A RUSSIAN spy who lived in New Jersey under the assumed name “Richard Murphy” travelled from Rome to Moscow on a false Irish passport in the name of “Eunan Gerard Doherty” last February, according to an affidavit filed by the FBI in Manhattan on Monday.
The journey was one of many twists in a vast spy saga worthy of a John Le Carré novel. The purpose of Murphy’s trip was to carry a computer he purchased in Manhattan to Rome and on to Milan and Moscow for programming. He brought the computer back to the US for use by another Russian agent.
Spokesmen for the FBI and Department of Justice said they could provide no further information on the US of Irish identity papers in the most stunning espionage case since the Cold War.
US authorities arrested 10 alleged spies who were deeply embedded in American life in Montclair, New Jersey; Yonkers, New York; Boston, Massachusetts; Arlington, Virginia and Seattle, Washington on Sunday night. Eight of the Russian agents lived as married couples, and two of the couples were raising children.
“We do not understand what prompted the US Justice Department to make a public statement in the spirit of Cold War espionage,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on its website yesterday, calling the arrests “baseless and improper”. The statement implied that the “incident” was intended to sabotage the improving relations between Washington and Moscow.
The alleged spies communicated with Moscow Centre – as the SVR or former KGB is called in the court documents – using codes and ciphers. Their tools included laptop computers that transmitted files between a Manhattan coffee shop and a Washington restaurant to vehicles parked outside. They posted and downloaded data encrypted within images on the internet – a technique known as “steganography” – and exchanged Morse code-like radio bursts.
The 10 have been charged not with espionage but with the lesser offence of failing to register as agents of a foreign government, for which they risk five years in prison. Nine were also charged with money laundering, for having received or transferred tens of thousands of dollars in cash and rented or purchased the residences that were part of their cover. For this they could receive 20-year sentences.
An 11th suspect who works outside the US as “Robert Christopher Metsos” was detained at the airport in Larnaca, Cyprus, yesterday when he attempted to board a flight for Budapest.
The network appears to have functioned for more than a decade. The revelation of its existence has rocked the US’s recently “reset” relationship with Russia.
Court documents detail meetings between Russian diplomats in Washington, New York and an unnamed Latin American country and the alleged conspirators, to transfer cash and/or information.
President Barack Obama reportedly preferred that the spy operation not be made public, only four days after he received Russian president Dmitri Medvedev at the White House. There had been fears that some of the agents were about to leave the country.
On Sunday last, a spy identified as “Anna Chapman” failed to keep an appointment with an undercover FBI agent after purchasing a cellphone and international calling card. Chapman, who has also appeared in court, appeared to have suspected an FBI sting.