U.S. uncovers major Russian spy ring

[George Wallace]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

MI5 probing link between royals, accused Russian spy
04/07/2010 7:15:29 PM
CTV.ca News Staff


LINK

British intelligence agency MI5 is investigating an extraordinary link between the "glamorous" accused Russian spy Anna Chapman and the royals, following reports she haunted popular London hangouts in a bid to meet Princes William and Harry.

According to a British tabloid, the red-haired 28-year-old daughter of a teacher and a Russian diplomat had the young princes clearly in her sights.

In a report published Sunday, The Sunday Mirror suggests Chapman was fixated with the pair, going so far as to infiltrate their social circles to meet them.

Following the split from her British husband Alex Chapman in 2005, Anna Chapman reportedly became a regular at the swanky London "Boujis" nightclub favoured by the young royals.

Protecting the royals in the club's atmosphere of hedonistic, alcohol-fuelled partying has long been a security headache. So much so, Prince Charles reportedly banned the pair from the club in the summer of 2006, after a pair of bloody brawls on its doorstep.

Now, no one can say for sure whether Chapman ever rubbed shoulders with the Princes. But Garry Toffoli of the Canadian Royal Heritage Trust thinks the mere attempt is cause for concern.

"I think the attempt would be worrying because of the possibility of a successful encroachment into the circle of the Royal family (is) potentially damaging."

But Toffoli says the more things change, the more they stay the same.

"George Washington authorized a plan to kidnap Prince William during the American Revolution," Toffoli told CTV News. "The Royals were worried about American spies, now they're worried about Russian spies. Some things don't change."

The Sunday Mirror reports that Chapman did manage to meet royal confidant Jake Parkinson-Smith several times before the Boujis general manager was fired after being caught with cocaine.

Chapman also befriended London socialite Shoshana Dadoun.

Beside Boujis, Chapman was also a regular at other royal haunts including the nightclubs Movida and Tramp, as well as the Japanese restaurant Nobu.

Chapman left London for the U.S. in 2007.

In late June of this year, Chapman and nine other alleged spy suspects were arrested in the United States. According to the indictment, she was caught communicating with the Russian intelligence service, the SVR, using a computer attached to a wireless network at a Starbucks coffee shop in January, and two months later from a bookshop.

She faces a charge of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, which carries a potential penalty of five years in prison.

Prepared with files from CTV's Joy Malbon in Ottawa

 

[OldSolduer]

A far cry from Boris and Natasha of The Rocky and Bullwinkle show!!!

;D

 

[bdave]

Russian women like to strike "poses" for pictures... like, all pictures.  They also like to wear fur coats of dubious esthetics by North American standards. They are also generally not afraid to show their body (for the enjoyment of the world) and to dress down, which she did on her public photos.

Fixed it for you.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Shared with the usual caveats.  From the Daily Mail. 

Moscow 'offers former Russian colonel and nuclear expert to U.S. in Cold War-style spy swap to bring Anna Chapman home'By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 4:36 PM on 7th July 2010
Comments (21) Add to My Stories Russia has offered a mass Cold War-style 'spy swap' deal to the U.S., it was revealed today.

The deal could see up to 11 convicted spies - allegedly including a Russian colonel - exchanged for 'femme fatale' Anna Chapman and her co-accused.
Chapman is being held with nine others in the U.S. on accusations of being part of a 'deep cover' spy ring in the U.S.

Dmitry Sutyagin said his brother Igor, a former Russian nuclear researcher jailed on charged of spying for the West, was told he will be part of the group.
Russian and U.S. officials met Igor Sutyagin on Monday at a prison in Arkhangelsk, in northwestern Russia, his brother said.
Swap: Russian arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin as he is sentenced to 15-years in prison for spying for the West in a Moscow courtroom (file photo)
Sutyagin said he was made to sign a confession, although he maintains his innocence and does not want to leave Russia, his brother said.
After the meeting, Sutyagin was transferred to Moscow's Lefortovo prison.
He was arrested in 1999 and convicted in 2004 on charges of passing information on nuclear submarines and missile-warning systems to a British company that investigators claimed was a CIA cover.
Sutyagin's lawyer said Moscow wanted the swap to take place tomorrow - and that her client would initially be sent to Britain.

According to his brother, Sutyagin said that the Russian officials had shown him a list of 11 people to be included in the swap.

Sutyagin could be traded for Anna Chapman, one of the alleged Russian spies being held in the U.S.
The brother said Sutyagin only remembered one other person on the list - Sergei Skripal - a Russian army colonel who in 2006 was sentenced to 13 years on charges of spying for Britain.
The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Federal Penitentiary Service said they had no comment on the claim.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy was not immediately available for comment.
In Washington, FBI spokesman William Carter declined to comment.
Sutyagin denied that he was spying, saying the information he provided was available from open sources.
His case was one of several incidents of Russian academics and scientists being targeted by the Federal Security Service.
They were accused of misusing classified information, revealing state secrets or, in some cases, espionage.
Last week the U.S. arrested 10 people in an alleged Russian spy ring.
Prosecutors say for the last decade the ring has engaged in secret global travel with false passports, secret code words, fake names, invisible ink and encrypted radio.

The spies were allegedly trying to obtain information about American business, scientific and political affairs. They have been charged with acting as unregistered foreign agents.
An 11th suspect was detained in Cyprus last week, but disappeared after being released on bail, triggering a wide manhunt by embarrassed Cypriot authorities.
The U.S. government has opposed the release on bail of any of the defendants, saying they would flee if they had the opportunity.
News of the swap emerged as the mother of one of the suspects, Anna Chapman, insisted her daughter was no 'Mata Hari'.
Irina Kuschenko also said her daughter was not top of the class - but insisted she was just a normal girl with a normal life.

But she admitted to Russian newspaper Tvoi Den that her daughter had never been able to rely on her parents, who were constantly away on diplomatic postings.

'I don't think Anna is a Mata Hari. She had the normal life of a 28-year-old woman,' she was quoted as saying.
'As an ex-teacher, I can say she never quite shined among her peers. But she was good, close to the top of her class.'
She added: 'Anna was always an open, happy child.

'She deeply loved her grandmother and grandfather and tried to hide from them whatever negative things were happening in her life.
'Life was hard work for her.... She never counted on us. She always tried to achieve everything on her own.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1292745/Russia-offers-spy-swap-U-S--deal-place-Britain.html#ixzz0t0rdJSdQ

 

[The Bread Guy]

Russian women like to strike "poses" for pictures... like, all pictures. I looked up her profile. She does strike a pose every time. They also like to wear fur coats of dubious esthetics by North American standards... she does. They are also generally not afraid to show their body (for the enjoyment of the world) ....

More than she knew in some cases - this didn't take long:
"Accused Russian Spy Angry Over Sex Photos"

 

[57Chevy]

Q.
What do you get on exchanging old spies with old information for "a" new spy with new information?
A.
10 other spies plus one other if you can find him.

 

[CougarKing]

Guardian link

'Spy swap' under way as US moves alleged Russian spy ring

Anna Chapman is to be exchanged for Igor Sutyagin, Russian media reports, as exchange process begins
One of the biggest, most unusual and least secret spy swaps known to superpower espionage appeared to be under way tonight as Russia began the process to free alleged western agents while the Americans moved to deport members of a deep-cover spy ring broken up last week.

Igor Sutyagin, a Russian scientist convicted of working for the US, was reportedly flown to Vienna as a first step toward the release of more than 20 alleged agents held in the US and Russia.
Ten people were arrested by the FBI last week and charged with being long term "deep cover" spies, eight posing as married couples with children. But they were not accused of collecting classified information.

Most of the 10 were expected to appear in a New York court tonight, to plead guilty to minor charges and then immediately be deported to Russia under a deal between Washington and Moscow.

Britain was directly involved in the swap, officials made clear. However, none of the governments formally confirmed a swap was underway.

Sutyagin, an arms control analyst jailed for 14 years for passing military secrets to a British company the Russian authorities said was a CIA front, was reported to be bound for the UK after his release from a Moscow prison.

Today, riot police secured the perimeter of the former KGB Lefortovo jail in Moscow where Sutyagin was being held, as a convoy of armoured vehicles arrived. A few hours later the Russian media reported he was seen leaving a plane in Vienna, but his family said it was "speculation".

Sutyagin's father, Vyacheslav, said he had received no official confirmation of his son leaving Moscow or arriving in Vienna.

"There have been some unconfirmed reports that Igor flew in to Austria earlier this afternoon, but so far it seems to be wishful thinking. We are waiting for Igor to call us himself. We had expected it to be today, but it looks like it could be tomorrow."

The Russian Gazeta.ru website reported that Anna Chapman, one of the Russian spy suspects arrested in America, might be delivered to Moscow in exchange for Sutyagin.

It quoted a diplomatic saying the 28-year old businesswoman would be flown home in the coming days.

Sutyagin has consistently denied being a spy, saying the information he supplied was available from open sources. But his family said he agreed to effectively be forced in to exile rather than face another four and half years in the "harsh regime" penal colony at Kholmogory near Arkhangelsk. His mother, Svetlana, said he was unshaven and gaunt when she saw him today at Lefortovo.

Moscow was reportedly preparing to release several Russians convicted of working for the CIA or MI6.
Lawyers for the alleged deep cover Russian agents held in the US speculated that they could be on their way to Moscow within hours provided a court approves a deal for them to plead guilty to a single charge of failing to declare payments from a foreign government. They are likely to receive a minimal sentence of the time they have spent in jail since their arrests and then agree to be deported.

The true identities of five of the 10 alleged spies detained in the US are still not known to the US authorities.

Eight were living as married couples with children, some of whom were born in the US. They explained away their accents by claiming to be from Canada or Italy.

The fate of at least two of the accused agents remains in question. Chapman is believed to hold a British passport as well as Russian nationality, while another of the 10 is a US citizen.

An eleventh suspect, Christopher Metsos, who is accused of being the spy ring's paymaster, is on the run after skipping bail in Cyprus.

While their departure may avoid any potential embarrassment to either government that a trial might pose, the alleged spies leave behind them considerable disagreement over how seriously to take their espionage ring.

(...)

 

[57Chevy]

Russia, U.S. swap 14 spies in Cold War-style exchange

Spy Swap
MOSCOW/VIENNA - The biggest spy swap since the end of the Cold War was underway on Friday as Russia and the United States prepared to exchange 14 agents, defusing an espionage scandal that threatened improving relations.

The dramatic conclusion to the espionage scandal which has gripped America came after spymasters brokered a deal for 10 Russian spies to be deported from the U.S., in return for four agents being released from jail in Russia.

In the first step of the carefully choreographed swap, the 10 Russian agents pleaded guilty on Thursday in a New York court to charges against them and were immediately deported.

Then, around midnight local time, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree pardoning four spies serving jail terms in Russia on charges of spying for the West.

Some of those accused in the U.S. boarded a plane in New York on Thursday night and the same Vision Airlines jet landed in Vienna on Friday, a Reuters witness said.

Some people were seen boarding a separate Russian aircraft at the airport and then others boarded the Vision Airlines jet. It was not immediately clear who the people were.

"The United States has agreed to transfer these individuals to the custody of the Russian Federation," the United States Justice Department said.

"In exchange, the Russian Federation has agreed to release four individuals who are incarcerated in Russia for alleged contact with Western intelligence agencies," it said.

The spy scandal broke at an awkward time for U.S.-Russia ties, just days after Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev met for a friendly Washington summit last month.

The U.S. and Russian legislatures are also considering ratification of a key treaty cutting nuclear weapons, something neither side wants to jeopardize.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the spy swap "gives reason to expect that the course agreed on by the leaders of Russia and the U.S. will be consistently implemented in practice and that attempts to knock the parties off this course will not succeed."

But the swap itself — which one Russian Internet site quipped was "Russia 10: USA 4" — may add fuel to Republican accusations that President Barack Obama is being too soft on Moscow.

SPY SWAP
Relatives of spies on both sides of the swap waited anxiously in Russia — all bar one of the 14 agents are Russian citizens — for news of the swap. Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) declined all comment on details of the affair.

Moscow has always prided itself on bringing trusted agents back home and Washington has agreed to swaps before, though rarely on this scale.

The largest known Cold War spy swap was in 1985 when more than 20 spies were exchanged between East and West on the Glienicke Bridge in the then divided city of Berlin.

Spymasters on both sides say that despite generally warmer relations, the two former Cold War foes still fund generous intelligence operations against each other.

The current scandal broke when the United States said on June 28 it has uncovered a ring of suspected Russian secret agents who were using false identities to try to gather sensitive intelligence on the United States.

FBI counter-intelligence agents explained that the Russian had communicated with Moscow by concealing invisible text messages in photographs posted on public Internet sites and some had met Russian diplomats from the U.S. mission in New York.

Russian diplomats said the timing of the announcement, just days after Obama and Medvedev's June 24 summit in Washington, could be an attempt by U.S. hardliners to torpedo the so-called reset in ties that Obama has championed.

A Kremlin source said Medvedev and Obama's warm relations had allowed the swap deal to be reached so swiftly.

"This was due to the new spirit set in Russian-American relations and the high level of mutual understanding and trust between the Russian and American presidents that no one will be able to shake," the source said.

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[CougarKing]

;D

Agence-France Presse link

Anna 'hottest spy' Chapman wanted by porn company

Mon Jul 19, 5:36 PM


LOS ANGELES (AFP) - The world's foremost adult film company wants to offer Russian spy Anna Chapman a movie deal, because the sultry redhead is "the hottest spy we've seen in years," the company said in a letter Monday.
 
Chapman, 28, was one of 10 Russian agents living undercover in the United States for years who were arrested last month and deported to Russia 10 days ago in a prisoner swap reminiscent of the Cold War.


"Anna was obviously the hottest spy we've seen in years and she was clearly the media's favorite," Vivid Entertainment president Steven Hirsch said in a letter to Chapman's US lawyer Robert Baum published on Vivid's website.


"Though she wasn't very successful as a spy, we think she can be a terrific actress in one of our upcoming feature films. We would be willing to send our top director, B. Skow, to Moscow to work with her," said Hirsch.


Semi-nude pictures of Chapman and stories of her racy romances made her a global tabloid sensation, particularly in Britain, where she spent several years living in London and was married to Briton Alex Chapman.


Britain on July 9 stripped Chapman of her British citizenship and the Home Office is trying to bar her from ever setting foot in the country again.


Hirsch said in the letter that Vivid Entertainment has made movies starring "high profile celebrities" such as Pamela Anderson and Kim Kardashian.


The porn company also offered "Octomom" Nadya Suleman a one-million-dollar movie contract, which she turned down.

(...)

 

[57Chevy]

Great !!.......That might mean a new and improved "James Bond movie" featuring real spies
;D

 

[old medic]

'Failed' Russian spies get Kremlin's highest honors
By REUTERS
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2010/10/18/15732936.html

MOSCOW - President Dmitry Medvedev awarded Russia’s highest state honours on Monday to a group of sleeper agents who were deported from the United States in a Cold War-style spy swap in July.

Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said the spies had been honoured at a Kremlin ceremony along with other members of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.

“A ceremony took place in the Kremlin today to give the highest state awards to members of the Foreign Intelligence Service, including spies working in the United States who returned to Russia in July,” Timakova said by telephone.

Most of the Russian agents have kept a very low profile since they were exchanged in Vienna for four individuals who had been imprisoned in Russia for contacts with Western intelligence agencies, but Moscow has promised they will be looked after.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was a KGB agent in East Germany during the Soviet era, met the spies at an undisclosed location soon after they returned, sang Soviet songs with them and promised them a bright future in Russia.

He said he admired what they did and warned that those who betrayed their compatriots would end up paying a heavy price.


The Kremlin honoured the agents despite widespread media reports that the spy ring failed to secure any major secrets.

Starting in the 1990s, from Virginia to Boston to Seattle, the agents attended elite Ivy League schools to meet future power brokers, obtained influential jobs, married, had children and bought homes in upscale areas.

Court documents released in the United States described how the Russian agents hobnobbed with academics and assembled data on high-end Manhattan real estate but did not accuse them of actually passing classified information to Moscow.

Anna Chapman, whose glamorous pictures posted on social networking web site Facebook made her a media sensation, is the only one of the 10 spies to have made public appearances.

She posed provocatively for a Russian magazine shoot in August and appeared at the launch of a Russian space craft earlier this month as part of her new job as advisor to a bank that helps finance the space industry.

 

[Rogo]

You have all made the Soviet Uni--uhhh Russian Federation proud. 

I am pleased to award you these medals and this vial of mystery liquid!

 

[OldSolduer]

I was thinking they were probably subjected to a vigourous course of mineral therapy, pyrotechnically injected at the base of the skull.

 

[jollyjacktar]

I was thinking they were probably subjected to a vigourous course of mineral therapy, pyrotechnically injected at the base of the skull.

Ah, it sounds so much more soothing when described this way.  ;D

 

[old medic]

Follow up article from last month.

Russian spies exposed by double agent
Stewart Bell, National Post · Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Russian+spies+exposed+double+agent/3812790/story.html

On their return to Moscow this past summer, a ring of Russian spies who had spent years living under deep cover in the United States and Canada received a hero’s welcome.

President Dmitry Medvedev honoured them with medals. Anna Chapman, the “Russian Bond Girl,” posed in lingerie for the Russian edition of the men’s magazine Maxim.

The redheaded beauty has “done more to arouse patriotism in Russians than our football team and the Bulava [submarine-launched] missile put together,” the magazine crowed.

But on Thursday Russian patriotism suffered a blow when a Moscow newspaper reported that the senior Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) official in charge of the spy ring was actually working for the Americans.

The Kommersant business daily said the double agent, a Colonel Shcherbakov (no first name was given), had fled the country days before the FBI rounded up the spy ring. The colonel was chief of Directorate S, the branch of the SVR that plants spies overseas.

It said his son, who worked at Russia’s drug-control agency, had also fled to the United States and that his daughter was a long-time U.S. resident. “It seems odd that no one bothered to check why a person of that rank has a daughter living in the United States,” the newspaper quoted an intelligence official as saying.

Neither, apparently, did alarm bells go off when the colonel declined a promotion that would have required him to undergo a lie detector test. Russian lawmaker Gennady Gudkov told the Interfax news agency, “all of us agree there has never been a failure of this kind.”

Mr. Gudkov, deputy security council chairman in the lower house of parliament, said he had long been aware of the costly betrayal. “Shcherbakov turned over our agents in the U.S.A,” he said.

The SVR would not comment and spy historian Phillip Knightley told Reuters the story could have been planted as part of a disinformation campaign to take the scent off the real culprit, but if true it would be a major blow to Russian intelligence.

The spy ring overseen by the colonel consisted of eight “illegals,” highly trained intelligence officers who had been sent to North America to blend in and carry out clandestine operations.

The tactic is as simple as it is abhorrent. Russian intelligence officers, perhaps posing as diplomats, will troll graveyards looking for the headstones of dead children. When they find one, they will create documents under that person’s name.

The Russians have used the deep-cover tactic repeatedly since the SVR was formed in 1991 to replace the Soviet KGB. Two SVR agents named Dmitriy Vladimirovoch Olshevskiy and Yelena Borisovna Olshevskaya were arrested in Toronto in 1996. CSIS said they had assumed the identities of two dead Canadian children, Ian Lambert and Laurie Brodie.

In 2006, an SVR agent pretending to be “Paul William Hampel” was arrested in Montreal and swiftly deported.

Sometime in the 1990s, the SVR’s Andrey Bezrukov stole the identity of Donald Heathfield, a Canadian infant who died in 1962. Using the child’s name, he studied at York University in Toronto before moving to Boston, where he lived with another agent, Elena Vavilova, who posed as his Canadian wife, Tracey Lee Ann Foley.

But on June 27, Bezrukov and Vavilova were among eight Russian agents arrested by the FBI. Also arrested was Natalia Pereverzeva, who was living in Virginia pretending to be a Canadian named Patricia Mills.

In addition, the FBI arrested Ms. Chapman and two other Russian agents who had been living in the United States under their true names. An 11th member of the ring, who posed as a Canadian named Christopher Metsos, was arrested in Cyprus but escaped.

Although Russia at first feigned outrage, all the spies quickly pleaded guilty and were sent back to Moscow, which in turn released four Russians convicted of espionage in the largest spy swap since the Cold War.

Evidence released by the FBI after the arrests made it clear U.S. counter-intelligence officers had long known about the spies and had been closely monitoring their coded communications with Moscow.

But how did the Americans know?

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is himself a former spy and who sang patriotic songs with Ms. Chapman upon her return, complained this past summer that the arrests resulted from “treason,” adding that “traitors always end badly. They finish up as drunks, addicts, on the street.”

Or they get assassinated.

A Kremlin official was quoted in Kommersant as saying that a Russian hit squad had been dispatched to kill the traitorous colonel. “We know who he is and where he is.”

They just didn’t know about his divided loyalties until it was too late.

 

[57Chevy]

Russian spy Chapman makes debut as TV presenter

MOSCOW (AFP) - Red-headed Russian spy Anna Chapman has made her debut as a television presenter, hosting a programme about unsolved mysteries in her latest career twist.

Her weekly show, titled "Secrets of the World with Anna Chapman," aims to unravel unexplained mysteries, although the makers have confirmed that this will not include any mention of Chapman’s spying activities :

article continues.....

                    (Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act

 

[57Chevy]

MOSCOW (AFP) - Red-headed Russian spy Anna Chapman

who is actually Anna Kushchenko of lesser renown

quote from Reply #41 (Jim Seggie):
"A far cry from Boris and Natasha of The Rocky and Bullwinkle show!!!"

check out
The Contest
;D
                        (Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act