11th Suspect Arrested in Alleged Russian Spy Ring

The 11th member of an alleged Russian spy ring was arrested at the Larnaca airport in Cyprus Tuesday, as he attempted to fly to Budapest, Hungary, police said. He was later released on bail.

The alleged Russian spy, identified as Christopher Metsos, was among those named in complaints unsealed Monday in federal court in Manhattan. In the federal complain, officials say the group, five living in the New York metropolitan area and five others living in the Northeast United States, worked with Metsos to secretly pass sensitive information to the Russian spy agency for a number of years.

Behind the scenes, they were known as "illegals" -- short for illegal Russian agents -- and were believed to have fake back stories known as "legends," officials said.

U.S. authorities say they sometimes worked in pairs and pretended to be married so they could blend into American society as the couple next door. Aside from fake identities, authorities say, they used Cold War spycraft -- invisible ink, coded radio transmissions, encrypted data -- to avoid detection.

Tuesday morning, the Russian government itself called the arrests a throwback to the Cold War in a statement condemning the arrests.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz called the allegations "the tip of the iceberg" of a conspiracy of Russia's intelligence service, the SVR, to collect inside U.S. information.

The FBI said it intercepted a message from SVR's headquarters, Moscow Center, to two of the 10 defendants describing their main mission as "to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US." Intercepted messages showed they were asked to learn about a wide range of topics, including nuclear weapons, U.S. arms control positions, Iran, White House rumors, CIA leadership turnover, the last presidential election, Congress and the political parties, prosecutors said.

"The FBI did an extraordinary job in this investigation," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.

The court papers described a new high-tech spy-to-spy communications system used by the defendants: short-range wireless communications between laptop computers -- a modern supplement for the old-style dead drop in a remote area, high-speed burst radio transmission or the hollowed-out nickels used by captured Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel in the 1950s to conceal and deliver microfilm.

On Saturday, an undercover FBI agent in New York and another in Washington, both posing as Russian agents, met with two of the defendants, Anna Chapman at a New York restaurant and Mikhail Semenko on a Washington street corner blocks from the White House, prosecutors said. The FBI undercover agents gave each an espionage-related delivery to make. Court papers indicated Semenko made the delivery as instructed but apparently Chapman didn't.

Another defendant was a reporter and editor for a prominent Spanish-language newspaper, El Diario, videotaped by the FBI contacting a Russian official in 2000 in Latin America, prosecutors said.

The timing of the arrests was notable given the efforts by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev to reset U.S.-Russia relations. The two leaders met last week at the White House, and shared a burger at a local D.C. area restaurant after Medvedev had visited high-tech firms in California's Silicon Valley. Both also attended the G-8 and G-20 meetings over the weekend in Canada.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, asked Monday at a press conference in Jerusalem about the spy case, said through an interpreter. "What I can say now is that the timing of this announcement was most elegant."

Intelligence on Obama's foreign policy, particularly toward Russia, appears to have been a top priority for the Russian agents, prosecutors said.

In spring 2009, court documents say, conspirators Richard and Cynthia Murphy, who lived in Montclair, New Jersey, were asked for information about Obama's impending trip to Russia that summer, the U.S. negotiating position on the START arms reduction treaty, Afghanistan and the approach Washington would take in dealing with Iran's suspect nuclear program. They also were asked to send background on U.S. officials traveling with Obama or involved in foreign policy, the documents say.

"Try to outline their views and most important Obama's goals (sic) which he expects to achieve during summit in July and how does his team plan to do it (arguments, provisions, means of persuasion to 'lure' (Russia) into cooperation in US interests," Moscow asked, according to the documents.

Moscow wanted reports that "should reflect approaches and ideas of" four sub-Cabinet U.S. foreign policy officials, they say.

One intercepted message said Cynthia Murphy "had several work-related personal meetings with" a man the court papers describe as a prominent New York-based financier active in politics.

In response, Moscow Center described the man as a very interesting target and urged the defendants to "try to build up little by little relations. ... Maybe he can provide" Murphy "with remarks re US foreign policy, 'roumors' about White house internal 'kitchen,' invite her to venues (to major political party HQ in NYC, for instance. ... In short, consider carefully all options in regard" to the financier.