Posted on June 29, 2010 - by Venik

Russian spy ring claim: indictment reveals the truth behind the cliches

FBI document shows old tricks – such as envelope exchanges, codenames and bag swaps – are still the best

Writers hoping the recent “spy ring” arrests would provide a few fresh ideas for their next book will be somewhat disappointed. The tactics employed by the 11 alleged Russian agents to infiltrate United States policy-making circles would be rejected by their publishers as too old-fashioned for modern-day audiences.

But according to the 55-page indictment put before the courts, the old tricks are still the best: memory sticks exchanged at “brush-passes” between agents on staircases, identical bags exchanged during “flash meetings” at train stations, envelopes covertly slipped between co-conspirators inside folded newspapers, and money buried in public parks to be dug up years later.

Technological advances brought a little more sophistication, however. The alleged spies are accused of having communicated with Moscow using radiograms – coded bursts of data sent by radio transmitters that can be picked up by a radio receiver set up to a specific frequency.

They are also said to have used steganography, enabling text documents or web addresses to be secreted in publicly-available websites – invisible to anyone without the software decryption program.

Maria Ricci, an FBI agent, gives details in the criminal complaints document of the case against eight of the alleged spies.

She reports how during May 2004, Christopher Metsos, who claims to be a Canadian citizen and who was arrested in Cyprus, was seen engaging in a “brush-past” with a Russian government official in Forest Hills train station, Pennsylvania.

“[They] converged on a staircase, carrying all-but identical orange bags. Toward the middle of the stairs, as they passed one another, Metsos quickly handed Russian government offical his orange bag and the Russian government official quickly handed Metsos his orange bag,” Ricci writes. “Metsos then continued ascending the stairs and Russian Government official continued descending the stairs.”

Ricci said the bags contained a large sum of money. In a taped phone call just hours after the bag exchange, Metsos told another agent: “It is wonderful to be Santa Claus in May.”

Ricci also details a so-called “flash meeting” at a New York train station in 2009, during which a Russian government official slipped money and a flash memory stick to Richard Murphy. Murphy claims to be a US citizen and is married to Cynthia Murphy, who was also arrested.

During the brush-past on the staircase at the station, the government official slipped a shopping bag into Murphy’s backpack. A few days later, a message from the SVR was interpreted by the FBI: “Well done. Good job,” it read. “Thank you. And our tech people in NY didn’t notice anything suspicious.”

Amit Kachhia-Patel, an FBI agent assigned to the counterintelligence division, said two of the accused, Anna Chapman and Mikhail Semenko, covertly communicated with Russian government officials via a private wireless network between paired laptops, enabling them to exchange encrypted data when placed near each other.

On 20 January 2010, Chapman sat in a coffee shop in Manhattan, near the window. A minivan with a licence plate belonging to an unidentified Russian official drove past. FBI agents monitoring the scene detected a network being operated.

On another occasion, Chapman appeared to be browsing in a bookshop while the Russian official lingered on the pavement outside. Another report had Semenko sat with his laptop in a restaurant, while the Russian offical sat in the resturant’s parking space.

The FBI’s work was also reminiscent of the old-fashioned detective: microphone-type listening devices in the defendants’ homes, covert video cameras in public locations and in hotel rooms, as well as the monitoring and recording of phonecalls and emails.

Kachhia-Patel told of how an FBI undercover agent claiming to be a Russian consulate employee, in New York, gave Chapman a passport with a fictitious name to pass on. The two women would identifyeach other with the following exchange: “Excuse me, but haven’t we met in California last summer?” “No, I think it was The Hamptons”.

Afterwards, Chapman would go to a public city map and stick a postage stamp on its margin. That sign, the FBI agent told Chapman, would show her handler that the meeting had gone well.

Kachhia-Patel and Ricci are clear that the agents knew what they were doing. The two FBI agents report intercepting encrypted messages from Russia in which the co-conspirators were told: “You were sent to USA for long-term service trip. Your education, bank accounts, car, house etc – all these serve one goal: fulfil your main missions, ie: to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US and send intels [intelligence reports] to C [Moscow Centre - the SVR headquarters in Moscow].”

Original article

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