Bogdan Gasiński

Bogdan Gasiński (born November 2, 1971, in Kożuchów) is a Polish man who until 2001 worked as one of regional directors for a company named Inter Commerce owned by multimillionaire Rudolf Skowroński (missing since 2005). He gained notoriety in November/December 2001 as the supposed source of allegations about bribing of top Polish politicians by Skowroński, and as the source of allegations of visits by Afghan militants to the Polish village of Klewki related to alleged anthrax experimentation conducted there. Wiernikowska pp. 23-35.


 * Translation of an excerpt: G: At Inter Commerce, I was a director. I was associated with the company since 1992, even during my work for the state-owned bus transport company in Głogów, in Leszno and in Jelenia Góra. [...] W: And what was going on in Klewki? [...] G: About 250 [cattle] were buried, because during my tenure, experiments of an unknown nature, ordered by Mr. Skowroński, were conducted on that cattle. W: What kind of experiments? G: Vaccines of various kinds were tested, including [experiments] on causing E. coli, gangrenous mastitis-related bacteria, and anthrax too. I remember how it started: in the summer of 2000 Mr. Skowroński arrived in Klewki in his helicopter. Before that, he gave instructions to send everyone home, leave only the cowshed employees and dress them nicely in white lab coats. Two Afghan citizens arrived with him. During the inspection these gentlemen walked through all the rooms of the facility and then went to the manor. I asked what was the purpose of this visit. He said that, possibly, we were going to be testing some vaccines, that a lab would be built, that he wanted to sign a contract. I thought, why not. But later, when these vaccines were delivered, came the order to refuse inspections by the Circuit [Sanitary and Epidemiological] Station. The veterinarian stopped coming to the facility altogether. [...] The Environmental Control Inspector [...] says he saw the documentation, which he could not have seen, because I have it and referred it to the DA's office. W: What documentation? G: Veterinary documentation. Because I was keeping the documentation personally, I was applying the vaccines and I know what were the symptoms related to these animals' deaths, with a detailed description of these experiments. W: You wrote, black on white, that there is anthrax there? G: Yes. The instructions were to take milk from these animals into special test tubes and pack it. Mr. Skowroński would send his people in, and it was taken to a lab in Warsaw.
 * Translation of an excerpt: ''G: I provided a list of seven people who took part in burying [the animals] and who witnessed how these animals were dying en masse and how they were being dealt with. There is a law that clearly says that all [dead] animals should be shipped to Bacutil facilities and rendered. During my tenure, not a single one of them went to Bacutil. W: Why? G: Because it was forbidden. The animals were being buried in three different places. The most terrifying part is that these animals are buried in the Watercourse and Lake Protection Zone [strefa hydrogeniczna] of Jezioro Klebarskie and Jezioro Silickie lakes, close to Olsztyn. In the village of Lelek the animals are buried in the Watercourse and Lake Protection Zone of Lake Tałty and Lake Śniardwy. [...] In 2000, mass water contamination occurred in Klebark. The press did write about it. Over 200 people got food poisoning, a few ended up in a hospital in a relatively serious condition. The prosecutor's office investigated that, but they found out nothing, only that the contamination comes from Inter Commerce, because the water pumping station for gmina Purda was next to our farm, where cows from the German company Western Union [actually, Rinder-Union West] arrived two months earlier. W: Did you personally take part in the burying? G: No, I was a director of course, and did not work at burying cattle. There were three of us, directors of Inter Commerce for the Masuria region, but two fled out of fear, because they did not want anything to do with that business. No director worked at Inter Commerce for more than two, three months anyway. People kept being replaced. So that no one was too much in the know about what was happening at the company. I was able to stay the longest only because I agreed to collaborate. W: About that, what other responsibilities did you have? G: As Mr. Skowroński's trusted person, I used to be taken to talks about construction of shopping malls, especially the Carrefour in Szczecin. I also worked at equipping the Tesco shopping mall in Jelenia Góra. I used to be sent to various cities in Europe. My task was to carry various packages, plans/maps, and some parcels. [...] After 9/11 I immediately started connecting the facts. No one can accuse me of not doing anything. Within a few days I notified the Circuit Prosecutor's Office in Jelenia Góra, the Central Bureau of Investingation [CBŚ], Urząd Ochrony Państwa in Wrocław and told them I had been carrying these things. W: What specifically? G: Maps of airports, floor plans of buildings, floor plans of hotels. Other packages were in small boxes, 20 cm by 10 cm, which could not be opened, because had I opened it, everyone would have known it had been opened, right? But some folders were not sealed. You could browse them normally. W: Did you also use to carry money? G: Twice: once to Kraków and once to Paris, to de Gaulle Airport. W: Did you know to whom and what for? G: Yes, or rather I only made the connection between the facts later. W: When did you stop being a trusted man? G: Maybe it happened in February this year [2001], when I said during a conversation with N[rest of the name censored] and Skowroński that I don't want to take part in that kind of business. Working in Masuria, I used to meet with Mr. Andrzej Zieliński — "Słowik". Other people who were Skowroński's guests were such gangsters as Ryszard Niemczyk, and earlier "Pershing"... W: Did you see them? G: Of course I saw them and talked to them. It was no secret. [...] W: But you knew a lot. G: That's why in February [2001] I said I would like to withdraw from the company's activities, but it would be best if I were reassigned to some other facility. The company has its field offices [delegatury] in all of Poland, in all of Europe... W: But back then, you still did not go to a prosecutor's office yet? G: No, not yet back then, besides, there was no point going to a prosecutor's office in Olsztyn because [censored]. Mr. Skowroński was perfectly informed about all actions to be undertaken by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBŚ] and by UOP. The police were also at Mr. Skowroński's service.''
 * Translation of an excerpt: G: I learned yesterday from one newspaper that I have been a Mossad agent for six years. Nothing can surprise me anymore.
 * Translation of an excerpt: G: More and more people remind themselves about the company Inter Commerce: customs officers at Okęcie Airport, who were receiving emeralds from Afghanistan; quote-unquote emeralds, because Mr. Skowroński used to smuggle drugs to Poland in the containers. W: What drugs? Smuggled them where? Data, specifics, please. Where are you getting this [information] from? G: Madam, I was a director at Inter Commerce and I was in the know about some things. I don't know if he still does it, because he could have halted it after the whole thing was disclosed, couldn't he? W: From Afghanistan to where? G: To Europe, through Poland. In Poland they were received by residents [or "station chiefs"; a term from espionage/organized crime parlance] of Pruszków Mafia and Wołomin Mafia, distributed within the country, and [carried] further, via border crossings in Bezledy, Jakuszyce, Kołbaskowo. They were carried further on, via their own channels. W: How was he paying? G: Mostly with weapons. W: From where? G: Russia, former USSR countries. Mr. Skowroński has many field offices [delegatury] of Inter Commerce there. He wasn't paying with weapons only, he was also paying with money deposited by many Afghanistan-related organizations. Mr. Skowroński was the owner of the German company Grama Handels GmbH, which has been, since as early as 1989 or 1990, doing business with Afghanistan: with Kabul, with Kandahar, with Jalalabad and other cities. One of Afghan ministers is Mr. Skowroński's friend. We know that person's name, we have the photos from his visit to Poland and his meeting with Mr. Skowroński. W: Mr. Skowroński claims that he maintained contact with General Massoud. If so, then not with his opponents, the Taliban. G: Indeed, I had the opportunity to personally meet General Massoud while working for Inter Commerce. It was in the Czech Republic in, I think, 1999. General Massoud was, because he's deceased, the head of the Northern Alliance, which controlled 80% of opium farming in Afghanistan and it was that pact's main source of income and support. We have evidence that Mr. Skowroński maintained contacts not only with General Massoud, but also with other people, via — among others — the aforementioned company.
 * Translation of an excerpt: W: How did you know bin Laden's phone number? G: Trybuna [a newspaper] publishes fabricated bullshit, there was no phone number there. W: This diary of yours, does it exist or not? G: There was a notebook, I mean my notes, copied from Skowroński's correspondence that I carried to Bochum. I copied it into my day planner, where there was blank space, on pages with next year's dates. I gave these notes to the officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBŚ] in Szczecin right after my return. There is no diary of mine, it's fabricated. I am not going to comment on the actions of Trybuna.
 * Translation of an excerpt: G: What tipped the scale were the events of April 17. After I left the company [building?], the secretary called me and warned me not to come to the office, because three men, Ukrainians or Russians, arrived, and barged into my office armed with guns. I did not go to the facility, I only contacted my boss. N[rest of the name censored] made it clear that it was meant to be an attempt to frighten me, so that I know my place. I thought about it shortly and made my choice: on April 20 I went abroad. I came to Greece, sat down for a few hours and started organizing things in my head. I had money, savings, I could have stayed abroad, set myself up in the US or somewhere. But I thought: no, I won't be disposed of like that. Terrorized or killed. And I returned the next day. After I returned to Poland, I began my trek... [...] I did not go to the police or UOP's offices because I knew who is behind it. [...] I couldn't have gone to an office where a guy would call Skowroński and tell him: listen, there is a Gasiński here going around and talking on you. He needs to be taken care of. It was some time until I took a look around, checked the company's previous connections.
 * Translation of an excerpt: [Gasiński] did not pay for dinner in a restaurant in Poznań, which resulted in an intervention by UOP officers [...] But, for example, why was it secret service officers that took him out of the Poznań restaurant? Our hero—an avid spook and an investigator of misconduct—had various run-ins with bosses and with the law, but somehow used to get out of all of them scot-free. Why? Investigative journalists did not venture that far.

Other allegations by Gasiński are related to 9/11 perpetrators.

While Aleksander Makowski (a former top spy, an Inter Commerce employee (1990-1995 and 1998-2000), and Skowroński's partner in Afghanistan-related business ventures  ) confirmed one part of Gasiński's widely-ridiculed claims in his 2014 book—he said that Afghan militants indeed visited Klewki, and that they were only Ahmad Shah Massoud's mujahideen—he dismissed other claims made by Gasiński, and a 2005 book published on the subject, as crazy.

Makowski himself described, in the aforementioned 2014 book, how Makowski and Skowroński traveled multiple times to the Panjshir Valley to meet with Massoud, how they traded in emeralds with the mujahideen, how they printed money in Poland which was to be used as an official currency by Massoud's Northern Alliance, how an attempt to supply weapons to the Afghans supposedly failed because Americans objected to it; and how Makowski's knowledge of Afghanistan became useful when he was later hired to provide intelligence to Polish soldiers in the war in Afghanistan. Gasiński however paints a different picture, alleging that they were providing weapons to the Afghans in exchange for drugs, mentioning the Northern Alliance's opium farming in this context.

Gasiński was sentenced to 38 years' imprisonment, all for non-violent crimes and animal cruelty.

Chronology
Gasiński was one of three directors of Inter Commerce for the Masuria region. He claimed two other directors fled because they did not want anything to do with Inter Commerce's real field of activity. He says that personnel in Inter Commerce was regularly replaced, and that he himself was kept as an employee for years only because he agreed to "collaborate" (suggesting involvement with an intelligence agency, organized crime, or both). By his own account, in February 2001 Gasiński tried to withdraw from the company's activities, asking for a reassignment to some other location. Gasiński says he abandoned his post in Klewki after being threatened in April 2001. He also called public attention to himself by buying a car at a charity auction from the organizers of the country's most popular charity concert.

It is not clear what Gasiński was doing in the following months, in the middle of 2001. There are reports he was jailed for some reason in Jelenia Góra.

Later, on October 28, 2001, Gasinski apparently sent a letter to the DA's office. The letter makes the following claims:
 * That Rudolf Skowroński, head of Inter Commerce, was a close friend of Andrzej "Słowik" Zieliński and was meeting regularly with some other gangsters of the Pruszków gang; that the Pruszków gang and Inter Commerce were so closely linked they were practically the same organization; and that the gang distributed Skowroński's drugs in Poland and abroad
 * that Skowroński's emerald trade with Afghanistan was just a cover for importing drugs, and that Skowroński paid the Afghans back with guns, and also supplied bioweapons to the Afghans
 * that local and regional officials, including police officials, in the Masuria region were routinely bribed by Skowroński
 * that Skowroński also paid for the campaigns of top (not local) politicians; the letter mentions at least one of them by name
 * that Gasiński himself helped Ryszard Niemczyk escape from the country by transporting him from Kraków to Nowy Sącz on October 31, 2000, and that Ryszard Niemczyk was the killer of Marek Papała (head of the Polish police)
 * that in September 2000 Gasiński himself supplied plans of some objects to Afghan nationals at Nice Airport; and that on the same day at Frankfurt Airport he received a package from a citizen of a Middle Eastern country destined for Skowroński, that package containing plans of Frankfurt Airport
 * that Gasiński himself gave and received, multiple times, packages containing plans (maps) of passenger jets (Embraer, Boeing 767), of Okęcie Airport, of hotels, of railway/bus stations etc (and other packages that he could not open without leaving evidence of tampering ) and at two times, money shipments; that the meeting points where handovers took place were often in Bochum, Dusseldorf, Munich, Paris, and they happened also in Szczecin, Poznań, Kraków; and most interestingly, that the parcels were addressed to Mohamed Ali (sic) Atta, Hassan Algadi Banihammad, Abdulaziz Alomari, Mahand [Mohand] Alshehri and Saeed Alghamdi
 * that Gasiński himself met Hassan Algadi Banihammad in 1997 in Poznań
 * that one of the aforementioned (by name) recipients of parcels was a close acquaintance of Skowroński (and Gasiński saw that person more than one time at Chróścicki street in Warsaw)
 * that Ryszard Niemczyk was in possession of detailed plans of a terror attack on the USA
 * that some members of the Pruszków gang, including Jarosław "Chińczyk" Maringe, played an important role in "bomb attacks in the USA"



Gasiński claimed that earlier, in 1994-1999, he took part in overseeing mining work at a uranium mine in Kowary (formally closed).

Gasiński also mentioned anthrax experimentation (see below).

In later conversations with Maria Wiernikowska (December 2001), Gasiński recalled personally meeting Ahmad Shah Massoud in 1999 in the Czech Republic while working for Inter Commerce; he also said that Massoud's organization was supported mostly by opium trade. While Skowroński implied that the only Afghans he had been in contact with were Massoud and people from Massoud's organization, Gasiński also mentioned Skowroński maintaining contacts with "other people" in this context.

Only a month after sending the letter, at the end of November 2001, Gasiński went to the politician Andrzej Lepper with information about top politicians: Andrzej Olechowski, Paweł Piskorski and Jerzy Szmajdziński receiving money from Skowroński (later, in early December 2001, Gasiński repeated these allegations in a written report that he gave to Lepper and two other MPs: Łyżwiński and Żywiec ). Lepper, who was a vice-marshal of the House and the leader of the Samoobrona political party, which had just become a major political power, publicly made these allegations (plus allegations against two other politicians) during a session of the House. A major scandal broke out. Gasiński was thrust into the spotlight. Lepper was sued by the politicians whom he accused, and in 2005 the court ruled in their favor, sentencing Lepper for slander.

Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, Dziennik,   Wprost and Polityka covered at least some of Gasiński's claims and kept writing about his legal problems even years later, but considered his claims unreliable or laughable.

Gasiński was then arrested in January 2002, but then released, and then unexpectedly made a "private trip" to Rome instead of meeting with the journalist Wiernikowska as scheduled. After returning, he met with Wiernikowska again (it was then when he implied to Wiernikowska that he had been working for Israeli intelligence the whole time ) and also publicly retracted all his original claims, both in the public prosecutor's office and in an interview with Gazeta Wyborcza (spring 2002).

After this retraction, several things happened: Gasiński was sentenced to two and a half year in prison for defrauding Skowroński's Inter Commerce, while not present in court (June 2002); a top mob boss and a policeman were murdered in a shooting in Mikołajki (August 2002)—as Gasiński later claimed, this mob execution took place in front of his eyes; and Gasiński became associated with Skowroński again, living—as the media claimed, out of his own will—in Skowroński's house in Mikołajki (December 2002). That was despite Skowroński's previous characterization of Gasiński as an unimportant, self-aggrandizing farm worker and a thief. While Gasiński was staying in Skowroński's house, letters, supposedly written by Gasiński and expressing solidarity with bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, were being sent.

Although Gasiński later reverted to his original claims and in 2005, he reiterated the bribery claims in court, by that time he was a convict and a prisoner. He has been continuously in prison since October 2003 (with the exception of an escape in 2007, after which he was caught).

Earlier reports by Gasiński
Gasiński made at least some of his claims even before sending the aforementioned October 28, 2001, letter to a prosecutor's office in Olsztyn.

When Gasiński was interrogated in jail in Jelenia Góra "at the beginning of September" 2001, he made at least the claim about delivering money to the fugitive Ryszard Niemczyk in Kraków.

Gasiński made a report of crime to a prosecutor's office in Olsztyn at least twice (not necessarily to the same office); and at least two times it was ignored. At least one letter, containing a report of crime, was sent by Gasiński to a prosecutor's office from jail. At least one report of crime was filed by Gasiński later, on October 28, when Gasiński was a free man able to visit a newspaper's office (unless Gasiński was released immediately after filing the October 28 report of crime). It is not known is both reports of crime contained the same information.

Lepper says that Gasiński made a report of crime to a prosecutor's office in Olsztyn (either personally or by mail) on September 19. Head of a prosecutor's office in Olsztyn told the press that Gasiński came forward with his report, containing the anthrax accusations, "in September I think".

The importance of the timing of Gasiński's anthrax claims—whether it was in September or in October—is that although the anthrax letters were allegedly sent on September 18 (just a day after the Polish media published information about people affiliated with bin Laden's organization buying anthrax in the Czech Republic), the American press did not report on the anthrax letters before Robert Stevens' admission to a hospital (and his death) in October.

Anthrax
Gasiński wrote to the DA's office - and maintained that it is the truth in his conversation with Maria Wiernikowska - that experiments were being secretly performed on cattle at Skowroński's ranch in Klewki. According to him, this included experimentation with E. coli and anthrax. He said cows were injected with what was supposed to be vaccines, coming from the Czech Republic and Israel, and mortality among the cattle was high. Gasiński said he was ordered to take milk samples from the cows, and these samples were shipped to a laboratory in Warsaw. He said the experimentation started in the summer of 2000, after two Afghan citizens, who arrived in a helicopter with Skowroński, were given a tour of the cowshed, and that Skowroński specifically claimed their visit was related to plans to test vaccines and build a lab.

Dead animals were reportedly not shipped to a utilization plant, but instead buried in three different places, close to lakes. Gasiński linked water poisoning in Klebark in 2000 (over two hundred people affected, a few in serious condition) to this activity and said the DA's office had also linked this water poisoning to Inter Commerce.

Wiernikowska takes interest
War correspondent Maria Wiernikowska was probably the only journalist who took Gasiński seriously. Other journalists portrayed Gasiński as a fraudster and/or as someone spreading fantasies influenced by media reports about 9/11. Wiernikowska noted links of Gasiński's place of employment to the Polish military intelligence WSI. A situation when Gasiński was escorted out of a restaurant by members of UOP instead of ordinary police also caught her attention. Gasiński pointed out to her the strange deaths of Tadeusz Rusiecki (owner of casinos and handler of real estate belonging to the Russian embassy in Warsaw), of Rusiecki's Russian associate, and the poisoning of Rigobert Tauber (founder of the first casino in Warsaw). All three died within days of each other in February 2001. Gasiński claimed Skowroński planted his right-hand man Ralf Friedriksen in Rusiecki's company.

However, Skowroński was still portrayed in the media as a legitimate businessman; he did not deny links to Afghanistan, but portrayed himself as a friend of Ahmad Shah Massoud and denied any wrongdoing.

Wiernikowska lost her job as a result of her continued interest in the subject. She later published a book entitled Zwariowałam (I went mad) in which she chronicled her investigation. A multitude of names in the book are censored (blacked out), even Skowroński's name, but not the name of Aleksander Makowski, a former spy from the People's Republic of Poland era who later continued intelligence work for WSI. Aleksander Makowski was an employee at Inter Commerce.

Wiernikowska mentioned the "rumor" that the person really ruling Inter Commerce was not Skowroński, but Aleksander Makowski. However, to shield herself from legal troubles, she ended her book with the following caveat: "All I have written here is complete untruth".

The book was published in 2005.

Outcome
Rudolf Skowroński has been missing since 2005. He left a fortune in Poland (equivalent to about $37 million). In 2018, Polish Radio published information that Skowroński, who had been sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment in his youth, became a police collaborator later, and in the 1980s he was reporting to Departament I of the Polish Ministry of the Interior. Aleksander Makowski was one of the top officials of Departament I at that time.

Makowski was strongly criticized in a report related to the disbanding of WSI (which he had worked for), and sued the Polish Ministry of Defense because of claims the report contained. Makowski was a subject of two non-fiction books (one written by him and the other being an interview with him) before switching to writing spy fiction. He is still often interviewed by the media.

Out of the three MPs (Lepper, Łyżwiński and Żywiec) to whom Gasiński handed his report in December 2001, one (Łyżwiński) later spent two and a half years in prison for crimes including rape before actually being sentenced; the sentence was later overturned, and a new trial was postponed indefinitely for health reasons; not because of physical health (even though Łyżwiński required the use of a wheelchair after his prison stay) but because psychiatrists in a mental hospital, where he was ordered to be involuntarily committed for a period of time by the court, declared him unfit to stand trial. The two others are dead. Lepper died in what was ruled a suicide. Żywiec died in a strange car crash: he entered a car together with four friends as a passenger (one of his friends was driving) and then was found dead a short distance away next to the crashed car, alone. The car keys were never found. The car was cut to pieces as part of the investigation.

Gasiński was sentenced to over 38 years' imprisonment, all for non-violent crimes and animal cruelty. He is not allowed visits in prison by journalists.