FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who was indicted for lying to the feds after claiming Joe Biden took a $5million bribe, has been unmasked for the first time by DailyMail.com.
Israeli-American Smirnov, 43, was secretly used for years by the FBI as a trusted Confidential Human Source.
But every time he appears in public he goes to great lengths to cover his face to avoid being recognized.
But now DailyMail.com has obtained previously unpublished pictures of the man who told his FBI handler he was at meetings with a Ukrainian oligarch who bragged about bribing Joe Biden and his son Hunter with $10million.
DailyMail.com has unmasked disgraced FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who had only been pictured in public with his face covered since he was arrested and charged with lying to feds earlier this year. He is pictured smoking a cigarette in Las Vegas in 2022
Up until now, Smirnov had never been publicly pictured without his face covered. He is seen concealing his face while seen leaving a Las Vegas court after pleading not guilty in February
Republican lawmakers published an FBI write-up of the claims, and seized upon it as evidence of the president's corruption.
But in February prosecutors charged Smirnov with lying to the FBI by fabricating the bribery story – and suggested that he was in fact a Russian double agent planting Kremlin disinformation.
Smirnov, represented by top Vegas attorney David Chesnoff, has entered a not guilty plea.
Photographs exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com show him partying in Las Vegas, his city of residence before he was thrown in federal prison awaiting trial.
The mysterious informant has never been pictured in public without a mask.
At a court hearing on February 20, Smirnov's girlfriend Diana Lavrenyuk, 58, and cousin Linor Shefer, 38, were pictured flanking him as he walked through a gaggle of journalists and photographers with his face covered with sunglasses, a face mask, scarf and hood.
Photographs inside the federal courthouse were prohibited.
The unmasked pictures, obtained by DailyMail.com from a source who has worked with Smirnov, show him flying business class with Lavrenyuk, taking a selfie while smoking a cigarette beside the Bellagio Fountain in Vegas, and attending a gala dinner with his girlfriend, who wore a red dress, furs, and a costume mask over her eyes.
Other undated photos show Smirnov dressed in a black suit, red rose boutonniere and gold chain, appearing sloppy with his eyes closed, at a Vegas hotel dinner table with Lavrenyuk posing by his side.
In April CBS News previously obtained a grainy passport photo of Smirnov from several years ago – the only other unmasked picture of the mysterious man.
The Israeli-American kept a low profile while he acted as a paid informant for federal law enforcement over 13 years, helping numerous criminal and counterintelligence probes, according to prosecutors.
His indictment revealed he was the 'Confidential Human Source' who told handlers about alleged 2015 and 2016 meetings with the owner of Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, in which the oligarch boasted about bribing Joe and his son Hunter Biden with $5million each.
Smirnov and his girlfriend are pictured again during the same Vegas trip, posing around the dinner table
The unmasked pictures, obtained by DailyMail.com from a source who has worked with Alexander Smirnov, also show him flying business class with girlfriend Diana Lavrenyuk in 2018, when the two were returning to the US from Turkey
The only public image depicting his face had been a court sketch from his appearance in a LA federal court in late February
Smirnov now faces 25 years in prison for allegedly fabricating the claims, and is accused of 'high-level' and 'extremely recent' links with senior Russian intelligence officials – including the chief of an assassination squad.
An FBI report describing his claims about the Bidens became one of the shocking documents in the Republican impeachment probe of the President when it was published last year.
The allegations are now being cast as potential Russian propaganda by Special Prosecutor David Weiss.
In federal court filings, Weiss said Smirnov's travel and communication records show he didn't engage with Burisma executives until 2017, and he never met Zlochevsky.
One of Weiss's court submissions claimed Smirnov had 'high-level contacts with Russian intelligence operatives,' and that he passed on 'false information' to the FBI from these sources.
The filing said Smirnov told his FBI handlers that one of his confidants was a son of a 'former high-ranking Russian government official,' who 'controls two groups of individuals tasked with carrying out assassination efforts in a third-party country.'
Prosecutors said Smirnov had planned to be back in the US for just two days, before flying to meet his Kremlin spy contacts, when he was arrested in Vegas.
Weiss claimed Smirnov had $6million in 'liquid funds', including $3.8million accessible by his 'wife/girlfriend', who pays his personal expenses from her own account – an apparent reference to Lavrenyuk, 58.
Residency records show her living with Smirnov in San Juan Capistrano, California, until 2023. A three-bed, 2,805 sq ft condo in a Vegas luxury high-rise was purchased in her name for $980,000 in February 2022.
Smirnov has a murky background with ties to trading of penny stock public companies and offshore companies.
A source who worked with Smirnov provided company documents showing the FBI informant is linked to a firm called A.S. Financials Ltd in the Republic of Vanuatu, a tiny Pacific island chain off the northeast coast of Australia.
Smirnov was flanked by his cousinLinor Shefer, 38, and his girlfriend's sonNikolay Lavrenyuk, 39, - both of whom also covered their faces - during his court appearance earlier this year
A FBI report describing his claims about the Bidens became one of the shocking documents in the Republican impeachment probe of the president last year, but the allegations are now being cast as potential Russian propaganda
Smirnov is accused of fabricating claims, telling handlers about alleged 2015 and 2016 meetings with Ukrainian Burisma gas firm owner, Mykola Zlochevsky in which the oligarch boasted about bribing Joe and his son Hunter Biden with $5million each
Despite being named after Smirnov's initials, the firm's sole director and shareholder is his father, Konstantin Smirnov, a Russian-born Israeli resident, 2017 company documents show.
Konstantin is also a partner in Felymos Trades Inc, a company based in the offshore tax haven of Panama, another document obtained by DailyMail.com shows.
Hints of the FBI informant's double-life slipped through to neighbors at his former home in San Juan Capistrano in conversations over dinner at a local steakhouse or backyard barbecue.
'He said he had connections with important people. In one conversation he mentioned that he had a meeting with the Minister of Defense in Afghanistan,' one neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous, told DailyMail.com. 'And he had connections with important people in the US.'
'I know he was involved with the government. I know he was originally from the East Bloc. Though I don't think he actually told me that,' said Mike Pastore, a 75-year-old mortgage broker who lives opposite the terracotta-tiled four-bed house where Smirnov resided the past five years before moving to Vegas in 2023.
'From time to time, we talked about geopolitical stuff, and he was well informed. It was an interesting conversation with him… He traveled a lot.'
The government's prosecution of Smirnov for lying is a dramatic reversal of their position from just last year, when FBI director Christopher Wray said that the then-unidentified informant was so valuable to the Bureau's investigations that they could not release a write-up of his interviews with a handler to Republican lawmakers.
And after using the intelligence Smirnov provided for many federal probes over a decade, the new charges against him have opened a can of worms for the government.
Other defendants, who were convicted after federal probes involving Smirnov, have started challenging their charges.
Andrew Hackett, 35, says he is a victim of a government cover-up of Smirnov's involvement in his case, over a pump-and-dump stock trading scheme.
A source who worked with Smirnov provided company documents showing the FBI informant is linked to a firm called A.S. Financials Ltd in the Republic of Vanuatu, a Pacific island chain off the north east coast of Australia
The firm's sole director and shareholder is his father, Konstantin Smirnov, a Russian-born Israeli resident, 2017 company documents show
The Justice Department claimed he used telemarketing and newsletters to pump up the price of a penny stock he owned, then planned to 'dump the stock at inflated prices on innocent investors'.
Hackett was convicted of securities fraud in August 2021 and sentenced to 46 months in prison.
Last week Hackett, who does not have a lawyer, filed a motion for a new trial in a California federal court, claiming the government failed to hand over evidence recorded by Smirnov that could prove his innocence.
Hackett says that Smirnov participated in his business calls, spoke with Hackett's business partners, and would have recorded those calls and meetings as part of his work as an FBI informant – but that prosecutors failed to hand over those records before Hackett's 2018 trial.
Hackett believes those records will show that he was conducting business legally, rather than orchestrating a pump-and-dump fraud.
'Smirnov's interactions and reports […] would have reasonably affected the jury's judgment,' Hackett wrote in his July 5 legal filing to a Los Angeles federal court.
'The intentional non-disclosure of such evidence allowed the Government to mislead the jury, deceive the Court during its Motions in Limine, and provide a false presentation of the facts at trial.
'The Government purposely continues to withhold disclosure of such evidence, in violation of the defendant's due process rights.'
DailyMail.com has obtained audio recordings of some of those business calls, where Smirnov can be heard speaking with an apparent Russian accent.
