Finnish soldiers find 'secret Russian military bases' after raiding mysterious island

Havent seen this posted, search and found nothing.

A little brake from the political trolling that is ATS these days.

Be gentle, its my first thread.

Retired to a tiny island in an archipelago between Finland and Sweden, Leo Gastgivar awoke early one morning to visit the outhouse in his bathrobe, only to notice two black speedboats packed with Finnish commandos in camouflage fatigues waiting in the bay near his front door.

After an exchange of awkward greetings, Mr Gastgivar went inside, collected a pair of binoculars and watched aghast as the commandos raced off towards the island of his nearest neighbour, a mysterious Russian businessman he had never met or even seen.

www.independent.co.uk...

It's a fascinating read, the island had 9 docks, swimming pool hidden by camoflage'd tarp, enough housing to host a small army and 9 satallite recievers on the property. They also raided 16 other islands close by.

Mods, feel free to move if its in the wrong forum.

What say you ATS? Russia gearing up for WWIII by building secret outposts at strategic locations?



Mod Edit: New External Source Tags – Please Review This Link.

a reply to: samuelsson

What say you ATS?

Think outside the box of chocolates...

a reply to: samuelsson

Your source is far from independent and would love to stir up trouble between Finland and Russia.

That said and assuming the report is somewhat factual ... it is intriguing.

The bit about ties to Putin is likely silly. Any time that source says anything about any Russians, they all have close ties to either Putin or the Kremlin.

Rather then military, have you considered all of the human child slave rackets that are being quietly destroyed all over the world.

That would be much more plausible than Russia, Russia, Russia, bad bad bad.

It may come to light that the raid was at the behest of Russia. Now that would be a nice change.

We will have to keep looking for new information but don't ya go holden your breath now. You could pass out waiting.

P

a reply to: samuelsson

Cool, be a crying shame if they demolished it instead they should use it themselves and place a garrison there - after fully checking it out that is.
That is actually quite a diplomatic incident for the Russian's to try to get out of.

a reply to: pheonix358

Good point, a Russian business man could also mean an oligarch with his own private army, the island may have been a bolt hole for him in case he ran afoul of RUSSIAN authority's.

double post, I get any more of these and I shall have enough to build my own fence.

a reply to: samuelsson

Well done on your first thread.

Some of these Finnish islands are pretty cheap. It's no surprise Russians are buying them up and it'll be very interesting to see what comes from this investigation. The basics of the reports so far make the island sound like a private military listening post. We'll wait and see I suppose.

Two people were taken into custody after the raids – an Estonian of Russian descent and a Russian – and officers seized a stash of cash in multiple currencies, including €3m (£3m). Also seized were computer discs and flash drives containing more than 100 terabytes of data

Hopefully some of the data will be accessible. It's looking like a money laundering base that was previously 'off the radar' and anonymous. Nobody sends 400 police and soldiers to a property without good intelligence and weeks of investigation. It's likely to be a big operation and curious too.

Helipad, multiple piers, extensive buildings, construction work and only two people on the island?

My bet is this was Jefferey Epsteins Russian counterpart.
Anyone know how to say ‘orgy island’ in Russian?

Sounds very James Bond bad guy-ish. I would go for rich criminal trading in drugs, arms, people or money laundering, or all of the above.

a reply to: pheonix358

Yeah i might add a few other sources in the OP. That being said, its an intriguing story, loaded with assumptions i know gonna keep my eye on what unfolds!

Cant help to think about another thread i read earlier loam has an amazing one relating to Iran, China and Russia. Definitly recommend the thread.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: Kandinsky

Warms my ATS heart to get nod from you, Ive missed reading your threads on here.

It sounds like a massive operation for such a small island and having only 2 people on the island make it even more bizzare. Add to that the neighbour who witnessed these events said he'd never seen anyone on the island in the 10 years it's been owned by the Russian.

Sounds very james bond-ish.

a reply to: samuelsson

Warms my ATS heart to get nod from you, Ive missed reading your threads on here.

Your post has had me on Google maps and looking at prices for islands so thank YOU very much.

East European and Russian cyber criminals have been in the news for years. I wonder if this is one of their hubs? It'd maybe explain why so much cash in multiple currencies was lying around and all the technology. The terabytes of data would be encrypted if that's the case unless they were complacent in their isolation.

Let's hope we hear some news before Christmas rolls around and a few clues to what's been going on.

Incidentally, 200k euros is enough to buy a beautiful island in the area. No polar bears either!!

I think your title is misleading in some facts. As a finnish citizen the story goes.

Location of island in question is strategic but was it coincidence or prethought cannot be said.

Russian business man with MALTA passport ( 2015) and this man say he has Hungarian citizenship is behind the purchase of the island in question. Malta is a taxparadise and its EU passport can be bought for 880 000 euros. Russian business man has 5 companies in russia and only one of them gave him 3,7 million of income. He also has companies in Poland. he ownes some trademarks for royalties.

Whole scene is more like money laundering operation than anything else. Now the firm Airiston Helmi has new board members they are Dan Högström (retired from IT business 63 years old ) and Ex icehocker player from Latvia ( name not said ) and matters of law in the firm are in hands of propably most famous lawyer in Finland Kari Uoti.

YLE

a reply to: samuelsson


Fried egg spotted at 0:36. No bacon.

sounds exactly like a rich person's retreat. quite possibly even a bolt hole for if TSHF. even the fact that two people were there works for that. after all a place needs people to keep an eye on it, especially since it would seem that there was a rather large amount of cash on the premises. it's actually all pretty normal. i know a few people and houses like that where the actual owner is not often in residence. in fact my next door neighbour has just returned from about 6 months out of the country. and when he is not in the country there are always at least two people to look after things while he is gone, and nowadays to keep his carwash running smoothly. in this case the owner would appear to be much richer, and possibly has criminal ties (ultra rich and a likely criminal go figure, seems par for the course). and most pools i know of arround here have some sort of covering to provide shade. so again nothing to see there.

spinning this as some sort of spy base is rather far fetched. while that always is a possibility with something like this, especially owned by any forener. the fact that only 2 people were on site make that a rather weak assumption. if a spy base you would think they would have had many people there all the time to do the work of spying.

What say you ATS? Russia gearing up for WWIII by building secret outposts at strategic locations?

Just another Russian billionaire oligarch with too much money on his hands.

a reply to: samuelsson

To my understanding the island venture is not by far the only one which Russians use to get closer to strategic locations, such as coms hubs, arms depots, bases, etc.

my opinion :

criminal enterprise [ outside of russian juristiction ]

oliogarchs and thugs MAY be in favour with putin - this week - but next - who knows

the smart ones - have fallback poistion - incase they are " suddenly " targets of the state

Wow saw that on The Last Ship!

Interesting thread, thank you!

a reply to: samuelsson

Likely not a Russian military base .more likely the Russian business man neighbor was probably raided for being involved in sort of criminal undertaking.