KGB Agents Paid Terrorists Millions for Stolen Art, Russian Paper Reports
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MOSCOW — KGB agents paid $24 million in cash and weapons to Palestinian terrorists in 1983 to purchase stolen art, jewelry and ancient coins, a Russian newspaper reported Wednesday.
The booty--10,000 pieces worth several billion dollars--was hauled back to the Soviet Union and stored in secret repositories with a promise not to remove it for 60 years, the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda said.
The newspaper, as well as a deputy prime minister of Russia, contend that former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other Communist Party leaders knew about the arms-for-art deal.
The revelations are based on secret Communist Party archives being leaked since the breakup of the party, and the Soviet Union itself, last year.
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