FRAUD VICTIM TELLS OF MIDNIGHT MEETING WITH PURPORTED MGB AGENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505060003-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: August 13, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

`STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/30: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505060003-4
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
13 August 1985
FRAUD VICTIM TELLS OF MIDNIGHT MEETING WITH PURPORTED 14GB AGES
By MARK LANGFORD
AUSTIN, TX.
A Yugoslavian who claimed he could win the release of an American seaman
held in Vietnam defrauded the man's father then suggested they could make
millions of dollars on book and movie rights after he was arrested by the FBI,
the father testified Tuesday.
Bratislav Lilic, 33, is on trial in federal court on charges he defrauded
$46,000 from Douglas F. Pierce by claiming he was a KGB agent and could win the
release of John Pierce, from a Hanoi hospital.
John Pierce was a crewman on the Glomar Java Sea, an oil drilling ship owned
by Global Marine Drilling Co. of Houston. It sank during a typhoon in the South
China Sea 200 miles off the coast of Vietnam in October 1983.
Pierce and 80 other crewmen from the ship were believed to have drowned in
the storm, but there have been reports that some crewmen survived and were
imprisoned in Vietnam.
A federal indictment alleged that Lilic, posing as a KGB agent named
Alexander Ivanov, told Pierce that the Russian Embassy would win his son's
freedom.
Pierce testified he first met Lilic near midnight June 19, 1984 in Chicago's
Water Place Park, which he called "dimly lit, full of derelicts and winos lying
around.''
Pierce said he asked for proof that his son was alive and that Lilic was who
he claimed to be. He said Lilic laughed and replied, ''What do you think I do,
carry my KGB card around with me?''
Pierce, who testified he was obsessed with winning his son's release, said he
then paid Lilic $15,000 of the $46,000 he eventually gave Lilic for the release
of his son and another crewman identified only as Mr. Brown.
" I hope you are real, " Pierce said he told Lilic. " I'm part Apache and I
will come looking for you. I'll put out a contract on you and carry it out
myself."
Pierce said Lilic gave him a secret code number, BZR77416, and the telephone
number of the Russian Embassy in Washington in case he needed to contact Lilic
in an emergency.
The next day, Pierce said Lilic instructed him and his daughter, Dale, to fly
to Miami, register at any Holiday Inn and wait to be contacted. He said Lilic
called, claiming he had encountered ''red tape,'' but that Pierce's son would be
taken from Vietnam to Cuba to Miami within the next week.
After several other contacts with Lilic in Philadelphia and Chicago, Pierce
finally told the FBI about the contacts but agreed to meet Lilic again in
January 1985 after Lilic said the deal could still be made for an additional
$28,000.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/30: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505060003-4