Suburban Neighbors Allegedly Spying for Russia

(June 29) -- The Murphys looked like the typical American family, tending the flowerbeds outside their colonial house in the New Jersey suburbs as their young daughters played in the yard. They chatted with neighbors about the schools, and walked their kids to the bus stop each morning.

So you can imagine their neighbors' surprise when Richard and Cynthia Murphy were hauled away in handcuffs last weekend, accused of being members of a Russian spy ring that allegedly used invisible ink, false passports and brush encounters in public places to pass secret information about U.S. policy -- all the hallmarks of a Cold War spy thriller.

"They couldn't have been spies," a 15-year-old neighbor, Jessie Gugig, joked with a reporter for The New York Times. "Look what she did with the hydrangeas."

Another neighbor in disbelief, 44-year-old Louise Shallcross, said she used to chat with Richard Murphy at the school bus stop. "We were all very excited to have a stay-at-home dad move in," she told The Associated Press.

Now, neighbors in the northern New Jersey suburb of Montclair are wondering what else they didn't know about the Murphys -- which might not even be their real name. Most of the 11 suspects arrested Sunday are believed to be originally from Russia, adopting fake names and identities.

Their goal was to "become sufficiently 'Americanized' such that they could gather information about the United States for Russia and can successfully recruit sources who are in, or are able to infiltrate, United States policymaking circles," according to criminal complaints filed in U.S. federal court.

The Murphys and three other couples were arrested at their homes in the suburbs of New York, Boston and Washington, accused of being long-term, deep-cover spies trying to infiltrate U.S. policymaking circles and collect information for Moscow. The group includes a noted Spanish-language newspaper columnist who the FBI says it videotaped contacting a Russian official in Latin America 10 years ago. Another suspected spy, Robert Christopher Metsos, 54, was arrested in Cyprus late Monday evening as he tried to board a plane to Budapest.

It's unclear how successful the suspects were, but the FBI believes they've been at it for at least a decade, hiding behind civilian jobs without ties to foreign governments. They allegedly made contact with a former top U.S. national security official and a nuclear weapons researcher, among others. But while U.S. authorities describe the defendants as members of a spy ring, they haven't charged them with espionage.

The Murphys and nine other defendants have been charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Nine members of the group were also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. Metsos, the 11th defendant, is accused of funneling money to the alleged agents, and may be charged with money laundering as well.

According to documents unsealed Monday after a seven-year investigation, the FBI intercepted a message between the headquarters of Russia's intelligence service and two of the defendants, describing their mission as "to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in the U.S." Other messages asked them to look into America's positions on nuclear weapons, arms control, Iran, White House rumors, CIA leadership turnover, the last presidential election, Congress and U.S. political parties.

Last year, Moscow asked Cynthia Murphy to provide information on an upcoming trip by President Barack Obama to Moscow, as well as the U.S. position on an arms reduction treaty and issues relating to Afghanistan and Iran, according to court documents. Intercepted messages also said Murphy had "several work-related personal meetings" with a prominent New York financier with whom Moscow wanted to "build up little by little relations."

The Murphys and their co-defendants appeared in court Monday, most dressed in casual clothes like jeans, shorts or T-shirts. When asked if they understood the charges, they answered "Yes," but none entered a plea. Another hearing is set for Thursday.

The arrests could potentially be damaging to U.S.-Russian relations or embarrassing for Obama, who's just concluded what the White House described as an upbeat visit with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. Obama wasn't happy about the timing of the arrests, an administration official told the Times. But after years of surveillance, the FBI wanted to nab the suspects before they might flee, the official said.

Russian officials today called the allegations "contradictory," and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the country's Interfax news agency that he expects Washington to explain the charges.

"Very contradictory information is coming out, and no conclusions can be drawn from it," Mikhail Margelov, head of the International Relations Committee in Russia's upper house of parliament, told Reuters.

"We are studying the information. There are a lot of contradictions," another official, Foreign Ministry spokesman Igor Lyakin-Frolov told AFP.

Meanwhile, experts on espionage and those with experience as former spies have said the sheer scale of this alleged network of Russia spies is astounding.

"Even in the worst years of the Cold War, I think there were no more than 10 illegals in the U.S., probably fewer," Oleg D. Kalugin, a former KGB general who was a Soviet spy in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, told the Times. "Illegals" refers to deep-cover spies who hold civilian jobs without links embassies or other government agencies.

Kalugin also said he was impressed with the FBI's investigation, which according to court documents included years of covert surveillance -- monitoring the suspects' e-mail and phones and surreptitiously planting microphones inside their homes. The government also revealed new modern techniques in high-tech spying, documenting how the suspects allegedly sent information across short-range wireless networks between laptops, or hiding encrypted data in public messages on the Internet.

But court documents also say the alleged spies used low-tech tactics seemingly straight out of an old James Bond film.

Intercepted messages from Moscow to Richard Murphy this past January allegedly gave him instructions on how to recognize a fellow Russian spy in Rome, who was supposed to hand off a fake Irish passport. Murphy would recognize his contact from the way he was holding a copy of Time magazine, the message said. He was then instructed to approach the man and say a code phrase: "Excuse me, could we have met in Malta in 1999?"

One of the ways the alleged spies were caught was when U.S. undercover agents posed as their Russian contacts. In one instance, defendant Anna Chapman was briefed by an undercover FBI agent who she apparently believed was a Russian consulate worker in New York, court documents allege. The agent instructed Chapman on how to transfer a fake passport to another female spy, who would approach her and say, "Excuse me, but haven't we met in California last year?" But Chapman never made the rendezvous, and it's unclear whether that's because she may have become suspicious of the undercover U.S. agent.

The most prominent Russian spy case in recent years was that of Robert Hanssen, an FBI counterintelligence agent who was convicted of passing U.S. secrets to Moscow. He is currently serving a life sentence in federal prison.