WASHINGTON — Federal officials charged 11 people on the East Coast as secret agents of Russia on Monday in a multiyear investigation that turned up allegations of a vast undercover network designed to collect fresh information for Moscow, including new U.S. nuclear weapons research.
The alleged spy ring’s members were given the single, primary goal of becoming “sufficiently ‘Americanized’ ” to gain access to the U.S. government’s planning and policy apparatus, the FBI said in documents supporting the charges.
To dramatize that point, officials said they decrypted a 2009 message sent to two of the alleged co-conspirators.
“You were sent to USA for long-term service trip,” the intercepted message read. “Your education, bank accounts, car, house etc. — all these serve one goal: fulfill your main mission, i.e., to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in U.S. and send intels (intelligence reports) to C.”
“C” was identified as the Russian foreign intelligence headquarters in Moscow, also known as “Moscow Center.”
Some of the material collected and transmitted by the alleged spies dealt with U.S. research on nuclear “bunker buster” bombs, according to the federal document charging the members of the ring. They also sought information on Pentagon planning, U.S. policy toward Central Asia and research on terrorists gaining access to the Internet.
The charges also state that one of the defendants had “established contact” with a former high-ranking U.S. national security official, who was not identified.
Ten of the suspects were arrested in Virginia, New York, New Jersey and Boston and charged with federal offenses ranging from conspiring to act as unlawful foreign agents to conspiracy to commit money laundering. An 11th suspect remained at large Monday.
Appearing in federal courts along the East Coast, they face prison sentences ranging from five to 20 years, if convicted.
Authorities said the conspiracy began as far back as the 1990s and ended Saturday when FBI agents and Justice Department officials closed in. The arrests occurred just after an upbeat visit to President Barack Obama by the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev. Obama was not happy about the timing, but investigators feared some of their targets might flee, said one administration official.
In a lengthy affidavit, FBI Special Agent Amit Kachhia-Patel said the spy operation was a “deep cover” assignment filled with false identities, secret rendezvous, such old-school spy craft techniques as “invisible writing” and a “cover profession” to blend in to American society.
These deep-cover agents are the hardest spies for the FBI to catch and are dubbed “illegals” in the intelligence world because they take civilian jobs with no visible connection to a foreign government.
Neighbors in Montclair, N.J., of the couple who called themselves Richard and Cynthia Murphy were flabbergasted when a team of FBI agents turned up Sunday night and led the couple away in handcuffs. One person who lives nearby called them “suburbia personified.” Others worried about the Murphys’ elementary-age daughters, who were driven away by a family friend.
Jessie Gugigi, 15, said she could not believe the charges, especially against Cynthia Murphy, who was an accomplished gardener.
“They couldn’t have been spies,” Gugigi said. “Look what she did with the hydrangeas.”
The defendants set up a special covert communication system to report back to Russia, using a private wireless network through linked laptop computers, authorities said.
Intelligence on Obama’s foreign policy, particularly toward Russia, appears to have been a top priority.
In spring 2009, the documents say, the Murphys were asked for information about Obama’s impending trip to Russia that summer, the U.S. negotiating position on the START arms reduction treaty as well as Afghanistan and the approach Washington would take in dealing with Iran’s suspect nuclear program.
They were also asked to send background on U.S. officials traveling with Obama or involved in foreign policy.
The end-game in the case came when U.S. officials used their own undercover operatives in a sting on two of the accused conspiracy principals, Mikhail Semenko and Anna Chapman.
In Chapman’s case, they said, an FBI agent posed as a Russian consulate employee and met with her at a Manhattan coffee shop. There, the FBI said, they discussed her “Wednesday covert laptop communications sessions.”
“This is not like the Wednesdays with the notebooks, this is different. It is, it is the next step,” the fake Russian told her, according to wiretaps of their conversation. “You are ready for the next stop. OK?”
Chapman allegedly replied, “OK.”
The fake Russian told her that from now on, communiques would not be “laptop to laptop” but rather “person to person.”
U.S. officials said Semenko was tripped up in a similar fashion.
In Moscow, calls to the Foreign Ministry and the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) were not answered early today.
The Associated Press and The New York Times contributed to this report.
