Russians Among Us

by Gordon Corera

  MIKHAIL SEMENKO WAS another of the new illegals. Whereas Chapman worked the New York business and party scene, Semenko targeted Washington. Boyish with short dark hair, he was book smart and spoke five languages but lacked the guile that made Chapman so dangerous. Born in 1982, he studied at Amur State University, just a few miles from Russia’s border with China. In 2003, he went to teach English in China for nearly two years. In 2005, he arrived at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. “He definitely didn’t seem to be hiding anything,” a former classmate later said. “He must have told me that he was Russian within two minutes of meeting him.” He then worked in New York for a travel agency that organized high-end tours to Russia. Semenko followed the firm to Arlington, Virginia, outside of Washington, DC, in 2009. “He seemed a lot younger than 27,” the man who rented him the apartment would recall—the deal sealed over some vodka shots. “He was a crummy spy and a complete slob, but such a nice kid,” he would later say.

  He began applying for jobs at Washington, DC, policy institutes. On his LinkedIn profile he described himself as having “in-depth knowledge of government policy research.” His page on a Russian social networking site had a picture of him posing in front of the White House. A friend in 2008 had written jokingly (one can only assume) on his page, “Hi to our valiant spy deep behind the nasty Americans’ lines. Remember the teachings of Mao: destroy the filthy imperialist economy from within!!” Semenko returned to Russia in late 2009 and April 2010, likely for debriefing from the SVR. Once he obtained permanent status, the FBI believed he would have moved deeper into Washington and could have done real damage by burrowing into policy-making circles rather than just spotting people who worked in them, like Donald Heathfield. Semenko had the advantage that he was not under a false name so he might have been able to apply for jobs with security clearances or get to know people holding one without fearing a background check. Like Anna Chapman, he was an avid networker, turning up to embassy and think tank events. Experts on China were impressed enough by him and his blog on the country’s economy to put him into contact lists as a “Russia/China” expert. “He was a smart kid,” one FBI agent says. “His drawback was his personality—people didn’t like him. He was a little arrogant.” One person told the FBI that Semenko had the personality of Vladimir Putin—a compliment inside the SVR but not in America. It meant he got stuck at entry-level jobs in think tanks like the World Affairs Council. FBI agents say he found answering the phones below him—given his education and secret status as a spy.

  At 11 a.m. on June 5, FBI agents were inside a restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, DC, when Semenko entered. Ten minutes later, a car with diplomatic plates entered the parking lot. It was driven by the same Line N officer who had carried out the 2004 brush-past at the train station in Forest Hills and who had returned for a second posting. After twenty minutes sitting in the car, he drove off. A few minutes after Semenko departed the restaurant. A wireless network was detected of the same type Anna Chapman used.

  Four days later, Semenko came up to James S. Robbins after an event and asked if there might be any openings at the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC), where Robbins worked. The council was home to a number of noted Russia experts with close ties to government. Semenko mentioned his blog and handed over his business card. Even though Robbins had studied Soviet intelligence activities, he did not suspect Semenko. “He came across as friendly, bright and earnest, the very kind of young person one regularly encounters in these venues. In the film version, he could be played by Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe. But in that respect, he was like many American intelligence operatives I have met; they are trained to be likeable.” Semenko emailed the president of the AFPC soon after. Semenko was taking a direct approach in the way Heathfield had never been allowed to.

  The third of the “True Name Illegals” was Alexey Karetnikov. In his early twenties, he arrived in the United States in October 2009 (most likely having spent some time in the States as an intern the previous year). What made him stand out was his job in America—he worked as a software tester at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington. He came across as somewhat naive about America—expressing surprise to a neighbor when he did not have to produce his passport to buy clothes at a local store. The relatively poor language skills and cultural understanding were a world away from the older family illegals who had spent years working out how to blend in. The FBI believe Karetnikov still had potential to cause long-term damage. Silicon Valley has long been a target for spies from around the world seeking America’s most advanced technology. At the start of 2010, Google was the target of a highly sophisticated cyberattack by China that reached inside the company’s systems looking for its source code. Karetnikov might have offered a different avenue for Russia to do something similar. Getting people inside one of the major tech companies would offer a huge advantage. The FBI informed Microsoft and the company conducted a detailed audit of the code and projects he had been involved in. They found nothing suspicious and put in place new controls to detect “insider threats.” Twenty years down the line, though, Karetnikov could have maneuvered himself into an influential job. These new illegals were moving much faster than the old. They had been born out of necessity—the challenges of documentation—but also opportunity—the post–Cold War deepening of ties between Russia and the West, which allowed young people to travel over. Even though they were openly Russian, they were gravitating quickly into positions of influence in New York, Washington, and Silicon Valley. They were the new threat. And at the same time, the risk posed by the established deep-cover illegals was also growing.

  17

  Closing In

  THE MURPHYS’ PUBLIC life as Americans and their secret life as Russian spies were on the up but sometimes the two came into tension. In August 2008, they moved from Hoboken to Montclair, New Jersey. This was a step up in terms of neighborhood and property. Thirty-One Marquette Road was not a huge house, but its three bedrooms and garage made it more spacious than their old apartment. It looked the part—a colonial-style home with maroon shutters and a porch, and near a park, it signified the American dream. “They seemed to have taken a class in Suburbia 101,” a local teenager later reflected. Neighbors thought the new family fit right in. “They couldn’t have been spies,” one neighbor said when the truth later emerged. After all, Cynthia liked to garden. “Look what she did with the hydrangeas.”

  A few people wondered how the strange accents sat with an Irish name. Cynthia told one person she was Belgian. Others thought the couple might be Scandinavian because their daughters—Katie and Lisa—were so blond. The girls were popular. They sometimes ran a lemonade and brownie stand to raise money for charity. They were often seen out on the street on their bikes or having water fights. At school, they were good at languages—something they may have inherited from their parents. Katie received a certificate for Spanish, while Lisa was starting to learn Mandarin. Katie would graduate at the top of her class in June 2010. “I was just struck at how accomplished she was,” said a parent who attended the ceremony. “I remember they called her up to the stage and they said, ‘Stay right here. You’re getting more awards.’” Their certificates were pinned to the fridge door. The girls knew nothing of their parents’ secret life. Their one trip to Russia had come when both girls were very young. It was a chance for grandparents to meet them, but the girls would not have to be told where they were going or why. Otherwise they were just enjoying an all-American childhood, unaware that they were being watched.

  Richard Murphy liked to grill hamburgers while drinking cheap American beer in the backyard, often dressed in a baseball cap and jeans. Neighbors soon realized there was one thing slightly unusual about him—he was a stay-at-home dad. How modern, they thought. He would occasionally have a coffee with them, but some thought he looked a bit sour and unhappy. He was often seen looking after his backyard vegetable garden after Cynthia got the bus to Manhattan in the morning. Cynthia now seemed happier
, no doubt because she was the one whose work—both cover and real—was proving more successful than his. This made her seem like a happy working mother to those around her. Not all the neighbors may have been what they seemed, though. At some point, the FBI moved their own team into a house on the road to watch the Murphys.

  It was their new house that caused a problem with Moscow Center. When they were renting, the couple had argued that they should be able to own a property. The response was unsympathetic. Moscow Center replied that none other than the director of the SVR had personally decided that if they had to buy a house, it would be the Center that would own it and the illegals would simply be permitted to live in it. The Murphys were annoyed and wrote a reply. “In order to preserve positive working relationship, we would not further contest your desire to own this house. We are under an impression that C [Center] views our ownership of the house as a deviation from the original purpose of the mission here. We’d like to assure you that we do remember what it is. From our perspective, purchase of the house was solely a natural progression of our prolonged stay here. It was a convenient way to solve the house issue, plus to ‘do as the Romans do’ in a society that values home ownership. . . . [W]e didn’t forget that the house was bought under fictitious names.” The Murphys were clearly trying to allay any fears that they had gone “native” in the materialistic American society. The purchase of a house had been part of their cover, they were saying. It was not a sign they had bought into the American dream.

  The longer the illegals spent in America, the more embedded they were in American life. This made them at once more of a threat to the FBI, since their contacts were deepening, but also made the relationship with Moscow Center more distant. This was always the fear for the Center—that illegals would get too comfortable with Western habits and comforts and too isolated from their homeland. It was a fear with good foundation since, over the years, a number of illegals had found that the reality of life in the West did not match with the propaganda they had been fed. In 1980, one disillusioned KGB illegal in New York walked into the US embassy in Moscow while he was home and identified himself. But the KGB caught him and he suffered a false diagnosis of a mental illness and was given a ticket to a psychiatric hospital. In other cases, illegals returned from life abroad with heretical views about communism and their careers were cut short. The dissonance, heightened by not being able to talk to anyone about it, often caused something of an identity crisis for illegals over the decades. There might be tension in a marriage, affairs, or drinking problems.

  The absence of the human connection that Metsos provided was another reason why arguments flared between the Murphys and the Center. The only way to let off steam was in the covert messaging system. This was helpful for the FBI team as they could see the anger build and more details of the Murphys’ life being revealed than might otherwise have been the case.

  The SVR sent a message during the argument over the house: “You were sent to USA for long-term service trip. Your education, bank accounts, car, house etc.—all these serve one goal: fulfil your main mission, i.e. to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US and send intels [intelligence reports] to C[enter].”

  The message was meant as a rebuke, reminding the Murphys why they were in America. But for the FBI it served as a neat, clear summary of what the mission of the illegals really was.

  AFTER A DECADE or two of embedding themselves in American life, some of the illegals were beginning to get close to power. And politics was increasingly their target. A new administration arrived in January 2009 after the election of Barack Obama and the SVR was desperate to understand what it meant. A detailed “infotask” came to the Murphys in spring 2009. President Obama was about to make a high-profile visit to Russia. The SVR wanted details on the US position on plans for a new Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, as well as on Afghanistan and Iran’s nuclear program. Moscow said it “needs intels” on these topics and anything that related to key members of the Obama administration team who dealt with Russia, just below the cabinet level. Four specific individuals were named as people Moscow wanted to know more about.

  Then comes one of the more telling instructions: “Try to outline their views and most important Obama’s goals 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).” The SVR was starting from the position that the United States would be “luring” it into working with the United States and wanted to know how it would be done. The implication is that cooperation is some kind of trap for Moscow, which the SVR wants to be clever enough to spot and point out to the country’s leaders. What they did not realize was that at this time, those members of the Obama national security team were genuinely hoping they could “reset” relations.

  In another message, on October 18, Moscow asked the Murphys for more information on “current international affairs vital for R[ussia] highlighting US approach and providing us comments made by local experts (political, economic), scientist’s community. Try to single out tidbits unknown publicly but revealed in private by sources close to State department, Government, major think tanks.” On some occasions, the SVR indicated that intelligence was especially valuable. This was sometimes rather odd information. Cynthia Murphy sent back information about the global gold market, which the SVR seemed to think was particularly useful and was sent to two ministries in Moscow.

  Moscow was aware of the limits placed on the Murphys by their fake documents. In May 2008, a decrypted message said that there were “three major ways [for Richard Murphy] to start [his] career for Service’s purposes”—one of which was to get involved in “dem./rep campaing [sic] HQ in your area.” A government job was hard but a political one was easier to get. In a 2009 message, it reminded Cynthia that “placing a job in Government (direct penetration into main object of interest) is not an option because of vulnerability of your vital records docs.” Unable to carry out a “direct penetration,” the next-best thing was to find people who in turn could be recruited as sources on behalf of the SVR and who could burrow in. This was why universities had long been the key place for Russians to talent-spot potential agents in the West.

  Columbia University was a prime target. Cynthia began studying there in late 2008 for an Executive MBA and the SVR told her to collect information on her university associates. It is hard to recruit a serving Western intelligence officer unless they are particularly disaffected, but if you can recruit a student and then tell them to join an intelligence agency, you may have more chance. This is exactly what the SVR’s forerunners did with Kim Philby and the Cambridge spies. So Cynthia was asked to “dig up” personal data of students. In particular, the Center was interested in students who had applied for a job at the CIA or who might do so in the future. And she found a remarkably easy way to do this.

  The career fair at Columbia was full of stalls for prospective employers on the hunt for the most able students. There were the banks and the law firms offering the big money. But there were also tables for those who might be more public-service minded. One of those was for the CIA. People interested in the agency could sign up so they could be contacted. Cynthia Murphy simply watched her classmates who went up to the table and later noted down their names and sent them to Moscow. It was an incredibly simple thing to do and yet potentially enormously valuable for the SVR. It could be used to identify recruits who might end up going undercover and begin a file on them. They could either be spotted abroad or perhaps a personal weakness could be uncovered that might lead to recruiting a mole—a new Aldrich Ames—within the agency. The ideal for the SVR was a penetration agent—recruiting someone young and then directing them inside. “These aren’t people who are valuable in any way, shape, or form today. But could they be ten years from now, fifteen years from now, twenty years from now? Absolutely,” says Alan Kohler. This was how the Russians worked—long term. And this was why, unchecke
d, the illegals posed such a risk.

  The SVR directed Cynthia to “strengthen ties [with] classmates on daily basis incl. professors who can help in job search and who will have (or already have) access to secret info.” She was told to report to the SVR detailed personal data, including “character traits,” with “preliminary conclusions about their potential (vulnerability) to be recruited by Service.” This is classic agent-spotting working. Anyone who looked good at Columbia would be run through the system back in Moscow to see if they were worth pursuing and having a file built up.

  The Murphys did their best to deliver the goods by sending names from the university to the SVR, which then checked their database to see if a potential target was “clean.” Sometimes the individuals came back with hits on the database. One contact of Cynthia’s was reported to have been suspected by a then–Soviet bloc intelligence service of belonging to a foreign spy network. She was told to stay away and avoid deepening the contact for security reasons, since it could compromise her. In early 2010, she told Moscow Center she was interested in taking a job that involved lobbying with the US government and dealing with other foreign governments as well. But she was worried that the job might lead to an extended background check. Two days later, the Center replied that they had talked to the documentation department within S and “they don’t see any hazards. . . . They . . . don’t dig too deep during one’s background check.” They advised her to go for the lobbying job because “this position would expose her to perspective [sic] contacts and potential sources in US government.” It was the kind of position that could draw her close to highly influential people.