|
The Illegals Program, as it was called by the United States Department of Justice, was a network of Russian sleeper agents under non-official cover whose investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) culminated in the arrest of ten agents and a prisoner swap between Russia and the United States on July 9, 2010. The spies were planted in the United States by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (known by its Russian abbreviation, ''SVR'').〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Russian Spy Ring of 2010, The Use of Ciphers and Radio Messages )〕 Posing as ordinary American citizens, they tried to build contacts with academics, industrialists, and policymakers to gain access to intelligence. They were the target of a multi-year investigation by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI investigation, called Operation Ghost Stories, culminated at the end of June 2010 with the arrest of ten individuals in the U.S. and an eleventh suspect in Cyprus.〔 Ten sleeper agents were charged with "carrying out long-term, 'deep-cover' assignments in the United States on behalf of the Russian Federation."〔"(Operation Ghost Stories: Inside the Russian Spy Case )' (October 31, 2011). Federal Bureau of Investigation.〕〔(Ten Alleged Secret Agents Arrested in the United States ) Monday, June 28, 2010, United States Department of Justice official web site.〕〔Shifrel, Scott; Kennedy, Helen; and Sherisan, Michael. ("Russian spy ring: 11th suspect arrested in Cyprus; Moscow calls spy claims 'baseless and improper'" ), ''Daily News (New York)'', June 29, 2010. Retrieved July 7, 2010.〕 The suspect arrested in Cyprus skipped bail the day after his arrest.〔Staff. ("Russian spy suspect missing in Cyprus, say police" ), BBC News, June 30, 2010. Retrieved July 7, 2010.〕 A twelfth person, a Russian national who worked for Microsoft, was also apprehended about the same time and deported on July 13, 2010. The Moscow legal court documents made public on June 27, 2011 revealed that another two Russian agents managed to flee the U.S. without being arrested.〔 Ten of the agents were flown on July 9, 2010, to Vienna soon after pleading guilty to charges of failing to register as a representative of a foreign government. The same day, the agents were exchanged for four Russian nationals, three of whom were convicted and imprisoned by Russia on espionage (high treason) charges.〔("Russia, U.S. swap 14 in Cold War-style spy exchange" ), Reuters, July 9, 2010.〕 On October 31, 2011, the FBI publicly released several dozen still images, clips from surveillance video, and documents related to its investigation in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.〔〔"(FBI releases video, papers on Russian spy ring )" (October 31, 2011). Associated Press.〕 ==FBI arrests and criminal charges== Using forged documents, some of the spies assumed stolen identities of Americans, enrolled at American universities and joined professional organizations as a means of further infiltrating spies into government circles.〔〔 Two of the individuals used the names of Richard and Cynthia Murphy and resided in Hoboken, New Jersey, since the mid-1990s, before purchasing a nearby home in suburban Montclair. Another couple named in court documents were journalist Vicky Peláez and a man using the name of Juan Lazaro in Yonkers, New York. The court filings allege that couples were arranged in Russia to "co-habit in the country to which they are assigned," going as far as having children together to help maintain their deep covert status.〔Savage, Charles. ("U.S. Charges 11 With Acting as Agents for Russia" ), ''The New York Times'', June 28, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.〕 The criminal complaints later filed in various federal district courts allege that the Russian agents in the U.S. passed information back to the SVR by messages hidden inside digital photographs, written in disappearing ink, ad hoc wireless networks and shortwave radio transmissions, as well as by agents swapping identical bags while passing each other in the stairwell of a train station.〔 Messages and materials were passed in such places as Grand Central Terminal and Central Park.〔Montanaro, Domenico. ("Ten arrested, accused of spying for Russia" ), MSNBC, June 28, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.〕 The Russian agents were tasked by 'Moscow centre' to report about U.S. policy in Central America, U.S. interpretation of Russian foreign policy, problems with U.S. military policy and "United States policy with regard to the use of the Internet by terrorists". According to the media reports, planning by the FBI to have the 'illegals' arrested began in mid-June 2010, but the action was hastened reportedly by some members of the group intending to travel outside the U.S. as well as by Anna Chapman's growing concern about having been exposed.〔〔〔 Vladimir Guriyev was planning to travel to France and possibly Russia, Bezrukov was planning to travel outside the U.S. with his son, and Anna Chapman, in a telephone call to her father the day before the arrest, said she suspected that she may have been discovered〔〔 and planned to leave for Moscow in mid-July 2010.〔 U.S. authorities arrested ten of the agents involved on June 27, 2010, in a series of raids in Boston, Montclair, Yonkers and Northern Virginia. They charged the individuals with money laundering (which can carry a penalty of up to 20 years' imprisonment) and failing to register as agents of a foreign government. No charges were offered that the individuals involved gained access to classified material, though contacts were made with a former intelligence official and with a scientist involved in developing bunker buster bombs.〔〔Staff. ("Ten arrested in US on charges of spying for Russia" ), BBC News, June 29, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2010.〕 One of the suspects using the name of Christopher R. Metsos was detained on June 29, 2010〔(New arrest in Russian 'deep cover' case ), CNN, 29, 2010.〕 while attempting to depart from Cyprus for Budapest, but was released on bail and then disappeared.〔〔Barnes, Taylor. ("Russian spy ring paymaster disappears from Cyprus" ), ''The Christian Science Monitor'', July 1, 2010. Retrieved July 7, 2010.〕 There is no evidence that the convicted agents knew each other beyond their respective spouses. They did not constitute a ''spy ring''.〔 Shortly after the arrests, the British ''Guardian'' commented: "The FBI operation represents the biggest penetration of the SVR communications in recent memory. The FBI read their emails, decrypted their intel, read the embedded coded texts on images posted on the net, bugged their mobile phones, videotaped the passing of bags of cash and messages in invisible ink from one agent to another, and hacked into their bogus expenses claims. <...> The tradecraft used by the alleged SVR ring was amateurish, and will send shivers down the spine of the rival intelligence organisations in Russia. This was bungling on a truly epic scale. No secrets about bunker-busting bombs were actually obtained, but the network was betrayed. <...> To have a spy ring uncovered before they could actually do any serious spying is doubly embarrassing." Coinciding with the day of the prisoners' swap, the death of the prominent Russian defector Sergei Tretyakov who died in the U.S. on June 13, 2010, was reported on July 9, 2010.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Famed spy and defector dead )〕〔(В США умер перебежчик Сергей Третьяков. Его подозревали в том, что он сдал 11 русских шпионов ) NEWSru, July 9, 2010.〕 The Florida medical examiner's report, released on September 20, 2010, cited an accident and a tumour as the cause of death. In response to allegations in the media that he might have tipped off the US authorities about some of the 'illegals',〔(Неожиданная смерть перебежчика ) ''Novoye Russkoye Slovo'', July 16, 2010.〕 Tretyakov's co-author Pete Earley in July 2010, citing anonymous "well-informed" sources, said that Tretyakov had not been privy to the case of Russian 'illegals'.〔(Биограф умершего перебежчика Третьякова: он ничего не знал о 10 шпионах из РФ ) NEWSru, July 10, 2010.〕 November 11, 2010, issue of ''Kommersant'', Russia's broadsheet, carried an article that, with reference to unnamed RF government sources, contained allegations that the 'illegals' were fingered by a senior SVR officer named "Colonel Shcherbakov" (according to an unnamed ex-CIA source, his full name may be ''Александр Васильевич Щербаков'', Alexander Vasilievich Shcherbakov).〔(Полковник СВР Щербаков взят под защиту ФБР ) NEWSru, November 14, 2010.〕 The latter, according to the newspaper's sources, headed the 'American' unit of the SVR department in charge of 'illegals' and left Russia for the US "three days prior to Dmitry Medvedev's June visit to the US".〔 According to other media outlets' sources, the name "Shcherbakov" was fictitious〔("Коммерсант" назвал предателя, сдавшего русских шпионов в США ) NEWSru, November 11, 2010.〕 and a number of experts and commentators judged many allegations in the article as dubious or improbable.〔(Чекисты против шпионов ) by Pavel Felgenhauer, ''Novaya Gazeta'', November 15, 2010.〕〔〔(Убедительна ли версия провала сети российских нелегалов в США из-за предательства перебежчика? Об этом говорим с зам главного редактора холдинга "Совершенно секретно" Леонидом Велеховым, бывшим генералом КГБ Олегом Калугиным и независимым журналистом Дмитрием Сидоровым, пишущим для "Форбс" и "Новой газеты" ) Radio Liberty, November 11, 2010.〕〔(В СВР доказывают, что история с предателем Щербаковым, сдавшим русских шпионов, вымышленная ) NEWSru, November 12, 2010.〕 Nevertheless, some comments RF President Medvedev made the following day were interpreted as an indirect confirmation of a high-level defection in the RF intelligence apparatus.〔(Медведев ответил на разоблачение предателя, сдавшего десятку русских шпионов в США ) NEWSru, November 12, 2010.〕 On November 15, 2010, ''Interfax'' citing unnamed sources within Russian intelligence claimed that the real name of the defector who was primarily responsible for uncovering the ten convicted agents was Poteyev (reportedly, his full name is ''Александр Николаевич Потеев'', Alexander Nikolayevich Poteyev),〔〔 who was a colonel in the SVR and was deputy head of American department within Directorate 'S' of SVR ('S' oversees illegals). According to Interfax and other media sources, Shcherbakov did exist and also held a senior position in the SVR. Reportedly, he "...defected about two years ago."〔(Потеевы шпионили всей семьей ) Rosbalt.ru, November 16, 2010.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Illegals Program」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|