The next two months were the strangest of my life. By day, I kept playing the role of the devoted wife: cooking his favorite meals, pressing his shirts, greeting him at the door with the same steady smile. At night, once Gleb was asleep after another late “meeting,” I photographed new documents from his office.
Recording devices hidden under the desk and in other carefully chosen spots captured his phone calls. “Relax, half the tax office is already on payroll,” he said into the phone one evening with a laugh. “Run it through Cyprus like always. The system works,” he told an accountant.
“These idiots don’t even realize how much money we make off them,” he bragged to one of his partners. With help from a tech specialist recommended by Major Larin, I also installed software on Gleb’s computer. It automatically copied files to a secure cloud server accessible only to investigators.
The hardest part was keeping my face calm over dinner while Gleb talked about his exhausting workdays. I knew half those days had been spent in bed with Regina in her luxury condo. Yes, I tracked that too. Still, I nodded sympathetically and poured him more wine.
I smiled when he lectured me about cutting back on groceries, even though that same morning he had wired $32,000 for a new watch. “You’ve been a little distracted lately,” he said one night, and my heart dropped hard. “I’ve just gotten into reading,” I said as evenly as I could.
I told him I had started reading detective novels and found them oddly addictive. “Detective novels,” he said with a patronizing little smile. “I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing. Well, good for you. Knowledge is power.”
Oh yes, I thought as I poured his coffee. It certainly is.
With every passing day, the picture of his criminal operation became clearer—and uglier. Gleb was laundering money for a group tied to illegal amber mining and other black-market operations. Millions moved through his hands every month.
The scheme had been refined over years. Cash came in from the shadow economy. Through a network of front people, Gleb bought up properties. Then Severtsev Development purchased those same properties at inflated prices. The difference landed in legitimate company accounts, where it could then be moved anywhere in the world.
But greed has a way of outrunning caution, and Gleb had started stealing from his own criminal partners. He understated deal values, skimmed money into offshore accounts, and labeled the missing amounts as expenses. Those stolen millions paid for Regina—her jewelry, her vacations, her hotel suites, her whole glossy little life.
I passed every bit of it to investigators. Every document, every recording, every photo of a suspicious meeting. “Mrs. Severtsev, you’ve done extraordinary work,” Major Larin told me at one of our quiet off-site meetings.
“Because of you, we’re uncovering a scheme that’s been operating for more than a decade,” he said. “This isn’t just your husband anymore. It’s a network.” “What about Dorokhov?” I asked. “Is he involved too?”…
