336: Kurt McKenzie – Russian Birth Tourism, Operation Miami Mama
FBI Retired Case File Review
Jerri Williams
4.6 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 November 2024
⏱️ 46 minutes
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Summary
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to episode 336 of FBI retired case file review with Jerry Williams. |
| 0:12.1 | I'm a retired agent on a mission to show you who the FBI is and what the FBI does through my books, my blog, and my podcast case reviews with former colleagues. |
| 0:24.2 | Today, we get to speak to once again retired agent Kirk McKenzie, who served in the FBI for 24 years. |
| 0:33.6 | In this episode, Kirk reviews his Russian birth tourism investigation, which targeted |
| 0:40.4 | boutique companies in South Florida that specialized in assisting pregnant Russian mothers with giving |
| 0:48.1 | birth in the U.S. in order to circumvent visa requirements and illegally secure American citizenship for their newborns. |
| 0:57.1 | The case took a surprise detour when the owner of Miami Mama, one of the birth tourism companies, |
| 1:04.2 | was discovered to also be involved in sending military-grade night vision and thermal vision rifle scopes to Russia. |
| 1:12.7 | The U.S. State Department bans these devices from being exported. |
| 1:16.7 | During the first three-and-a-half years of Kurt's FBI career, |
| 1:21.6 | he was a forensic biologist at FBI headquarters analyzing DNA evidence from sex crimes, serial murders, and other violent crimes. |
| 1:31.8 | For the last 20 and a half years of his bureau career, he was a special agent assigned to the |
| 1:38.0 | Miami Division, where he served on investigative squads working transnational organized crime, transnational narcotics, |
| 1:47.0 | health care fraud, and financial institution fraud. While working these matters, he had many |
| 1:52.9 | international deployments to Afghanistan, Albania, Canada, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, |
| 2:00.1 | Egypt, Germany, Israel, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Romania. |
| 2:05.3 | Upon being promoted to supervisory special agent, Kirk led joint-in-interagency task forces, |
| 2:12.1 | where he managed 26 member teams comprised of FBI agents, task force officers, analyst, and support staff |
| 2:20.4 | investigating high-profile transnational organized crime and major theft operations. |
| 2:26.8 | Kurt earned accommodations for investigative excellence and leadership, including the FBI Medal of |
| 2:33.8 | Excellence in 2018, outstanding federal law |
| 2:37.8 | enforcement officer in 2017, and the organized crime and drug enforcement task force officer |
... |
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