Alleged Russian Spies Ensnared by Facebook Too

(June 30) -- Mikhail Semenko may be a member of a Russian espionage operation, but on Facebook, at least, the accused spy is not as discreet.

Photographs of the 20-something partying with friends, wearing a Bill Clinton mask and even sporting a "USSR" shirt were spotted on his Facebook page and posted Tuesday by Gawker, an online gossip site that found someone with access to Semenko's profile.

The photos of Semenko are just the beginning. But since blending in is part of a secret agent's cover, it should be no surprise that 11 people accused of being members of a Russian spy ring were about as overexposed as the rest of us.

As details about the accused spies continue to emerge, one thing is becoming abundantly clear: They lived their lives publicly, working as newspaper columnists, posting their resumes on LinkedIn and stocking their Facebook profiles with sexy self-portraits.

Here's what we know so far about the Russian 11:

Robert Christopher Metsos, Cyprus

The alleged ringleader may be at large once again. Metsos was arrested Tuesday in Cyprus as he tried to board a plane to Budapest, but it appears that he may have jumped bail. The 54-year-old is thought to have been the money man for the network of suspected spies in the United States. He is thought to be a Canadian citizen.

The FBI says that in 2002, Metsos met with fellow accused spy Richard Murphy in Sunnyside, Queens. According to the FBI complaint, Murphy said he was unhappy with his work, and Metsos told him, "Well, I'm so happy I'm not your handler."

Anna Chapman, New York City

Also known as the alleged spy ring's "femme fatale" for the suggestive self-portraits on her Facebook page, the sexy 28-year-old Russian is accused of meeting regularly with Russian officials to pass on sensitive information about policy circles in the U.S. Chapman runs a $2 million real estate business, and, according to The Guardian, worked at Barclays bank in London between 2004 and 2005.

Michael Semenko, Arlington, Va.

The 20-something Russian citizen is accused of taking $5,000 from an undercover FBI agent he believed was a Russian spy. He was working at a travel agency in Arlington, Va., when he was arrested. And he was once a student: Semenko graduated from Seton Hall University in 2008 with a degree in international relations.

The Wall Street Journal reports that one commenter wished Semenko well on a Russian social networking site.

"Hang on in there Misha [Mikhail]," the commenter wrote. "Everyone knows this is an American witch-hunt."

Vicky Pelaez and Juan Lazaro, Yonkers, N.Y.

The Peruvian-born Pelaez was a well-known columnist at El Diario in New York, one of the country's oldest and most respected Spanish-language newspapers, where her columns were often critical of capitalism. In an April column, Pelaez lambasted Arizona's new immigration law:

The history of development and capitalism demonstrates that xenophobism and racism have always been put to use by unscrupulous politicians in the recurring cycles of economic crisis, to quell the discontent and rage of the people.

Her husband, Lazaro, taught a class on Latin American studies at Baruch University in New York. Lazaro's students told The New York Times he was a fan of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and vehemently disagreed with U.S. foreign policy.

Tracey Foley and Donald Heathfield, Cambridge, Mass.

Foley and Heathfield were known as a married couple in their 40s, who lived in an apartment in Cambridge with their two teenage sons. Although they claim to be Canadian-born, the FBI says they're from Russia, and have been seeking information on America's nuclear weapons program for nearly a decade.

Heathfield, who allegedly stole the identity of a Canadian infant who died in 1963, was described as a first-class schmoozer.

"My main impression of him was he was someone who did a lot of networking," Sam Delson, a former classmate of Heathfield's at Harvard's Kennedy School, told The Boston Globe.

Mark Podlasly, another former Kennedy School student, said Heathfield seemed to be very preoccupied with what his classmates were doing after graduation.

"He kept in touch with almost all of our international classmates," Podlasly told The New York Times. "In Singapore, in Jakarta -- he knew what everyone was doing. If you wanted to know where anybody was at, Don would know."

His wife, Foley, is a licensed real estate agent with the Boston office of Redfin, which says it didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when it hired her. "Redfin validated her social security number, her deal history and that her real estate license was in good standing," the company said on its corporate blog. "As with every agent we hire, we ran a criminal background check, which came up clean."

Cynthia and Richard Murphy, Montclair, N.J.

The New Jersey couple, known to neighbors simply as "Cyndi and Rick," appeared to be living the American dream in a $481,000 colonial in an upper-middle-class neighborhood with their two daughters, ages 11 and 7. Instead, the FBI says the Russian-born couple were deeply enmeshed in the spy ring.

In Montclair, neighbors told The Daily News that they would often barbecue with the Murphys and baby-sit their daughters. The girls are now in the custody of child-protective services in New Jersey.

According to The New York Times, Cynthia Murphy was known as both a financial services executive and a tip-top gardener. "They couldn't have been spies," Jessie Gugig, 15, a neighbor, told The New York Times. "Look what she did with the hydrangeas."

Patricia Mills and Michael Zottoli, Arlington, Va.

The married couple with a toddler son and a baby lived in a high-end apartment in Arlington, Va., just outside of Washington, D.C. According to the FBI, Mills, 31, and Zottoli, 40, were receiving packages of cash from Russian spies.

In Seattle, where they lived until March 2009, former acquaintances described the couple as friendly and good parents.

"I just cannot believe it," David Joyce, Zottoli's onetime boss, told The Seattle Times. "I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. I'll never believe anything anyone tells me in a job interview again."

Seattle's KOMO News reports that the pair also took an advanced finance course at the University of Washington.