‘They’re all talking to me’

How a Calgary man got involved in Trump-Russia intrigue

TORONTO • Eliot Cooper had been living the quiet life of a software developer in Western Canada when he got the call in February.

Russia-based friends who had hours of audio recordings from an oligarch’s luxury yacht were worried they may have become targets of an angry Kremlin. Cooper, based in Calgary, was the only member of their unusual sexual-freedom movement living in the safety of the West, and they wanted his help.

Now those friends — selfstyled sex coaches known as Alex Lesley and Nastya Ribka — are locked up in a Thai prison, the latest bizarre chapter in a scandal that continues to cast a shadow over American politics.

They’re calling on the U.S. to give them asylum in exchange for recordings they say are the “missing link” in Russia’s bid to influence the U.S. election, and alleged collusion with President Donald Trump’s campaign.

The tapes — whose content and significance have yet to be independently verified — were made by Ribka on the yacht of billionaire Oleg Deripaska. She says she was his mistress and privy to numerous onboard conversations about the 2016 U.S. election.

Cooper emailed the CIA and called the FBI hotline to offer the audio on her behalf, but says he’s never heard back from either agency.

"American authorities are not reacting, they don’t want to give them asylum, because it’s the Trump administration and they have evidence against Trump,” he charged in an interview Wednesday.

If the U.S. is not interested in helping them, Cooper says Canada, or some other Western country, should offer the couple a safe harbour.

Meanwhile, he says new — but false — accusations have just been levelled against Lesley in Thailand, and others in the group have gone into hiding.

“They’re all talking to me, and I’m slowly becoming the official face of all this organization, because everybody else is in countries where they can be really, really, really under pressure,” said Cooper. “I can speak out, I’m in a safe place here.”

The 42-year-old was born in Siberia but emigrated with his family to Israel when he was a teenager. It was there he met Gregory Cohen, one of the “masterminds” of what would become a loosely knit group advocating sexual freedom and self-awareness.

Cohen, who left Israel for Thailand, later introduced Cooper to Lesley and Ribka — Belarusians whose real names are Alexander Kirillov and Anastasia Vashukevich — “because they were interesting people and they have interesting ideas.”

Both made a name in Russia as dating and sex gurus; an English translation of one of Lesley’s books — Life without Panties — boasts it will “teach you how to get acquainted with girls but also how to flirt and seduce them.”

Ribka — also referred to as an escort in some media reports — eventually began an affair with Deripaska, a tycoon who reportedly has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He also did business with Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager for part of 2016.

On board the mega-yacht Queen K, Ribka recorded what ended up as 80 gigabytes of conversation, says Cooper. The Calgarian says multiple copies of the recordings are in the hands of various friends, though he said he does not have one himself.

A lot of the conversation is inconsequential, including Deripaska musing about investing in cloning technology so he could make copies of himself, according to Cooper.

“Very, very rich Russian people, mostly drunk.” he says with a chuckle. But he alleges there was also much discussion of the U.S. election, and “many, many” English-speaking guests.

Things started getting dodgy for the Ribka and her friend after Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, posted a video taken by her on the yacht, showing Deripaska talking American politics with a deputy prime minister. Navalny called it evidence of corruption.

Tipped off they were in danger, the pair flew to Dubai, then contacted Cooper. He says he suggested they seek asylum from the Americans, but the pair eventually concluded there was little to worry about and travelled on to Thailand.

Then they were arrested on the charge of working without permits, and finally made their plea for U.S. help. He says friends in Thailand have told them Russian agents offered large amounts of money to have them detained and then deported. Authorities there have denied any Russian involvement.

Cooper learned Wednesday two young women from Kazakhstan — a close ally of Russia — have come forward to accuse Lesley of rape, though the prisoner says he’s never even met them. The Calgary man believes it was a ploy to keep the pair in jail.

It all leaves him frightened for his friends’ safety.

“Nastya is in the most dangerous situation,” Cooper said. “She is living evidence of (what happened on the yacht). She saw the meetings. She saw all of that.”