Five days later, Zottoli and Mills headed back to Seattle and to their apartment. This set of meetings was hugely significant for the investigation. A trail had now emerged that went from a Russian official through Metsos to two illegal couples. But they would have to be patient to see what happened next. Two years later, on June 5, 2006, Zottoli and Mills flew to JFK Airport in New York. Three days after landing there they drove up to Wurtsboro. They were there to pick up the cash that Metsos had buried in Upstate New York in May 2004.
The FBI video cameras installed at the site caught Zottoli digging around the beer bottle and retrieving the package. The camera caught Mills nearby. The next day they were in Washington, DC. The FBI had the room wired. Zottoli was wearing a money belt as he left the hotel. When he was back the video caught him dividing money up among several wallets.
On April 17, 2005, Metsos and Murphy met again for one of their regular encounters at the Sunnyside restaurant. This time Metsos gave Murphy an ATM card and PIN so he could withdraw cash from an account funded by Moscow Center. The illegals as a whole had to be careful about the money they received from Moscow Center. Like any spy they had to avoid spending it flashily in a way that drew attention to them. But they also had to account for it carefully to their paymasters. Heathfield and Foley in Boston sent back itemized reports detailing how the money had been spent.
Christopher Metsos was much more than just a courier who handed over the money. When an intelligence officer from the CIA, MI6, or SVR recruits an agent—a citizen of another country who is going to betray secrets—they know that this person will require careful and subtle handling. What is their motivation? What are their fears? Understanding the difficulties of being an agent—and especially the isolation in not being able to tell anyone around you about it—is a key part of the job of an agent runner or handler. And even though they were not agents but intelligence officers themselves, the Russian illegals faced similar challenges in terms of isolation and strain. And they needed careful handling to keep them on track. That was the job of Christopher Metsos.
He was a mentor—there to support them, guide them, and watch over them on behalf of Moscow Center. He provided the human contact with their superiors that no coded email or radio message could offer. He was their lifeline back home. But he was also their controller. He would come out and deliver in person any message that the Center needed delivered. Sometimes those messages were supportive—keep going, even though it’s tough, he could tell them. If they had complaints he could commiserate. And of course, he could say he knew what it was like to live such a life since he had been an illegal himself. But sometimes there were demands from Moscow Center for more intelligence and harder work from the illegals. Metsos could be the person to smooth that message—yes, Moscow can be demanding but you just need to learn to feed the machine, he could say. But at other times, he could play the bad cop and be firmer and more demanding—the Center expects more from you. He could give them a hug or give them a kick in the ass when they needed it, the FBI says.
“Traveling Illegals” like Metsos were the glue that kept the illegal operation running. Metsos met all of the family illegals based in the United States—but not always in America itself. He would meet some of them outside of the country. For instance Heathfield traveled globally for his work and both he and his wife could meet Metsos in Canada—this was safer since they all had Canadian identities. And it was not just the American illegals whom he met. As he crisscrossed the world on his false passports and stolen identities, he met deep-cover illegals dotted around the world. This made him an enormously important intelligence target for those covertly watching him. He carried secrets way beyond any of the illegals settled in the United States and could potentially unlock hidden aspects of the global program. But Metsos would not be able to travel to the United States for long. The illegals were about to be dealt a blow that would force them to shift gears and take more risks.
15
Murphy Steps Up
PAUL HAMPEL WAS about to board his flight out of Montreal at 6 p.m. on November 14, 2006, when things went wrong. Hampel was a well-traveled man with a business job that was so vague that no one who met him quite knew what it was. But it allowed him to visit Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and establish a corporate presence in Dublin. He even published a book of his photographs called My Beautiful Balkans. The Canadians who stopped him at the airport explained that he would not be catching his flight, as they had some questions they needed answering. It was when they searched his luggage that he knew he was in real trouble. He was carrying nearly eight thousand dollars in five different currencies, three phones, and a shortwave radio. He also had index cards with handwritten notes that included key dates in Canadian history, like that of the country’s confederation, and also names of prime ministers and their parties since the 1940s. These were likely designed to help him if he was asked questions at border control on his return to test his “Canadianness.” The truth was he had been operating for more than a decade as a deep-cover Special Reserve officer from Department 1 of Directorate S, with a particular focus on the Balkans. He was another Christopher Metsos. But while Metsos would travel into North America, Hampel was based in Canada in order to travel to the Balkans to support deep-cover illegals settled there. Hampel, it would emerge, had received three successive passports since 1995 based on a fake 1971 Ontario birth certificate for someone supposedly born in 1965.
The arrest was the result of an investigation the FBI was involved in and perhaps even a tip from their source in Moscow. It spooked the Russians. The reason was that Christopher Metsos had been operating under Canadian documentation similar to Hampel’s. Their fear in Moscow Center was that Metsos would now be identified if he tried to enter the United States. And if he went to meet the illegals, then they in turn would be blown. The SVR did not know that it was already too late.
The decision was taken in Moscow to stop using Metsos as an illegal traveler supporting the American-based illegals. He would never return to the United States after 2005. But the illegals still needed funding. That meant finding a new way of getting them cash. The new method would be high risk. Moscow Center would now deliver directly to one of the illegals rather than through the intermediary—known as a “cutout”—of Metsos. Murphy, the stay-at-home dad and unfulfilled spy, would be given the role of substitute courier now that Metsos was out of the picture. It was time for him to step up.
The FBI team believes that the illegals were given the new, riskier mission of carrying out the brush-pasts because Moscow thought that it was time for them to up their game. They were spies and they had been trained to take these kinds of risks and get them right. But one thing Moscow Center had not understood was the psychological impact created by the loss of Metsos. He had been more than just the moneyman. A veteran illegal himself, he knew when to reassure and when to cajole. Now the illegals had no one to talk to. The only contact with the Center was through the informal method of the covert emails. Imagine having a boss who never spoke to you face-to-face but only through emails. Some might prefer it, but it takes away the ability to have the informal conversations and read the body language that helps you know what your boss really thinks. Without the in-person catch-up with Metsos, the spy equivalent of a regular appraisal, some of the illegals, especially Richard Murphy, would struggle with the burden of their work. But first, Murphy had to show he had what it took to be the moneyman.
In April 2009, the FBI decrypted the first of a series of messages giving Murphy instructions to carry out a “flash meeting” with a “field station rep”—a Line N officer. Murphy would be taking over the role of picking up money and distributing it to other illegals. The exact sequences of events and the type of bag to be used were all detailed in the message. A Saturday had been chosen, Moscow Center said, because the commuter station was deserted and there were no surveillance cameras.
On June 6, 2009, the FBI had its own covert video surveillance all around the station.
Murphy was spotted. He looked almost comic in a wide-brimmed, floppy hat and sunglasses and with a couple of different bags over his shoulder and in his hand. He was hanging out at the lower part of the station, occasionally checking his watch. A Russian government official (a third secretary at the UN mission) was seen on camera wearing a baseball cap and T-shirt, pacing on the platform. He was carrying a shopping bag as he descended the stairs. Murphy headed up the stairs. As they passed the midpoint, Murphy held out his backpack and the Russian placed a small satchel into Murphy’s open backpack. Two FBI cameras caught the exchange, which lasted no more than a second. They did not speak to each other. But, perhaps because he was less experienced, it was still a messier transfer than the one Metsos had done at a train station a few years earlier. Murphy continued up the stairs to the train platform. In the bag was roughly $300,000 and a flash memory stick. Half the money was for him, half for others.
This meeting was crucial for the FBI investigation. Using Murphy as the contact man technically went against the strict rules of tradecraft, which were supposed to keep illegals distanced from each other and from Russia itself. The breakdown of the hard rules that had protected the illegals offered the chance to build a case. What was even better for the FBI was that it would soon have confirmation that the Russians had no idea they were being watched. Soon after, a message from Moscow Center to Murphy was intercepted. “Flash meeting: well done. A good job. . . . Our tech people in NY didn’t notice anything suspicious.” That message was met with joy and relief in the small FBI team. “We all high-fived ourselves because they didn’t spot us,” Derek Pieper of the FBI’s New York team later recalled.
The Russians had their own technical team trying to monitor the FBI for unusual patterns of communications or activity around the meeting. But they had spotted nothing. In the world of counterintelligence, this was a real coup—the FBI listening in on the Russians talking about trying to watch the FBI to see if they had been watching two Russians.
After the train station meeting, the SVR communicated precise details for when and where Murphy should meet “Mike”—Michael Zottoli—to give him half the money and the flash drive.
On September 26, 2009, Murphy and Zottoli were due to meet on a street corner in Brooklyn. The FBI was waiting. But there would be one of the close calls that can define the success or failure of an operation. The FBI had multiple cameras watching the scene. One was in a car on the exact street corner where the Russians were due to meet. Zottoli, wearing a pair of jeans and with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder, was there first. The car was parked just a yard or two away from him. He was holding a magazine and glancing around, clearly looking for someone. At one point he looked straight at the surveillance car. Murphy, in a pair of white shorts and carrying a backpack, is then spotted and the camera pans as he crosses the street toward Zottoli. The pair stand a foot or so apart from each other, pretending they have just bumped into each other.
“Excuse me, did we meet in Bangkok in April last year?” Zottoli says. “I don’t know about April, but I was in Thailand in May of that year,” replies Murphy, exchanging their agreed code.
At that exact moment a man in a sweatshirt walked up to the FBI’s surveillance car parked just feet away. The stranger pulls the door handle. He is trying to open it. This was a moment of complete fear. Were the Russians on to them? Was there a Russian countersurveillance team? The door handle rattled but did not open. The person walked off. Everyone breathed out. Was it a Russian? No, the FBI believes. It was, most likely, someone seeing if the car was unlocked and if he could steal it. “Welcome to New York,” recalls FBI agent Derek Pieper with a smile. If the door had not been locked, then there would have been a potential grade-one disaster. It would have swung open, and if Murphy and Zottoli had seen a camera trained on them it would have been a calamity. “The case is over,” explains Pieper. “The operation hinges on that door not opening. That’s ten years right there.”
Oblivious to the FBI camera two feet away, Zottoli and Murphy shook hands. There was something of a smile between them. And then something strange happened between the pair of illegals. This was supposed to be a brief meeting—more than a brush-past but only the chance to exchange a few recognition words and then hand over money, a few minutes at most. But it did not turn out that way. The FBI team watched in surprise as the pair of illegals headed off together on a walk. They went to nearby Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn and sat down on a bench. An FBI team with a covert video camera followed them there. And the two began to talk. And they kept on talking and talking. For an hour and a half. This unexpected turn of events caused the FBI a problem. These were the days of videotape rather than digital cameras and they began to run out of tape. Derek Pieper had to literally run around to all the different FBI vehicles nearby to collect their blank tapes and deliver them to the team watching the bench. Later in the meeting, Murphy handed over something that he pulled from his rucksack and placed it into a smaller bag he had brought. The pair kept talking all the time and appeared to be smiling. Then they both stood up and walked away in separate directions.
The illegals were not supposed to meet each other unless they had to, in order to avoid compromise of one leading to another. But now the FBI had a flow of cash going from a Russian official to Murphy and then on to another illegal. They had also seen something against all the rules—a long conversation between two illegals.
The first in-person meeting between two illegals that the FBI observed had been Zottoli and Murphy in 2004. This lasted just five minutes. By 2009, they were sitting on a bench and talking for what seemed like hours. Why? Because they needed to talk. “It is that human nature thing—if I am annoyed at my boss, I turn to the guy next to me and say, Can you believe he did this? You have that ability to do that. But they had no one,” explains Maria Ricci. “So human nature took over and what should have been a quick meeting ends up being a two-hour meeting because they couldn’t help themselves and they didn’t have Metsos to talk to. They didn’t have somebody to sit down and say, These are my problems, please help me.” On September 28, Murphy sent a message back to Moscow Center. “Meeting with M was successful. A passed to M the card and $150k.” He did not mention the long chat.
In January 2010, Moscow Center began making plans for Murphy to travel back home to Russia the following month. One reason was to deal with some problems with communications. He was asked how long he planned to be back, bearing in mind that the amount of time required for “business” would be two to three days. Travel back to Russia was clearly sensitive and had to be carefully handled. The messages were precise about the dates and routes of travel through Europe. Brush-pasts had to be arranged in order to pass on documents along the route with a backup option in the event the first meeting was missed.
Murphy’s cover story would be that he was either an interpreter or IT specialist on a business trip by invitation of a Russian businessman (he could choose which he preferred). A copy of an invitation letter would be enclosed in the envelope with the passport. The plan was for him first to go to Rome, Italy, for January 23 on a US passport. There he would carry out a flash meeting. The meeting place was code-named “Stan”—at the shop window of Libreria, near the San Giovanni subway station. The recognition signal was that Murphy was to be holding a copy of Time magazine so the title could be seen. If Time was in his left hand, then that would be a danger signal that something was wrong. The local Line N officer would say, “Excuse me, could we have met in Malta in 1999?” Murphy was to reply, “Yes, indeed, I was in La Valetta, but in 2000.” Murphy was to be given an Irish passport in the name Eunan Doherty Gerard. This was the name of a real person from County Donegal. Gerard had been to Moscow on vacation in 2005 and had sent his passport to the Russian embassy in Dublin to obtain his tourist visa. That was most likely when the details were stolen.
Then it would be to Milan by train to catch a flight. He would be provided with a round-trip ticket the Center had booked using his I
rish passport details. The e-ticket could be found in the drafts folder of an email address. The trip to Moscow was to update communications. Murphy was instructed to purchase a specific laptop made by ASUS before his departure. He was to buy it carefully—no ordering ahead, then paying cash and destroying the receipt. That computer then needed to be brought to Moscow.
On February 9, 2010, the FBI watched Murphy go into a Manhattan electronics store and come out with a laptop box. The FBI went into the store afterward and spoke to three employees. They identified Murphy. One remembered him saying his name was “David.” They checked the sales database and found reference to a David Hillier having paid cash for the same ASUS laptop that Murphy had been told to buy. On February 21, Murphy took a Continental Airlines flight to Rome from Newark. Just before 9 a.m. on February 22 he made a purchase at the Rome airport as Richard Murphy. But a receipt found later at his house from lunchtime that day in Rome’s train station was in the name of Doherty.
Murphy flew back from Rome on March 3—meaning he had perhaps a week at most in Moscow. What he did there was a mystery—but he may well have met with Poteyev. As he arrived back in Newark, Department of Homeland Security officials covertly searched his bags. The same make and model of laptop that he had bought in Manhattan was there. But it was not the same. There was a sticker on the bottom of the laptop. The one he had bought in Manhattan had a serial number ending 1432. The one coming back from Moscow ended 9719. The laptop had been switched. The SVR had been careful but not careful enough.
Russians Among Us Page 18
