Ten 'Russian spies on deep cover assignments' held in NY

[Stephen Morgan]

"Richard Murphy, who lived in Montclair, N.J. with his alleged spy wife, claimed to have been born in Philadelphia, the federal complaint says.

Neighbor Chris Manthey said he wondered about that.

"It was suspicious that he had a Russian accent and an Irish last name. Who does that?" Manthey said.

A Russian of Irish parentage?

Montclair. My brain is saying "Ong's Hat".

[KeenInsight]

And I all I have to say to this news story is so what? How many CIA or other random alphabet agencies spies are in other countries? It sure as hell isn't none. You'd think the U.S. is just paranoid and everyone's secretly an potential enemy.

[Avalon]

For local news of Montclair, Baristanet is a good online source. The hard-copy Montclair Times is just a weekly, but has an online news presence.

http://www.baristanet.com/

http://www.northjersey.com/towns/Montclair.html

[semper occultus]

we've definitely got another Foxy Knoxy situation on our hands with Anya Kuschenko if this goes to court - there doesn't seem anything particularly illegal about leaving messages in dead-letter drops ( except littering ) or the rest of it if they haven't actually got any classified or illegally acquired information - has anyone implied any of them had access to any ?

Agent Anna's British links: Russian seized in FBI swoop spent five years living in London

dailymail.co.uk



If records are correct then Miss Chapman was born in Soviet times in what is now the Kharkov region of Ukraine and seems to have been raised in Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, in southern Russia.

She studied at the Economics Department of the University of People's Friendship in Moscow, an institution with longstanding links to the old KGB.

Miss Chapman has strong links to Britain and it is thought she was married to a British citizen. She appears to have been here for up to five years from 2003.
She said she worked at Barclays as what she called 'a slave' in their investment banking division before joining hedge fund Navigator Asset Management Advisers in Mayfair.
She also worked for a luxury flight service NetJets Europe, a company from which the rich and famous buy flying time in executive aircraft.

Barclays has no record of an Anna Chapman working in its investment side at the time she claims to have been there in 2004 and 2005.
It appears that she returned to Russia to work for asset managers before moving to America to further her own estate agency company, which organises rentals and sales around the world.


Anna Chapman: Diplomat's daughter who partied with billionaires

Anna Chapman, at the heart of the Russian spy ring scandal, lived in a glossy social world and was a serious networker

Amelia Hill, Rajeev Syal, Luke Harding in Moscow and Paul Harris in New York

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 June 2010 22.17


The woman at the centre of one of the most intriguing spying scandals since the cold war rubbed shoulders with some of Britain's highest profile businessmen at glittering evenings in London nightclubs.

Anna Chapman, one of 10 suspected Russian spies who have been charged in the US, was allegedly taken to parties at Annabel's nightclub attended by top businessmen including private equity billionaire Vincent Tchenguiz and Philip Green, who owns some of the UK's largest retailers.
The emerging picture of the glossy social circles Chapman moved in during her time in Britain mirrors FBI suspicions that the Russian secret service wanted Chapman to ingratiate herself with influential people in the west. She was, said one businessman who knew her, a "great networker".

Wayne Sharpe, executive chairman and founder of Bartercard, a trading exchange firm, said he met Chapman, 28, a number of times during 2005 at social gatherings.

Sharpe, 53, said Chapman was then the personal assistant of Nicholas Camilleri, chief executive of the Mayfair-based hedge fund company Navigator Asset Management Advisers.

"The business people [in attendance] were the highest lot – I'm talking about Philip Green and Vincent Tchenguiz. She was in that set well and truly by being at Nick's side until the wee hours of the morning," said Sharpe.

"She was one of many intelligent Russian women who worked with Nicholas. It was always hard to determine what she did in his business, but she was very intelligent, attractive, personable and very articulate in English. She certainly was a great networker. She constantly ingratiated herself with all of the high-end businessmen Nicholas introduced her to."

A spokesman for Tchenguiz said it was "almost certainly true" that the businessman had met Chapman. "Vincent and Nick know each other and both go to Annabel's every Thursday," he said. "If Chapman was with Nick, she would have been introduced.

"But it would have been a passing encounter – totally innocent," he added.

There is no suggestion that Chapman obtained any information from the businessmen she mixed with. It is understood Green seldom visits Annabel's and has no recollection of meeting her.

The Guardian was not able to reach Camilleri by time of publication tonight. Barclays Bank confirmed today that Chapman had worked in its London office before moving to the US. Earlier another British-based company, the private plane hire firm NetJets Europe, confirmed that she worked for it in the UK, but not for as long as the CV claimed, or at such a senior level.

Chapman's extensive online presence, including more than 90 photographs posted to Facebook and an apparently glamorous lifestyle as a property millionaire, has made her the focus of much of the media coverage of the case.

But quite what her part in the spying network was remains a mystery. Inquiries in the US have established that Chapman was arrested after she herself had gone to a New York police station after a meeting with a supposed Russian agent who wanted her to pass on a false passport.

In fact the Russian had been an American undercover federal investigator. Although Chapman agreed to the task when asked if she was willing to step up her spy work, she then failed to turn up to the set-up meeting.

Instead she went to the First Precinct station in New York and told police that the passport had been forced upon her. It was only then that she was arrested by the federal authorities.The manner of her arrest has been seized on by her lawyer, Robert M Baum, as evidence that Chapman was not quite the super spy that the prosecution are claiming. "The government's case is very thin against Ms Chapman. There is no allegation that she ever met face to face with any government official. No allegation despite constant surveillance that she ever delivered anything to anyone or received any money," Baum told ABC News.

Several thousand miles away in Moscow, meanwhile, a few more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of Chapman's life were emerging. She grew up in the southern town of Volgograd – formerly Stalingrad – and came from an influential diplomatic family. She studied in Volgograd's middle school – where she was known as Anya Kuschenko – and lived with her grandmother when her parents decamped to Moscow.

Her father became Russia's ambassador to Kenya when she was in the 8th grade, friends said. "I'm certain this is all some kind of set-up," one friend told the news portal lifenews.ru. "Even if you suppose she had become an intelligence agent she would never have allowed herself to fail in this way. She was such a clever girl."

Another classmate, Tatyana Shumilina, recalled her as a "party animal" who introduced the other teenage girls to "decent music" including Metallica and Nirvana. She was usually dressed in ripped jeans, black T-shirts and had a punk style. "She was an excellent student. The boys liked her. You only had to see her once to realise she was very pretty. As she got older she got even prettier. She made no effort to hide her diplomatic connections – everyone knew her father was an ambassador in an African country."

After school she moved to Moscow, and studied at the People's Friendship University of Russia, one of the top Soviet-founded schools. After graduating in 2004 she went into business, initially working for Fortis Investments. She set up her own online real estate business – apparently conceived from her experience of moving flats across Moscow.

Lifenews.ru says she married an Englishman, and moved to Britain, returning to Russia from time to time. Friends are unable to confirm this. "I don't know about her personal life," said Dmitry Porochkin.

Porochkin met Chapman at a function of Moscow's young entrepreneurs' club. By this point she had dumped her Russian surname and was using Chapman instead, he told the Guardian. "She was an extremely talented businesswoman who specialised in start-ups," he said. "She was a genuine entrepreneur. She showed no interest in politics. She was someone who wanted to achieve her business targets, and said she planned to start an investment project in New York. How she ended up in the view of the US special services is a mystery."

Chapman's online real estate business http://www.domdot.ru was today still up and running. Nobody answered the phone at the company's Moscow office. The portal offers a property search in 90 different regions of Russia and was highly successful, Porochkin said.

Chapman had intended to launch a similar online version in New York. She had also worked in banking in London, and for a hedge fund, Russian reports claimed. Other friends suggested that after frequent business trips she had moved to New York permanently only last year – camping out temporarily with her sister.

[JackRiddler]

Most of the Guardian story contradicts the lede putting her "at the center" of a spy scandal, which seems to be reportorial wishful thinking because she's, um, photogenic. Sounds more like she was at the center of her own upward mobility, doing her jobs and gathering resume items for better ones. Nor does anything indicate deception about her past life in Russia.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

I think this puffed up 'spy ring' story is a news cycle diversion away from the Chicago torture cop conviction of Commander Jon Burge.

That June 28, 2010 story directly refutes the legitimacy of CIA and Pentagon torture policies.

Chicago torture conviction - Google Search

1. Former Chicago Police Officer John Burge Convicted on Perjury ...

"(June 30) -- The conviction of a former Chicago police lieutenant accused of torturing suspects will likely inspire a wave of new litigation ..."
www.aolnews.com/crime/article/former-ch ... d/19536860

2. Ex-Chicago Cop Convicted Of Lying About Torture : NPR

"In Chicago on Monday, a former police lieutenant was convicted on federal charges of lying about abusing suspects."
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128177153

3. Officer Accused of Torture is Guilty of Perjury - ABC News

"The perjury conviction of a former Chicago police lieutenant for lying about torturing suspects with electric shocks and Russian roulette is ..."
abcnews.go.com/US/officer-accused-torture-guilty-perjury/story?id=11045087

4. Human Rights at Home: The Chicago Police Torture Archive

"Torture by Chicago Police. • Chicago Police Board .... in the appeal of his criminal conviction, that Darrell Cannon is entitled to a new hearing on his ..."
humanrights.uchicago.edu/chicagotorture/timeline.shtml

5. Ex-Chicago Cop Convicted Of Lying About Torturing Suspects ...

"Former Chicago police Commander Jon Bruge has been convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying about torturing suspects in ..."
www.talkleft.com/story/2010/6/28/184359/630

6. Crime Scene KC

"Ex Chicago cop convicted of lying about torture. Jon Burge, a former Chicago police commander accused of torturing suspects, has been found ..."
blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2010/06/ex-chicago-cop-convicted-of-lying-about-torture.html

7. Ex-Chicago officer's torture case may not be last

"For some, the perjury conviction of a former Chicago police lieutenant accused of lying for years about the torture of suspects marks the ..."
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n ... 225D81.DTL

8. Former Chicago Police Commander convicted on charges related to ...

"Former Chicago Police Commander convicted on charges related to the torture of suspects. Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 1:01 am | BNO News | Leave a Comment ..."
wireupdate.com/local/former-chicago-police-commander-convicted-on-charges-related-to-the-torture-of-suspects/

9. Chicago cop convicted of torture lying | The Times Leader, Wilkes ...

"CHICAGO — A decorated former Chicago police lieutenant accused of suffocating, shocking and beating confessions out of scores of suspects ..."
www.timesleader.com/news/Chicago_cop_co ... -2010.html

10. Chicago's Long Road to Justice for Torture | Criminal Justice ...

"Burge's conviction is the first step towards full accountability for police torture in Chicago. Federal prosecutors, while refusing to ..."
criminaljustice.change.org/blog/view/chicagos_long_road_to_justice_for_torture

11. Attorney: Burge Conviction Just One Part of Torture Case | NBC Chicago

"Torture victim attorney Flint Taylor talks about the next steps that must be taken to have full justice in the torture cases."
www.nbcchicago.com/station/as-seen-on/A ... icago.html

12. Ex-Chicago Cop Convicted of Lying About Torturing More Than 100 ...

"A jury convicted former Chicago cop Jon Burge of lying in connection with the torture of dozens of black men over the course of two."
www.bvblackspin.com/2010/06/29/ex-chica ... t-torture/

13. Former Chicago Police Commander convicted on charges related to ...

"CHICAGO (BNO NEWS) – A former Chicago Police Department (CPD) Commander was convicted on perjury and obstruction charges related to his ..."
www.islandcrisis.net/2010/06/chicago-po ... -suspects/

14. 9&10 News - Kagan's pledge...Gun ruling...Police torture conviction

"CHICAGO (AP) — A decorated former Chicago police lieutenant accused of torturing suspects to obtain confessions has been convicted in ..."
9and10news.com/Category/Story/?id=236944&cID=3

15. Ex-Chicago cop convicted of lying about torture

"CHICAGO (AP) - Lt. Jon Burge, a decorated former Chicago police lieutenant, was accused of suffocating, shocking and beating confessions out ..."
www.thegrio.com/news/ex-chicago-cop-con ... orture.php

16. Ex-Chicago officer's torture case may not be last - WBAY-TV Green ...

"CHICAGO (AP) - For some, the perjury conviction of a former Chicago police lieutenant accused of lying for years about the torture of ..."
www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=12722668

17. Ex-Chicago cop convicted of lying about torture - Topix

"Ex-Chicago cop convicted of lying about torture. Full story: KLTV Tyler. A decorated former Chicago police lieutenant accused of suffocating ..."
www.topix.com/forum/prisons/TO3KNFHO5B7HPLT10

18. 3 Burge victims tell of torture, don't expect conviction

"The beatings began in the early and late 1970s and went on at least until 1991. But at least three victims, allegedly tortured by the hands ..."
www.chicagodefender.com/article-7790-3- ... ction.html

19. Ex-Chicago Officer's Torture Case May Not be Last - BLACK ENTERPRISE

"Mark Clement cries as he talks to reporters after a jury convicted ex-Chicago police Lt. Jon Burge of lying about the torture of suspects. ..."
www.blackenterprise.com/business/2010/0 ... t-be-last/

20. Nation & World | Ex-Chicago cop convicted of lying about torture ...

"Ex-Chicago cop convicted of lying about torture. A decorated former Chicago police lieutenant accused of suffocating, shocking and beating ..."
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012230172_apuspolicetorturetrial.html?syndication=rss

[Avalon]

Chapman's extensive online presence, including more than 90 photographs posted to Facebook

Someone doesn't get out into cyberspace much. My niece in high school has about 1500 photos on Facebook.

[semper occultus]

The spy who loved me: British husband of 'femme fatale' says her arrest was 'not much of a surprise'

www.dailymail.co.uk

By Kate Loveys , Vanessa Allen, Tamara Cohen and Fay Schlesinger

Last updated at 9:17 AM on 2nd July 2010


Alex Chapman, 30, fell in love with Anna 'at first sight'
Couple met on a dancefloor in London's Docklands in 2001.
He was 21, she was 19 - and they married in Moscow within weeks
But he claims her KGB father could have conditioned her to be a spy
Says his wife of four years became arrogant and secretive
Claims towards the end she held meetings with 'Russian friends'
Pair last spoke a month ago - but she 'seemed distant'


The former British husband of the 'femme fatale' at the centre of the Russia spy ring broke his silence last night - revealing she held secret meetings with Russian 'friends'.

Alex Chapman, 30, a trainee psychiatrist, has told of his fears that Anna, his wife of four years, had been 'conditioned' by Moscow after she dramatically changed during their four-year marriage.

Following questioning from MI5, the former public school boy, from Bournemouth, said that her father, a high-ranking KGB officer, could have groomed her to be a spy.


From Russia with love: Anna Kuschenko and Alex Chapman at their 2002 marriage. It lasted four years

The glamorous 28-year-old redhead is one of 11 people accused of spying in the U.S.
Russian-born Anna Kushchenko was married to Mr Chapman for four years before their divorce in 2006.

They met across a dancefloor at an underground rave party in London's Docklands in 2001 when Mr Chapman was 21. He said he fell in love at first sight with 'the most beautiful girl I had ever seen'.

At the time he was working at a recording studio after leaving his boarding school, Bradfield College in Berkshire, at 16.
Anna, who was 19, was due to return to Moscow two days later. Within weeks Mr Chapman had arranged to visit her in Moscow, where he soon proposed.

The couple married in a registry office without telling their parents, and without the money to afford wedding rings.
But Anna's father later paid for them to go on honeymoon to Egypt for two weeks and then to Zimbabwe, where her parents were living.

The Chapmans returned to England, living in Stoke Newington, but their relationship soured after Anna turned her back on her 'carefree' bohemian lifestyle and suddenly became obsessed with money and moving to America.

Yesterday Mr Chapman told of his suspicions that in 2005, as their marriage broke down, she was being 'conditioned' by shadowing contacts, and her own father Vasily Kushchenko.

'Anna told me her father had been high up in the ranks of the KGB. She said he had been an agent in "old Russia",' he told the Daily Telegraph.

'Her father controlled everything in her life, and I felt she would have done anything for her dad.

'When I saw that she had been arrested on suspicion of spying it didn’t come as much of a surprise to be honest.
'Towards the end of our marriage she became very secretive, going for meetings on her own with 'Russian friends’, and I guess it might have been because she was in contact with the Russian government.'

About Mr Kushchenko he added: 'He didn’t trust anyone. He asked me why I had chosen a Russian bride and asked what business I had in Russia, and I said none.

'He was scary. He would never introduce me to other Russian people who came to the house and he always seemed to have a lot more security than the other diplomats. He had a Land Rover with blacked-out windows and there was always one car in front of it and one car behind.'
Mr Chapman said that when questioned on Wednesday by an MI5 officer he told them everything.

He said: 'It’s just totally weird to think that my ex-wife could be involved in something like this.'
Mr Chapman said his wife made a sudden decision to move to America to exploit 'business opportunities'.

He said: 'She had met a rich American man who had taken her to the States and when she came back she said she loved it.
'She moved over there to set up her internet property company and it always seemed to be in the red, but it took off suddenly in 2009 and she said she was employing 50 people.
'I couldn’t understand how she could pay them. At some point someone had pumped a lot of money into it.'

<snip>

'The funny thing about Anna was that she always seemed to know exactly where to go and exactly what to do, no matter what the circumstances,' he said.

'I suggested working as an English tutor, so she took me to an obscure building and pinned a notice on the wall and the next day I had 10 phone calls. I couldn’t quite work it out.'
Mr Chapman briefly met his new mother-in-law Irene, a maths teacher, in May 2002 at a family funeral in Anna’s childhood home of Volgograd, where Mrs Kushchenko, 50, took a shine to him and described him as 'an angel sent from England'.

But when he met his father-in-law, Vasily, during a delayed honeymoon to Africa in the summer of 2002, he got a cooler reception.

'Anna’s father paid for us to go on honeymoon to Egypt for two weeks and then to Zimbabwe, where her parents were living,' said Mr Chapman.

'Her dad was scary. He was very concerned about which direction my life was going, how I was going to "earn my money". Anna told me he worked as a diplomat for the Russian government.

'It was only much later that she told me he had been a KGB agent.'

After their honeymoon the couple rented a flat in Stoke Newington, where they set up a charity called Southern Union, enabling Zimbabwean expats to wire money back home at competitive exchange rates.

It was financed by a millionaire South African friend of Anna’s father who took commission on the transfers.

For the next two years the Chapmans lived quietly, with Anna shuttling to and from Russia to finish her economics master’s degree, graduating with first class honours in 2004.
'Anna was an extremely passionate, caring and loving woman,' said Mr Chapman.

'She is also extremely intelligent - she has an IQ of 162 and it showed, because she was able to juggle so many things at once and make them a success.'

Mr Chapman, who now lives in Bournemouth, said he last spoke to his ex-wife four weeks ago but 'she seemed distant'.
He added: 'I thought I knew her but she has taken this path I don’t believe she consciously knew she was going down.

'I believe in my heart there has been some sort of influence on her, some sort of conditioning, then when push came to shove she found herself in a situation she couldn’t get out of.'

Yesterday it emerged that Anna rarely spoke about her ex-husband.

The ambitious Russian changed her name to Chapman and began ingratiating herself with the capital's high-profile international business elite.

She began rubbing shoulders with entrepreneurs, including Topshop billionaire Sir Philip Green, and even claimed to have worked closely with U.S. industrialist Warren Buffett.
Since moving to New York, she is reported to have become romantically involved with a rich 60-year-old divorcee.

She told friends she had been seeing Michel Bittan, a New Jersey millionaire, after they met in a Manhattan nightclub popular with Russians.

Meanwhile her ex-husband now helps his mother Jane to run a quiet holiday cottage rental business in the New Forest.

[Stephen Morgan]

Looks like Kaylee from Firefly.

Warren Buffet, you say?

The husband's story sounds like the story someone not in the know would give if he was married to someone like Cathy O'Brien. The well connected domineering father, the mixing into high society and finance. Obviously no country and western in this case. On the other hand it's in the Daily Mail. The Guardian is less inclined to fib and puts the story across in a way which implies the husband maybe just misunderstood the familial dynamics of a Soviet diplomat. I mean, of course he was overbearing and had cars of security men going about with him. I'm like to know more about the husband.

[happenstance]

Will spy ring story help Jolie's 'Salt'? - CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/ ... tml?hpt=C1

[Nordic]

Will spy ring story help Jolie's 'Salt'? - CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/ ... tml?hpt=C1

I've heard that movie needs all the help it can get. That it's atrocious.

I was just thinking about that movie the other day, namely, its name.

Remember SALT 1 and SALT 2?

[LilyPatToo]

Sorry to hear the bad news about Salt. From the previews, it looked as though it was going to be about some form of Russian mind control that created a separate assassin personality and that subject is of interest to me, even if it's heavily fictionalized.

LilyPat

[Elvis]

about some form of Russian mind control that created a separate assassin personality

There's this movie--

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)

Samantha Caine, suburban homemaker, is the ideal mom to her 8 year old daughter Caitlin. She lives in Honesdale, PA, has a job teaching school and makes the best Rice Krispie treats in town. But when she receives a bump on her head, she begins to remember small parts of her previous life as a lethal, top-secret agent. Her old chums in the Chapter are now out to kill her so she enlists the help of a cheap detective named Mitch. As Samantha remembers more and more of her previous life, she becomes deadlier and more resourceful....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116908/
It was the Thanksgiving Day after-dinner movie selection at some relatives' house.
It's actually pretty good, as I recall. The main character, the woman teacher/super-agent, is great, alternately surviving impossible situations and kicking bad-guy ass all over the place. But I wonder if some people will see Geena Davis as this awesome, unstoppable, badass-hottie superspy, mopping up black-budget villians with such aplomb, and think, "Mind control can do that?! Cooool!"

[LilyPatToo]

That was a really cool movie! But yeah I assume that most people were blissfully unaware of the reality of intelligence agencies' and our military forces' work along those lines. I'd love to have one of the current crop of Russian moles turn out to be walking evidence of MC and have it get out somehow in a way that would upset applecarts, but I'm not holding my breath. And the story would no doubt be quickly spun the way it was in the Bourne movies and in His Own Worst Enemy--the victim was a stalwart patriotic soldier or intelligence operative who *volunteered* for the programming. Wouldn't want any upsetting stories of non-consensual experimentation on civilians--especially young ones--circulating out there...

LilyPat

[JackRiddler]

Well, if anyone mentions the Long Kiss Goodnight - very over the top movie, great fun - we must quote the money scene.

Remember that the supposed KSM codename for 9/11 is "The Big Wedding."

Film: The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
Time: 01:22:52-01:24:18

Scene: Samantha Caine (Geena Davis) attempts to rescue her daughter with aid from private detective Mitch Hennessey (Samuel L Jackson). Perkins (Patrick Malahide) captures them and subsequently explains the purpose of ‘Operation Honeymoon’.

Dialogue:

Perkins: I’m going to miss you Major. You ought really to have stayed dead. You don’t know the rules of the game anymore.

Samantha Caine: Tell me about it. Eight years ago, this guy was on the hit list.

Perkins: Budget cuts, dear. Congress blinded us overseas. I was forced to turn to any eyes and ears I could find, even if that meant recruiting the ‘bad guys’ here.

Samantha Caine: Budget cuts—is that what this is about? Operation Honeymoon…Fuck me! You’re running a fund-raiser.

Mitch Hennessey: Fund-raiser?

Perkins: 1993…World Trade Center bombing, remember? During the trial, one of the bombers claimed the CIA had advance knowledge. [Chuckling] The diplomat who issued the terrorists’ visa was CIA. It’s not unthinkable they paved the way for the bombing, purely to justify a budget increase.

Mitch Hennessey: You’re telling me you’re going to fake some terrorist thing just to scare some money out of Congress?

Perkins: Unfortunately, Mr Hennessey, I have no idea how to fake killing 4,000 people, so we’re just going to have to do it for real. Blame it on the Muslims, naturally. Then I get my funding. Goodnight, old girl. Timothy I’ll be in chopper one.

Luckily this is the kind of movie where the Big Bad reveals the Master Stroke in advance, leaving the heroes to be disposed of in some demented, complicated way that then goes wrong...

transcription from http://vyzygoth.com/photo.html