Edward Lucas - Deception

A far snazzier version of Semenko was, of course, Ms Chapman. [34] ah I made repeated attempts to gain Ms Chapman’s side of the story for this book. I received two messages in return from her Facebook account. One read: ‘How can you possibly write a book without 1 decent article in press that is based on some what [sic] true facts? No interview, no nothing…’ The other noted: ‘I was the one who suffered and you will be the one to gain? :)’ I responded: ‘I hope my book will sell well but even if I win a Pulitzer prize (which I won’t) you will always be more famous than me!’ I received no answer to this, or to an extensive list of questions. Her career took her via an unwitting English husband, Alexander, to the glitziest nightclubs in London and New York, and a social life that has attracted prurient attention 5from the tabloid newspapers, not least when he sold topless pictures taken during their marriage. But the revelation that a young Russian woman has not only breasts but a sex life is news only by the standards of the popular press. Her cover story was utterly convincing: a young Russian who marries a British man, working first in banking, then in an executive jet company, and then in real estate. These are all jobs that can be useful for an intelligence service. But nothing about her personal or professional life distinguished her from hundreds of thousands of other young women from the ex-communist world who head abroad in search of fame, fortune, marriage and travel.

Later on I plot her meteoric career on her return to Russia. A convenient first point of analysis of her career before that is her entry on LinkedIn. 6Like those of her colleagues it is an artful mixture of truth, exaggeration and outright falsehood. She was born in Russia and speaks English fluently, with a mild accent that disguises her indifferent grammar. 7She also claims conversational German and basic French. After that, it gets more complicated. Illegals commonly set up an identity in one country and then use it as a springboard for a more effective and espionage-focused life in another one. Ms Chapman built up an English CV and gained a real passport by marrying a British citizen, before moving on. It is unclear who paid for her jet-setting lifestyle: certainly not her work as a personal assistant or as a humble banking adviser. Southern Union, a company with which she was associated, may have provided some. She says she received a grant from a Russian government fund that supports start-ups. This may have been a disguised payment from Russian intelligence.

She returned to Moscow in 2006 to try to set up a Western-style real-estate company called domdot.ru. She describes it as a ‘search engine in real estate for [sic] Russian speaking audience’ and her own role as ‘running all aspects of business, setting strategy for development, international expansion, people management, investors reporting.’ Business contacts who had email dealings with her say she made an unremarkable but professional impression. 8But it seems to have got nowhere. She then moved to New York, where it is unclear if her business idea, a property search engine called NYCRentals.com, was part of a cover story or a real business. The business plan on its website was written in careless, Russian-inflected English that would have inspired little confidence among potential investors:

By specialising on narrow region it will allow for a system to gather not only information about letting but also create rich with information database with building, city infrastructure, other useful and relevant for choosing real estate to live area specifics. 9

A video interview she gave about it for an entrepreneurship event in New York was notably light on content and heavy on flirting with the camera. 10Plans were not far advanced: she bought the NYCRentals.com website only on 22 June 2010, for $25,350. 11Her private life, however, was another matter. Former friends in New York describe her as a hard-partying and insatiable networker. Among her conquests was a multi-millionaire businessman from New Jersey, more than twice her age. The New York Post called her a

flame-haired 007-worthy beauty who flitted from high-profile parties to top secret meetings around Manhattan [with] a fancy Financial District apartment and a Victoria’s Secret body. 12

She seems to have come on to the spycatchers’ radar quite late in the story. The FBI says that on ‘approximately ten Wednesdays’ in the first half of 2010, Ms Chapman used a laptop to exchange clandestine messages with a Russian government official. [35] ai In fact an intelligence officer based at the Russian mission to the United Nations in New York, under the diplomatic cover of ‘second secretary’. It appears that most if not all the illegals were run from the Russian mission in New York, not from the embassy in Washington, DC. On one occasion the official drove a minivan past the coffee shop, long enough for Ms Chapman to send a burst transmission from her laptop to a computer in his car. On another, she was inside a bookshop while the official was passing near by. On a third occasion, the official appears to have noticed that he was under surveillance and aborted the mission. The same official had already been spotted carrying out a brush-pass with one of the other illegals in 2004: it is likely that he led the FBI to Ms Chapman, not vice versa.

In the curious sting operation that followed, an FBI undercover agent posing as an intelligence officer based at the Russian consolate made contact with Ms Chapman, saying that he urgently needed to meet her. As with Semenko, he used a series of passphrases to establish his credentials, claiming to be called ‘Ilya Fabrichnikov’ – a code name that she had previously been given from her controllers in Moscow. She was willing to discuss the technical problems she was having with her computer and hand it over to be repaired; she also agreed to a second meeting at which she would be given a passport in a false name which she was to pass on to another female illegal. On 26 June, a Saturday, the FBI man called Ms Chapman again, saying that he needed to meet with her that day. She phoned back and asked if the meeting could be postponed until the next morning but then changed her mind and agreed to meet that afternoon. She seems to have made little attempt to check his bona fides, and discussed both her technical problems and her Wednesday electronic hook-ups. Mr ‘Fabrichnikov’ (evidently a native Russian-speaker, although the pair spoke English later in the conversation) then asked her if she would be willing to pass on the document, saying: ‘There is a person here who is just like you… but unlike you she is not here under her real name… we have to give her new documents… are you ready for this next step?’ Ms Chapman replied: ‘Shit, of course.’ She received the false passport, a description of its intended recipient and instructions about how to recognise her. Ms Chapman was to ask: ‘Excuse me, but haven’t we met in California last summer?’ The other party would reply: ‘No, I think it was the Hamptons.’ Ms Chapman handed over her faulty computer. 13

This was all oddly hurried behaviour by the FBI. It strongly suggests that the American officials had to force the pace, probably because their source in Moscow had bolted, and would soon be missed. Ms Chapman belatedly had second thoughts about the meeting. She hurried to a pharmacy and then to a mobile phone shop where she bought a cell-phone and two international calling cards. She took only limited anti-surveillance measures, not the through ones that would be expected from a well-trained intelligence officer who realises that the hunt is on. She phoned her father in Moscow, to be told that a senior SVR officer dealing with the illegals had disappeared. That was oddly sloppy tradecraft. So was giving palpably fake identity details on the customer agreement, where she described herself as ‘Irine Kutsov’ of ‘99 Fake St’. A cardinal principle of undercover work is to tell no unnecessary falsehoods and shun any indulgence in humour. A simple ‘Jane Smith’ and an unremarkable but illegible scribble for the address would have been more consistent with the professionalism normally expected of one of the oldest and savviest spy services in the world. Evidently alarmed, the next day she went to a police station in Manhattan and handed in the passport – apparently claiming that she had been given it in error. When FBI officials arrived they arrested her.