prostitution.
Vashukevich said she had travelled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in a political scandal with Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska — a one-time associate of Trump’s disgraced former campaign director Paul Manafort.
Vashukevich claimed she had proof of Russian efforts to help Donald Trump
She then promised to reveal ‘missing puzzle pieces’ regarding claims the Kremlin aided Trump’s 2016 presidential election victory.
But the material never surfaced and critics dismissed the claims as a publicity stunt.
In the risque Pattaya seminar led by Kirillov, some participants wore shirts that said ‘sex animator’ — though one person at the time described it as more of a romance and relationship course.
Vashukevich pleaded guilty alongside seven others to multiple charges, including solicitation and illegal assembly at a Pattaya court on Tuesday, which ordered the group be deported.
A law enforcement source told TASS state news agency that four including Vashukevich and Kirillov were detained at the airport over recruiting for prostitution.
Vashukevich was held with several others in a police raid last February in the sleazy seaside resort of Pattaya.
Oleg Deripaska talking about interference in the 2016 U.S. election, but never released them
Kirillov, who has served as a quasi-spokesman for the mostly Russian group, told reporters as they arrived at court Tuesday that he believed they were set up.
‘I think somebody ordered (our arrest)… for money,’ he said.
Vashukevich looked sombre as she entered the courthouse and did not respond to questions from the media.
On Thursday afternoon, Vashukevich and the majority of the convicted were put on an Aeroflot flight for Moscow.
Thailand’s immigration chief Surachate Hakparn said the last of the group would leave the country later that evening.
They were also blacklisted from returning to Thailand.
It was unclear what would happen to them on arrival in Moscow but as a Belarusian citizen, Vashukevich was expected to transit to Belarus.
Vashukevich, who has more than 120,000 followers on Instagram and penned a book about seducing oligarchs, already faces legal problems in Russia.
Vashukevich, also known as Nastya Rybka, claimed to have recordings of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska talking about interference in the 2016 U.S. election, but never released them
Deripaska won an invasion of privacy lawsuit against her and Kirillov in July after a video apparently filmed by the model showed the tycoon vacationing with an influential Russian deputy prime minister at the time.
‘I don’t think she wants to get out in Moscow,’ a Russian friend in Thailand who helped with the case told AFP on Thursday.
Both Washington and Moscow publicly shrugged off Vashukevich’s story, which the US State Department described as ‘bizarre’.
Kremlin-connected Deripaska and Manafort, Trump’s ex-campaign manager, did business together in the mid-2000s.
Manafort has since been convicted in the US of financial crimes related to political work he did in Ukraine before the 2016 election as well as witness tampering.