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He knew there would be more challenges ahead.

Until the teenagers overheard their conversation, Josefina hoped they knew enough to draw comfort from the family’s plans.

“Back then I knew I was probably going to do life in prison, or I was not going to make it to this age,” he told me recently.

But by phoning around those who knew some of the background, it became clear that neither Mr Mook nor Mr Beasley was in fact part of the foundation.

Kurashov knew little about it, he said, but he thought anything was better than five more years in the penal colony or being turned out into the streets at the end of his sentence.