# The Romanian twins > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The Romanian twins," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/romanian-twins/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The adopted children John Kiriakou says his FCI Loretto roommate Robert the Australian abandoned at the gate of the Romanian embassy in Washington — one of the stories Kiriakou judged to be true, in a stream of claims he otherwise treated as invention.* - **Adopted by:** Robert the Australian and one of his wives - **From:** An orphanage in Romania - **Age when abandoned:** Four or five - **Abandoned at:** The front gate of the Romanian embassy, Washington DC - **Kiriakou's verdict:** He believed this one **The Romanian twins** is an episode [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) attributes to [Robert the Australian](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/robert-the-arsonist), his roommate at [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto) — and one he treats as an exception in a stream of claims he otherwise regarded as invention.[1] ## Robert's claims Kiriakou's assessment of Robert is that he was the most pure sociopath he had ever met and a pathological liar who would lie about literally everything.[2] The pattern he describes is that whenever a career came up in conversation, Robert would say he had done it. Robert claimed to have been a successful nightclub owner, a DJ, a border guard, a bush pilot, the owner of the largest video store chain in Australia, then in Canada, then in America, a successful used car dealer, a radio talk show host and a voiceover artist. The story always changed with each telling.[3] Kiriakou gives a worked example: Robert claimed to have dated the Australian tennis champion Evonne Goolagong, and to have said that she had been Miss Universe. Kiriakou told him she had not been Miss Universe, and says they argued about it for months before Robert conceded the point — and then conceded that it had not been Goolagong he dated either, but a woman who reminded him of her.[4] Kiriakou's rule for the man is that there was always a kernel of truth in the stories he told.[4] ## The twins And then, Kiriakou says, sometimes Robert was just brutally honest.[4] Robert and one of his wives had adopted twins from an orphanage in Romania. In Robert's account they turned out to be bad seeds: at four or five years old they were pulling knives on each other and trying to set the house on fire.[1] What Robert said he did was put them in a car, drive to Washington DC, and abandon them at the front gate of the Romanian embassy.[1] Kiriakou says he told Robert he had not done that. Robert said he had, and that the children were going to kill him in his sleep one of these days. Kiriakou pointed out that it is not normal to abandon two five-year-olds at the front gate of a foreign embassy and simply drive away, and asked how he had not been arrested for it. Robert did not care.[1][5] ## Robert's own predicament The episode sits within a fuller account of Robert's situation. He was British by birth and had married an Australian woman, then a Swiss, a Canadian and an American, acquiring Canadian and American citizenship — but never Australian citizenship, despite two children and grandchildren there.[2] Kiriakou says Robert never asked his attorney or checked for himself what a felony conviction would mean, and only learned in prison that a felony conviction in the United States bars a person for life from the Five Eyes countries — the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. He spent the rest of his sentence writing to the Australian ambassador, prime minister, justice minister, senators and members of parliament, and nobody would help him. Because he was not American either, he had to be expelled somewhere on release; he was expelled to the United Kingdom.[6][7][2] ## See also - [Robert the arsonist](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/robert-the-arsonist) - [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto) - [Five Eyes](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/five-eyes) - [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) ## Sources 1. S2E4 With Friends Like These (2026-06-08), at 09:14. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a2467ce4330c50bd3a659b9/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-08-dead-drop-s2e4-with-friends-like-these/ 2. S2E4 With Friends Like These (2026-06-08), at 07:38. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a2467ce4330c50bd3a659b9/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-08-dead-drop-s2e4-with-friends-like-these/ 3. S2E4 With Friends Like These (2026-06-08), at 08:10. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a2467ce4330c50bd3a659b9/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-08-dead-drop-s2e4-with-friends-like-these/ 4. S2E4 With Friends Like These (2026-06-08), at 08:41. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a2467ce4330c50bd3a659b9/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-08-dead-drop-s2e4-with-friends-like-these/ 5. S2E4 With Friends Like These (2026-06-08), at 09:45. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a2467ce4330c50bd3a659b9/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-08-dead-drop-s2e4-with-friends-like-these/ 6. S2E4 With Friends Like These (2026-06-08), at 06:35. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a2467ce4330c50bd3a659b9/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-08-dead-drop-s2e4-with-friends-like-these/ 7. S2E4 With Friends Like These (2026-06-08), at 07:07. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a2467ce4330c50bd3a659b9/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-08-dead-drop-s2e4-with-friends-like-these/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/romanian-twins/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt