After Reilly crossed the Finnish border, the Soviets captured, transported and interrogated him at Lubyanka Prison. On arrival Reilly was taken to the office of Roman Pilar, a Soviet official who had arrested and ordered the execution of a close friend of Reilly, Boris Savinkov, the previous year; Reilly was reminded of his own death sentence by a 1918 Soviet tribunal for participation in a counter-revolutionary plot against the Bolshevik government. While Reilly was being interrogated, the Soviets publicly claimed that he had been shot trying to cross the Finnish border. Whether Reilly was tortured while in OGPU custody is a matter of debate by historians; Cook contends that Reilly was not tortured other than psychologically, through mock executions designed to shake the resolve of prisoners.