Welcome back to the podcast, bribes, swindle or steel.

I'm Alexandra Rogge, and today we're covering FIFA, the U.S. Foreign Extortion Prevention Act,

with Tom Firestone, one of the earliest champions of the idea.

Tom is a partner with Squire Patent Boggs in Washington, but he spent

many years in Russia, first as legal advisor at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and later with an international

firm. Few people know more about anti-bribery efforts and compliance in Russia than he does.

Tom, thank you for joining me.

Alexandra, thank you for having me and for that nice introduction.

Before we jump in, can you describe for listeners your time in Russia, including how it ended?

Because, well, it's interesting and it provides some great context.

Sure.

So I was a prosecutor.

I was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York, and I was in the organized crime section.

And I had an academic background in Russia, like so many lawyers, I tried to do something else first, which didn't work out and then went to law school.

And so my original career was getting a PhD in Russian history and politics and language.

And so when I wound up in the organized crime section

in the Eastern District, there were everyone to do John Gotti, Vinnie the Chin, the big Italian cases,

and there were a lot of Russian cases from Brighton Beach and various areas of Brooklyn and Queens

that nobody was that interested in doing. So I started doing those and very quickly. I became

one of the leaders in combating Russian organized crime at DOJ.

And so they offered me a position at the embassy in the early 2000s when we were still trying to cooperate with the Russians on combating transnational crime as the DOJ representative at the embassy resident legal advisors, what the position was called.

And I wound up being there for a total of eight

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