The Secret History of Flight 149 · Crowd Network

Estonia | Ep 5 | Secrets and spies

February 6, 2023·45 min·3 clips

A shadowy KGB faction called the Felix Group sent disinformation about the Estonia sinking to media outlets worldwide — and among its early members, according to Davis's sources, was a junior officer named Vladimir Putin.

Stephen Davis opens by recounting how he first heard about the Estonia through sacked MI6 agent Richard Tomlinson. In 1998, Davis arranged via encrypted emails to bring Tomlinson to New Zealand on a false passport to interview him. At Auckland Airport, both were met by Special Branch with injunctions — but a furious Tomlinson told Davis to investigate the Estonia ferry sinking, saying it was a smuggling operation at its core. Davis then introduces journalist Edward Lucas, who covered Estonia's independence in the early 1990s and ran the Baltic Independent newspaper in Tallinn. Lucas explains that Estonia, a state of just one million people on the border of a country 140 times larger, needed a major intelligence partner to survive — and MI6 stepped in to build Estonia's Information Board from the ground up. The Baltic states became what Lucas calls 'an intelligence sweet shop', offering decaying Soviet military structures, recruitable contacts, and access to the Soviet mindset. Davis describes his subsequent investigation through Russian sources, which had to stop due to danger — one contact cited the 1994 murder of journalist Dmitri Kholodov, killed by a bomb planted in a briefcase left at a Moscow train station. Davis eventually discovered Sweden's secret intelligence unit, the KSI — the Office for Special Acquisition — which transported sensitive documents and electronics from Russia via Estonia by ferry to Sweden. A Swedish customs officer whistleblower confirmed military electronics were removed from the Estonia in mid-September 1994, having been ordered by superiors not to search certain vehicles and told the order came 'from as high up as you can get'. A parliamentary inquiry led by judge Johan Hirschfeld confirmed transport on two dates but destroyed all background material, and Hirschfeld later acknowledged he may have missed information. Edward Lucas reads from his book Deception, describing Russia's late summer 1994 diplomatic warning to Estonia to stop the intelligence pipeline — a warning the Estonians dismissed. Amy Knight, a KGB expert, says the West underestimated how much Russia still viewed the Baltic states as its territory. An eyewitness named Sara recalls seeing military transports arriving at speed before the Estonia departed on its final voyage, but a Swedish journalist tried to discredit her by letter, claiming false memory — a journalist Davis notes was known for saying Russia posed no threat to Sweden. Davis describes the Felix Group, a KGB faction that spread disinformation about the sinking globally, and says his sources identified Vladimir Putin as among its early members.

As heard by us

A patient spy-history chapter that turns one hotel meeting into a wider Estonia puzzle.

A hotel-room meeting with former MI6 agent Richard Tomlinson pulls Stephen Davis into Estonia's murkiest corners, where the story widens from the fall of the Soviet Union to hints of smuggling at the border.

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A secret meeting with a former MI6 agent pulls you into Estonia's murkiest intelligence trail.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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