WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US authorities said yesterday they have broken up a spy ring that carried out deep-cover work in the United States to recruit political sources and gather information for the Russian government.
Authorities charged 11 individuals with the plot, 10 of whom were arrested on Sunday in Boston, New York, New Jersey and Virginia on charges including conspiracy to act as unlawful agents of the Russian Federation and money laundering.
The group, dubbed the “Illegals,” was accused of being tasked by the Russian intelligence agency SVR to enter the United States, assume false identities and become “deep-cover” Americans, according to the US Justice Department.
Their goal was to “become sufficiently ‘Americanized’ such that they could gather information about the United States for Russia and can successfully recruit sources who are in, or are able to infiltrate, United States policy-making circles,” according to criminal complaints filed in US federal court.
However, they were not assigned to collect classified, secret information, a Justice Department official said. Most are believed to be originally from Russia and trained to secretly infiltrate the United States.
News of the bust comes just days after President Barack Obama met Russian Dmitry Medvedev to continue repairing a relationship between the two nations that has been fractured over diverging foreign policies and business matters.
An attempt to reach a representative at the Russian embassy in Washington was not immediately successful. US law bars individuals from acting on behalf of foreign states without notifying the US government.
