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The Illegals Program is a name given by the United States Department of Justice to an alleged network of spies planted in the U.S. by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (known by its abbreviation in the Russian language as the SVR). The multi-year investigation culminated in June 2010 with the filing of charges and the arrest of 10 suspects.
Using forged documents, the spies were alleged to have assumed the identities of "citizens or legal residents of the countries to which they are deployed" and had enrolled at American universities and joined professional organizations as a means of further infiltrating spies into government circles. Two of the individuals named were Richard and Cynthia Murphy, who had resided in the U.S. since the mid-1990s, living in Hoboken, New Jersey before purchasing a home in suburban Montclair. The complaint alleges that couples had been 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.
The complaints filed in United States Federal Court claim that Russian agents in the U.S. passed information back to the SVR by messages hidden inside digital photographs, written in disappearing ink, public 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, including an incident cited where a pair of spies met on a park bench with one asking "Excuse me, but haven't we met in California, last summer" to which the other was to respond "No, I think it was the Hamptons".
Ten of the agents involved were arrested by U.S. authorities in a series of raids in Boston, Montclair, Yonkers, New York and Northern Virginia. The individuals were charged with money laundering which can carry a charge of up to 20 years in prison) and failing to register as agents of a foreign government. No charges were offered that the individuals involved had gained access to classified material, though contacts had been made with a former intelligence official and with a scientist involved in developing bunker buster bombs. One of the suspects, Christopher R. Metsos, remained at large.
References
- ^ Savage, Charles. "U.S. Charges 11 With Acting as Agents for Russia", The New York Times, June 28, 2010. Accessed June 28, 2010.
- Montanaro, Domenico. "Ten arrested, accused of spying for Russia", MSNBC, June 28, 2010. Accessed June 28, 2010.
- ^ Staff. "Ten arrested in US on charges of spying for Russia", BBC News, June 29, 2010. Accessed June 28, 2010.