The FBI released the surveillance video from the sting that broke up a Russian spy ring more than a year ago, which then led to one of the largest spy swaps between the Washington and Moscow since the Cold War.
In 2010, 10 Russian spies including the now-famous Anna Chapman were arrested by the FBI after a lengthy investigation.
After a Freedom of Information Act request by several news agencies, the FBI posted documents, videos, and photographs of the bust online, calling it Operation Ghost Stories.
Six of the 10 people who served as spies used the identities of dead people, hence the name of the operation.
The spies lived and worked the United States for years but secretly reported information to Russia’s intelligence agency. Within a few days of their capture, the 10 agents were swapped with four Americans held in Russia.
“The illegals were content to wait decades to obtain their objective, which was to develop sources of information in U.S. policymaking circles,” the FBI said.
A video released on Monday shows Chapman meeting with an undercover agent in a New York coffee shop and another shows Michael Zottoli, another member of the ring, taking a package during a “dead drop,” a technique not used since the Cold War to transfer information by placing packages in the ground. The recipient then has to dig it up.
Another video of Chapman, who became a celebrity when she returned to Russia, shows her transmitting information to a Russian official through wireless means while she was in a New York department store.
The FBI watched the suspects for more than a decade even when they were doing mundane activities.
“Our agents and analysts watched the deep-cover operatives as they established themselves in the U.S. (some by using stolen identities),” the FBI said, “and went about leading seemingly normal lives—getting married, buying homes, raising children, and assimilating into American society.”
The federal law enforcement agency said the case is not an isolated one and said the American public rarely hears about them anymore following the end of the Cold War.
“The threat is not limited to the Russians,” an unnamed FBI agent said. “There are a lot of foreign services who want what we have, and that’s why we have agents and analysts in FBI field offices across the country working with other intelligence community partners every day to address these threats.”
