Joyous Reunion for Mother, Child : FBI, Russian Agency Join Forces to Rescue Girl 11 Months After Abduction From L.A.

Her boyfriend said he was taking her 2-year-old daughter on a birthday visit to Disneyland.

Instead, Nataliya Kaminskaya’s little girl began an international odyssey nearly a year ago when she was kidnaped to Russia from her Los Angeles home.

On Tuesday, the FBI disclosed that Monique Michelle was rescued by its counterpart in Moscow--Russian MVD agents helping to enforce a new U.S. law that prohibits international parental abductions.

The toddler played at her mother’s feet and sang nursery rhymes in Russian as the 38-year-old Kaminskaya thanked FBI agents at their Westwood headquarters and observed: “So many things have changed in Russia.”

Suspected kidnaper Michael Belakovsky, a Russian businessman who had been running an import company in the Hollywood area, will be extradited to the United States under the new law. He could face both federal and state charges, officials said.

“This law became effective three weeks before Monique’s abduction,” said Charlie Parsons, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office. “This is the very first indictment under this statute.”

A federal grand jury unanimously indicted Belakovsky, 63, although he is not the girl’s father, Parsons said. The kidnaping apparently “wasn’t for the love of the child, but to harm the mother,” he said. Neither he nor the mother would identify the child’s father or disclose any specific motive for the abduction.

Kaminskaya, a hairdresser who has lived in this country for three years, said she and Belakovsky had been friends for several months before Monique’s disappearance last Dec. 29. She said Belakovsky would sometimes baby-sit the girl.

She said she called a private investigator after the abduction and toyed with the idea of asking for help from the famed Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad, before a friend urged her to contact the FBI. “My friend said, ‘We’ve lived in America many years, we have to believe in them,’ ” Kaminskaya explained.

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Kaminskaya feared the worst when Belakovsky wrote and warned: “You’ll never see your baby again, never.’ ”

The Russian MVD--short for Ministry of Internal Affairs--took up the case in July when FBI Director Louis J. Freeh visited Moscow to meet with the ministry’s organized crime office.

Belakovsky was arrested Nov. 23. Although no extradition treaty exists between the United States and Russia, authorities here voiced confidence that he will soon be returned.

“This represents one of the first tangible results of our new relationship with Russian law enforcement,” Parsons said. But it’s unlikely to be the last.

Next week, Parsons said, the FBI is launching its own “Russian organized crime squad” to investigate crimes ranging from money-laundering to murder for hire among the estimated 500,000 Russian immigrants living in the Los Angeles area, he said.

“We’re trying to learn from our experience. In the 1930s, law enforcement was very slow to attack the Cosa Nostra,” he said.

At the time of her rescue, Monique was living in Cyprus with Belakovsky’s girlfriend, investigators said. Well cared for during the 11 months, she was reunited with her mother and her 15-year-old sister, Stella, on Friday. Russian-speaking FBI agent Pakala Bennett escorted her home from Cyprus.

Kaminskaya said Monique will celebrate her third birthday Dec. 31.

“I’ll cook a big cake,” she said. And there won’t be any Disney characters on top, either.

“I’ll put the three letters on it. FBI.”