Yvonne Bornstein

 

Yvonne Bornstein has been a corporate executive, a wife, a mother and a kidnap victim. She is now an author with this-ELEVEN DAYS OF HELL-her first book. She lives in Southern California with her husband, Sam and their three children. She will be speaking and signing books at the LA Book fair on the April 23-24, 2005.

 

"A terrifyingly true thriller that grips you from the first page and never lets you go! Yvonne Bornstein has shown remarkable courage and skill by digging deep into her darkest nightmares and detailing them on the page in a way that will leave you breathless..." --Stuart Beattie - Screenwriter: "Collateral" & "Pirates of the Caribbean"

"After twelve years of nightmares, Yvonne Bornstein musters the courage to tell her true-life tale - eleven days in the hands of Russian mobsters intent on collecting millions of dollars of ransom money. She recounts with surprising clarity her trials, deprivations, and eventual triumph over seemingly impossible odds." --Gregg Hurwitz - author of "The Program"

"It reads like Robert Ludlum or John Le Carre, only it was REAL! Riveting, I couldn't put it down." --Steven Snyder - Author, Seminar Leader, Radio Talk Show Host

"Bornstein throws stark light on the methods of kleptocrats, and on Russia’s spasmodic early attempts at capitalism." --Publisher's Weekly

 

 

PageOneLit: Why were you kidnapped? Was it a random kidnapping or plotted?

Yvonne Bornstein: It was probably plotted for quite a while. My former husband and I had 11 joint ventures established with various Russian organizations before and after the fall of communism.

We were one of the first Australian companies to be conducting this type of business.

Between a sour fertilizer deal between the joint venture in Vladivostok and the Taiwanese along with bribe money that was not passed over to the right people, we were targeted for $1.6millionUSD ransom even though there was never ever any cash money that was exchanged during any deals.

 

 

PageOneLit: Where exactly were you kidnapped?

Yvonne Bornstein: We were kidnapped 10 minutes after arriving at the Moscow airport. We had been picked up by the Manager of our Moscow office and thought we were being taken to a hotel. Instead we were taken on a different route than on previous trips and ended up at a rickety old Dacha approximately 80 kilometers from the airport.

I was dragged by the hair from the car I had been in with my husband, into a second car where I was almost choking from two men who held me tightly with a gun at one side of my neck and a knife at the other.

 

 

PageOneLit: What happened when you arrived at the Dacha?

Yvonne Bornstein: We were forced inside and almost immediately separated and beaten black and blue.

 

 

PageOneLit: Did you know why this was happening?

Yvonne Bornstein: Not at first. I was then told that it was because we owed the JV in Vladivostok $1.6million USD and if we did not pay in 3 days, we would be hanged.

 

 

PageOneLit: Did you know who these people were?

Yvonne Bornstein: Not at that time, I found out just recently that they were Chechen rebels with an Al Qeada link. They were employed by the head of the Vladivostok JV to kidnap, beat, torture and hold us for ransom. I also found out recently that these captors were to take a percentage of the money for their services along with passing money on to what was to become the now infamous Al qeada network.

Apparently, the Yeltsin government was trying to warn the Bush Snr government that there was a terrorist organization beginning and the US Government would not take notice.

I believe I might have been one of the first terrorist targets of this nature.

 

 

PageOneLit: How did you communicate? Do you speak Russian?

Yvonne Bornstein: No, we did not speak Russian. We had a Russian translation book and did the best we could. Most of the first two days, we were being beaten and tortured and did not have much chance to speak anyway.

 

PageOneLit: How did you react? What did you do?

Yvonne Bornstein: I felt shell-shocked, stunned, disbelieving. After more than 24 hours of being beaten and tortured, our heads were clear enough to tell the captors that if they allowed us to call our relatives in the USA, we would try to get the money for them.

 

 

PageOneLit: Did they allow you to call your relatives?

Yvonne Bornstein: On day three, they took us to own office in Moscow to make a call. They told us not to tell our relatives that we had been beaten, tortured or harmed in any way, that we needed the money purely for a business matter.

 

 

PageOneLit: In your book, you state that when you made that first phone call, you gave your relatives clues as to the fact that you were in trouble. What did you say?

Yvonne Bornstein: My husband spoke to them in a very robotic like voice while I was being held at gunpoint. He knew our relatives were going away for a long weekend and after telling them that we needed the money, he asked them pass on our regards to some dead relatives.

We believed at that time that they received the message loud and clear.

 

 

PageOneLit: Do you know what they did?

Yvonne Bornstein: Not at that time. I found out all the behind the scenes details many years later when I was doing research for the book. The FBI was extremely helpful and co-operative in supplying all the information.

 

 

PageOneLit: What did your relatives say to you?

Yvonne Bornstein: They said they would try to gather the money, but it might take some time because it was such a large amount. They asked for a telephone number where we could be reached but the kidnappers would not allow that and told my husband to tell them that we would call again in two days.

 

 

PageOneLit: How many days were you held hostage?

Yvonne Bornstein: Eleven.

 

 

PageOneLit: Were you tortured or raped?

Yvonne Bornstein: Yes, both. The torture was both psychological and physical. It lasted many days and I never knew when or how it was going to happen.

The rape was brutal, it happened while my husband and I had been separated.

I did not tell him about some of the torture or the rape, as I knew he would want to kill someone. That would have endangered our lives even more.

 

 

PageOneLit: Did they feed you at all?

Yvonne Bornstein: Sometimes. One minute they would feed us a small morsel of food, the next they would start with the beatings again.

 

 

PageOneLit: Tell me about the actual rescue. Did you know what was happening?

Yvonne Bornstein: We were separated at the time. I did not know where my husband had been taken and he had been gone several hours. At 4am on day eleven, the wife of the big mafia boss told me to go downstairs.

Before I started down the stairs, she threatened me and told me if I told anyone what had happened over the last 11 days, they would come and me and my family in Australia.

Before I could get to the bottom of the staircase, 20 military dressed men with machine guns burst into the house. They did not speak English and I did not know who they were.

I could see they were arresting some of the men in the house.

They lead me to a car and took me to the Ministry of Interior Police station.

At that stage I had no idea where we were going.

 

 

PageOneLit: What happened when you arrived at the Police station?

Yvonne Bornstein: They questioned me for hours, even told me to write down my story.

 

 

PageOneLit: Where and when did they find your husband?

Yvonne Bornstein: They found him at a Moscow hotel about 5 hours after I was rescued. When they finally brought him back to the Police station, he was also questioned.

He told the Police that he had been vacationing at a resort for the last 11 days, so our stories did not match. He had obviously been threatened as well.

He did finally tell the truth.

 

 

PageOneLit: How did you feel when you were reunited with your husband?

Yvonne Bornstein: A little strange. As much as we were happy to be alive, we were both shell-shocked. It felt cold. We had been in that Police station for more than 14 hours. Unfortunately, the marriage was never the same.

 

 

PageOneLit: Where were you taken?

Yvonne Bornstein: Representatives came from the Australian embassy and took us to a safe apartment until we went home to Australia a few days later. They were really wonderful.

 

 

PageOneLit: Who would you say was the most instrumental in putting the rescue operation in motion?

Yvonne Bornstein: A number of people. I was absolutely awestruck to think that our case was the very first ever-open collaboration between the FBI and former KGB. They both worked hand in hand to rescue us. The most pro-active person who was involved at the point of the rescue was a Colonel Rushailo who was then head of the Organized Crime department in Moscow.

http://www.yvonnebornstein.com