Soldier of Fortune Magazine The Journal of Professional Adventurers
A Moscow warlord, a French fugitive, and a mysterious tunnel beneath Ceuta take investigators deep into Europe’s criminal networks.
They operated out of sight, in a criminal underworld where secrecy was part of the business. Two were men. The third wasn’t even human. They were brought to light by a bomb, an international manhunt, and a hidden trapdoor.
From Soldier of Fortune‘s Vienna Bureau, A.R. Fomenko followed three remarkable cases across Europe and North Africa, uncovering violence, elaborate schemes, and unexpected discoveries along the way.
The Boxing Boss and the Bomb
A bomb ripped through the hallway of an upscale Moscow apartment complex, killing a man whose title concealed a far more dangerous life. Armen Sarkisyan, killed on February 3, 2025, was officially a Donetsk boxing official. He also founded an ethnic Armenian fighting unit operating under Redut, a network backed by Russian military intelligence.
The assassination bore the marks of a coordinated operation. Investigators said one team watched Sarkisyan while others handled the bomb, possibly delivered by courier. Soldier of Fortune publisher Susan Katz Keating warned that arms smuggling and old scores threatened to plunge Moscow back into the gangland violence of the 1990s.
Read: Death of a Warlord: One More Murder in Moscow
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The Fly Lands in Bucharest
A stolen Peugeot rammed a prison van at a Normandy toll plaza in May 2024. Gunmen opened fire on the guards and freed Mohamed Amra, the gang boss known as La Mouche, The Fly. France declared him public enemy number one, and Interpol issued a Red Notice.
Nine months later, police caught Amra near a Bucharest shopping mall on February 22, 2025. He had dyed his hair and grown a beard, but facial recognition and fingerprints exposed his identity. He was returned to France, where he faced an expanding investigation that saw more than 20 suspects detained across several countries.
Read: Notorious Fugitive ‘The Fly’ Gets Swatted in Romania
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The Ghost Under Ceuta
Spain and Morocco meet in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the North African coast. For years, investigators there chased a smuggling tunnel they were sure existed but could never find. They called it The Ghost.
The break came in December 2023, when Civil Guard agents found three tons of hashish in a truck at the port. The trail led to an abandoned marble factory near the Moroccan border. Under a trapdoor, a stairway dropped 39 feet into a timber-shored passage with branches running beneath Spanish soil. The hunt was part of a wider effort called Operation Hades.
The Ghost had a shadow. Fomenko’s Madrid source later described a second, larger tunnel beneath a warehouse, with rails, steel reinforcement, and lifts for moving pallets of hashish. Investigators also found plans for a third.
Read: Dirt, Dope, and Deceit: Inside the Smuggling Tunnels of Ceuta
