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FBI arrests three Russian spies trying to recruit students

A criminal complaint filed in New York federal court was unsealed Monday, alleging the three men — Evgeny Buryakov, 39, Igor Sporyshev, 40, and Victor Podobnyy, 27 — were part of a Russian spy ring that was tasked with collecting information about possible United States sanctions against Russia, receiving restricted government documents and attempting to recruit at least two female college students as Russian spies.

All three are charged with failing to register with the Department of Justice as foreign agents and conspiring to act as foreign agents for Russia. Podobnyy and Sporyshev left the country before they could be arrested and have been charged in absentia, while Buryakov is being held without bond after a federal magistrate concluded he was a flight risk.

The 26-page complaint signed by FBI Special Agent Gregory Monaghan, who is in charge of the case, alleges the men worked for the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, similar to the CIA, and were conducting espionage activities in New York City.

Buryakov worked in the Manhattan office of a Russian bank while secretly working for the SVR under non-official cover, meaning he entered and remained in the United States as a private citizen and was not under the protection of diplomatic immunity. Both Sporyshev, who worked as a trade representative, and Podobnyy, who served as an Attaché to the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, were under the protection of diplomatic immunity. Presumably, due to their protection, both Sporyshev and Podobnyy were intermediaries for Buryakov with the SVR, and were responsible for sending and receiving coded messages and instructions from Moscow.

The complaint alleged:

SPORYSHEV and PODOBNYY acted as covert intermediaries for BURYAKOV to communicate with the SVR on intelligence-related matters. As an agent posing as someone without any official ties to the Russian government or the SVR, BURYAKOV was unable to access the SVR New York Office—which is located within an office maintained by Russia in New York, New York—without potentially alerting others to his association with the SVR. As such, BURYAKOV required the assistance of other SVR agents, like SPORYSHEV and PODOBNYY, to exchange communications and information with the SVR through the communications systems located in the SVR New York Office.

From March, 2012 until September 2014, FBI surveillance showed Buryakov and Sporyshev meeting over four dozen times and passing small items such as a bag, magazine, or slip of paper to Sporyshev.

Sporyshev, the court papers say, was responsible for relaying intelligence assignments from the SVR to Buryakov. In one assignment, Buryakov was asked to develop questions to be used for intelligence-gathering purposes by others associated with a leading Russian state-owned news organization that was not identified in the complaint. Within 20 minutes of receiving the assignment, Buryakov gave Sporyshev specific questions about how the New York Stock Exchange placed limits on exchange-traded-funds or “trading robot” systems.

In the summer of 2014, Buryakov met with an undercover FBI source who posed as the representative of a wealthy investor looking to develop casinos in Russia. During these meetings, Buryakov sought information about subjects far outside the scope of his work as a bank employee. Buryakov also received restricted government documents that potentially contained information about possible United States sanctions against Russia.

On March 17, 2014, President Obama in Executive Order 13661 sanctioned Russia for deploying its military forces and threatening the peace, security and stability of Ukraine. Three days later on March 20, 2014 the President signed a similar order blocking property of certain Russians who may be working to destabilize the Ukraine. One of the documents obtained by Buryakov allegedly contained a list of Russian individuals who had been sanctioned by the United States.

In April, 2013 Sporyshev and Podobnyy were caught on tape by the FBI criticizing the SVR, referencing the 2010 arrest of 10 Russian intelligence sleeper agents living in the United States as ordinary citizens, who were charged with money laundering. “First of all, Directorate S is the only intelligence that is real intelligence…” referencing the department within the SVR that is responsible for operating its “illegals program.” Podobnyy added, “Look, in the States even the S couldn’t do anything. They caught ten of them..They weren’t doing shit here, you understand…. and then Putin even tried to justify that they weren’t even tasked to work, they were sleeper cells in case of martial law.”

In another conversation recorded by the FBI, Podobnyy and Sporyshev discussed how they were going to deceive a man working as an energy consultant in NYC into giving them valuable documents. “I will feed him empty promises,” Podobnyy told Sporyshev. “This is intelligence method to cheat, how else to work with foreigners. You promise a favor for a favor. You get the documents from him and tell him him to go [expletive] himself,” Podobnyy said. The complaint did not identify the consultant, or what documents the spies were seeking.

From eavesdropping devices planted in the presumably secure SVR operations office in the Bronx, Podobnyy and Sporyshev were overheard discussing their lives as Russian spies living in the United States. “The fact that I’m sitting with a cookie right now at the chief enemy spot… Not one point of what I thought then, not even close [about] movies about James Bond,” Prodobnyy said. Sporyshev, evidently upset he wasn’t given a false identity and passport, replied, “I also thought that at least I would go abroad with a different passport.”

According to the complaint, the FBI recorded numerous conversations between Sporyshev and Podobnyy discussing their attempts to recruit United States citizens, including several individuals employed by major companies, and several young women with ties to a large New York City university as Russian spies.

For example in one conversation recorded in April, 2013 Sporyshev is overheard discussing his frustration concerning recruiting the two female students as spies saying, I have lots of ideas about such girls but these ideas are not actionable because they don’t allow [you] to get close enough. And in order to be close you either need to [expletive] them or use other levers to influence them to execute my requests. So when you tell me about girls, in my experience, it’s very rare that something workable will come of it.

Monaghan wrote in the complaint that he later learned from another FBI agent who interviewed both women that, “Podobnyy tried to ingratiate himself and gain information from each of them.”

Attorney General Eric Holder said, “These charges demonstrate our firm commitment to combating attempts by covert agents to illegally gather intelligence and recruit spies within the United States. We will use every tool at our disposal to identify and hold accountable foreign agents operating inside this country—no matter how deep their cover.

“Following our previous prosecution with the FBI of Russian spies, who were expelled from the United States in 2010 when their plan to infiltrate upper levels of U.S. business and government was revealed, the arrest of Evgeny Buryakov and the charges against him and his co-defendants make clear that—more than two decades after the presumptive end of the Cold War—Russian spies continue to seek to operate in our midst under cover of secrecy,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara who is assisting in the prosecution of the three alleged spies.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich labeled the arrest and charges of the three men as “provocations” and “spy hysteria” in a written statement. “It seems as though the US authorities are once again resorting to their favorite tactics of building up spy hysteria. Russian-US relations have been going through quite a complex period due to Washington’s antagonistic stance. Apparently, the US has opted for the “worse is better” approach by deciding to launch yet another round of anti-Russian campaigning, ” said Lukashevich.

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