Neighbors of double agent Alexander Smirnoff, 46, and his girlfriend, 58, tell how he installed cameras all over his $3.2m home and spoke of connections with 'important people' including Afghan defense minister

Residents of the quiet, gated Orange County cul-de-sac knew their neighbor Alexander Smirnov lived an ‘unconventional’ life. 

But they never suspected he could be a Russian double agent – at least until they saw it splashed all over the news this week.

Smirnov, revealed in an indictment last week to be an FBI informant, allegedly fed a made-up story to his handlers in 2020 about President Joe Biden taking bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch.

He is due in court in Los Angeles on Monday for a detention hearing. 

But on Paseo Bahia in the mission city of San Juan Capistrano, California, Smirnov, 43, and his partner Diana Lavrenyuk were just good – if somewhat unconventional – neighbors.

Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, left, walks out of his lawyer's office in downtown Las Vegas after being released from federal custody Tuesday, Feb. 20

There are no known pictures of Smirnov, 43, apart from these where he hid his face in Las Vegas, linking arms with his cousin Lenor Shefer and another man. The federal court system and FBI do not generally release mugshots

Smirnov and his partner Diana Lavrenyuk lived in this $3.2 million, 3,810 sq ft home in San Juan Capistrano, California

'We’d go to dinner, share meals, share a glass of wine. I liked him a lot, and Diana. They were both very nice,’ Mike Pastore, a 75-year-old mortgage broker who lives opposite the terracotta-tiled four-bed house where Smirnov resided the past five years, told DailyMail.com.

‘He was a stand-up, good neighbor. He loved being in America; both of them did.

Smirnov, a joint Israeli-American citizen, now faces 25 years in prison for allegedly fabricating the claims about Biden, and is accused of ‘high-level’ and ‘extremely recent’ links with senior Russian intelligence officials – including the chief of an assassination squad.

Neighbor Mike Pastore, 73, said of Smirnov: ‘He was a stand-up, good neighbor. He loved being in America'

But in San Juan Capistrano he 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.

Only small hints of his double-life slipped through to neighbors, 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.’

Pastore said: ‘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.

‘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 neighbors said the more they discovered about Smirnov, the greater a mystery he became.

‘He had a very unconventional lifestyle,’ said one resident of the affluent Southern California cul-de-sac, which borders a creek, equestrian stables and a golf club. ‘He struck me as odd.

‘This is a very safe neighborhood. But when he moved in here, he put up more cameras than I think there are in the whole neighborhood. So he was very security-conscious.

‘The way he conducted his lifestyle made me think that he lived here to be under the radar.’

Pastore said Smirnov told him he owned the $3.2 million, 3,810 sq ft home on their hillside street.

Diana Lavrenyuk (right) poses with her son Nikolay and another woman. The house in San Juan Capistrano was in Nikolay's name

Smirnov moved to Las Vegas, living in the same super-secure apartment complex as another newsmaker – former MLB pitcher Scott Erickson who was involved in the Rebecca Grossman murder trial

Special Counsel David Weiss has charged Smirnov with lying about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden taking a $5million bribe from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma 

But after he sold it in May last year, telling Pastore he was moving to Las Vegas with Lavrenyuk, the new owners revealed that the property was not in Smirnov’s name.

‘Obviously he was very well-set financially, even though his name wasn’t on the deed to the house,’ said one neighbor. ‘He spent a lot of time and money remodeling.

‘He had this house, a house in Las Vegas he said, and property in other countries as well.

‘He had some connections with Israel and the Eastern Bloc – at least he said so.’

Property records show the home was purchased in 2018 by Nikolay Lavenyuk, the son of Smirnov’s long-term partner. Pastore said Nikolay lived on the East Coast. Smirnov was not mentioned in the purchase or sale records.

Even his car had a murky past.

‘They drove a Bentley SUV. But he said it was given or loaned to him by a brother or a friend,’ said Pastore. ‘I don’t know which.’

Smirnov was arrested at Harry Reid International Airport in Vegas on February 14 when he returned to the US from a foreign trip.

He is charged with lying to the FBI.

His indictment, unsealed last week, 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 $5 million each.

Smirnov was a trusted FBI informant, had been paid by the Bureau for his information, and was even previously ‘authorized to engage in criminal activity as part of an on-going criminal investigation’.

An FBI report describing his claims became one of the shocking documents in the Republican impeachment probe of the President when it was published last year.

Smirnov's glamorous cousin Linor Shefer was with him in court in Las Vegas this week. She was a former contestant on the Israeli version of reality show Big Brother, and in 2014 won the Moscow beauty pageant ‘Miss Jewish Star’.

After Smirnov was released on bail by a federal judge in Las Vegas, another judge in Los Angeles ordered him arrested. He is now due in court on Monday

House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer had hoped to use Smirnov as the main witness in his attempt to impeach President Joe Biden for allegedly receiving $5million in bribes

But the allegations are now being cast as potential Russian propaganda by Special Prosecutor David Weiss.

In federal court filings, Weiss says Smirnov’s travel and communication records show he didn’t engage with Burisma executives until 2017, and he never met Zlochevsky.

A further filing on Tuesday claimed Smirnov had 'high-level contacts with Russian intelligence operatives,' and that he passed on ‘false information’ to the FBI from these sources.

The documents 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.

A Vegas federal judge allowed Smirnov to be released Tuesday evening following the hearing, with certain conditions attached including a GPS monitor and handing over of his U.S. and Israeli passports. But he was re-arrested on Thursday morning at his attorney’s office, on the orders of a California federal judge.

Weiss claimed Smirnov had $6 million in ‘liquid funds’, including $3.8 million 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 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.

Pastore told DailyMail.com that Smirnov and Lavrenyuk appeared to be a long-time couple.

‘I had the impression they’d been together a long time. He had a painting of her in the entryway to their home. The painting was 4.5ft by 3 ft, oil on canvas. It was a beautiful picture, and he loved her dearly,’ he said.

‘I can’t even believe this was happening. For him to be involved with Burisma that’s some pretty high-level stuff. It’s intriguing. But he never shared any of that with me.

‘I’m blown away.’

Smirnov also kept a low profile online. No pictures of him have emerged yet, apart from a photograph of him with his face covered, leaving the Lloyd George federal courthouse in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

He was accompanied from court by his cousin, Linor Shefer, who works for a real estate developer in business with Donald Trump.

Shefer, a 38-year-old Israeli-American, was a former contestant on the Israeli version of reality show Big Brother, and in 2014 won the Moscow beauty pageant ‘Miss Jewish Star’.

According to her LinkedIn page, she has been an ‘Inhouse Consultant’ for Dezer Development in Miami, Florida since 2022.

Dezer partnered with Trump’s organization to develop the $600 million Trump Grande Ocean Resort and Residences and $900 million Trump Towers. The company is run by Gil Dezer, and founded by his Israeli-American billionaire father Michael, who is a Trump donor.

Smirnov’s attorneys told the court at his Tuesday hearing that their client had a close personal relationship with his cousin Shefer, arguing it reduced his risk of absconding.

In a phone call with DailyMail.com, she declined to comment.