According to the source, Ivankov, known in the criminal circles by the nickname Yaponchik, has been dispatched to Russia on board a civilian plane chartered for the purpose by U.S. immigration authorities.
Normally, military aircraft are normally used for the extradition of criminals, but the States has all such jets in Iraq at the moment.
The Americans have also done most of the work to ensure secure delivery. Russia has only contributed two security officials to escort Ivankov back home.
Ivankov was sent off from the Niagara Falls Airport, in northern New York, at 6 pm, local time, on Tuesday (2 am, Moscow time, Wednesday).
The entire operation was carried out on the basis of bilateral agreements vis-a-vis Ivankov, our interviewee reported. According to him, the man's American defense lawyers made no attempts to influence or upset the extradition procedure.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ivankov was released from custody after spending nearly ten years in the federal high-security penitentiary Allenwood, in Pennsylvania, to be then handed over to naturalization authorities.
Ivankov had been serving a prison term in the United States for entering into a sham marriage to circumvent immigration laws and extorting 3.5 million dollars from two Russian immigrants, Alexander Volkov and Vladimir Voloshin. Ivankov alleged that the two men had cheated acquaintances of his out of this amount of money back in Russia.
Yaponchik was arrested by the Federal Investigation Bureau in June 1995, and in 1996 he was sentenced to nine years and seven months of imprisonment, with the time in pre-trial detention counted in. Inmate #30219048 could have been set free before his term expired, but owing to disobedience, his release from custody had to be postponed several times.
Russian authorities accuse Ivankov and his accomplice nicknamed Sliva, who is now dead, of murdering two Turkish nationals in a Moscow restaurant in 1992. In June 2004, the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office sent a request for the extradition of Yaponchik. American authorities granted the request.
Upon arrival in Moscow, Ivankov was taken to the pre-trial detention center Matrosskaya Tishina. This is where Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former Chief Executive of the Yukos oil giant, is staying.
According to a source in Russian law-enforcement agencies, Ivankov was taken from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport amidst tight security. A sham motorcade with commandos was the first to hit the road, and an armored Chevrolet minivan with the mafioso on board followed in their wake.
