30/06/2010 01:17

By SCOTT SHANE and CHARLIE SAVAGE

Published: June 29, 2010

One of those charged, Vicky Pelaez, who was arrested in Yonkers with another defendant known as Juan Lazaro, is a Peruvian-born columnist for El Diario/La Prensa, one of the country’s best-known Spanish-language newspapers. They were among five defendants who appeared in court on Monday night and were ordered held without bail. Experts on Russian intelligence expressed astonishment at the scale, longevity and dedication of the program. They noted that Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister and former president and spy officer, had worked to restore the prestige and funding of Russian espionage after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dark image of the K.G.B.

“The magnitude, and the fact that so many illegals were involved, was a shock to me,” said Oleg D. Kalugin, a former K.G.B. general who was a Soviet spy in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s under “legal” cover as a diplomat and Radio Moscow correspondent. “It’s a return to the old days, but even in the worst years of the cold war, I think there were no more than 10 illegals in the U.S., probably fewer.”

Mr. Kalugin, now an American citizen living outside Washington, said he was impressed with the F.B.I.’s penetration of the spy ring. The criminal complaints are packed with vivid details gathered in years of covert surveillance — including monitoring phones and e-mail, placing secret microphones in the suspected Russian agents’ homes and numerous surreptitious searches.

The authorities also tracked one set of agents based in Yonkers on trips to an unidentified South American country, where they were videotaped receiving bags of cash and passing messages written in invisible ink to Russian handlers in a public park, according to the charges.

Prosecutors said the “Illegals Program” extended to other countries. Using fraudulent documents, the charges said, the spies would “assume identities as citizens or legal residents of the countries to which they are deployed, including the United States.

Illegals will sometimes pursue degrees at target-country universities, obtain employment, and join relevant professional associations to deepen false identities.

One message from bosses in Moscow, in awkward English, gave the most revealing account of the agents’ assignment. “You were sent to U.S.A. for long-term service trip,” it said. “Your education, bank accounts, car, house etc. — all these serve one goal: fulfill your main mission, i.e. to search and develop ties in policymaking circles and send intels [intelligence reports] to C[enter].”

It was not clear what the intelligence reports were about, though one agent was described as meeting an American government employee working in a nuclear program. The defendants were charged with conspiracy, not to commit espionage, but to fail to register as agents of a foreign government, which carries a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison; nine were also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years. They are not accused of obtaining classified materials.

There were also hints that Russian spy bosses feared that their agents, ordered to go native in prosperous America, might be losing track of their official purpose. Agents in Boston submitted an expense report with such vague items as “trip to meeting” for $1,125 and “education,” $3,600.

In Montclair, when the Murphys wanted to buy a house under their names, “Moscow Center,” or “C.,” the S.V.R. headquarters, objected.

“We are under an impression that C. views our ownership of the house as a deviation from the original purpose of our mission here,” the New Jersey couple wrote in a coded message. “From our perspective purchase of the house was solely a natural progression of our prolonged stay here. It was a convenient way to solving the housing issue, plus ‘to do as the Romans do’ in a society that values home ownership.”

Much of the ring’s activity — and the F.B.I. investigators’ surveillance — took place in and around New York. The alleged agents were spotted in a bookstore in Lower Manhattan, a bench near the entrance to Central Park and a restaurant in Sunnyside, Queens.

Secret exchanges were made at busy locations like the Long Island Rail Road’s station in Forest Hills, where F.B.I. watchers in 2004 spotted one defendant who is not in custody, Christopher R. Metsos, the charging papers say.

The arrests made a splash in neighborhoods around the country, as F.B.I. teams spent all Sunday night hunting through houses and cars, shining flashlights and carting away evidence.

In Cambridge, Mass., the couple known as Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley, who appeared to be in their 40s and had two teenage sons, lived in an apartment building on a residential street where some Harvard professors and students live.

“She was very courteous; she was very nice,” Montse Monne-Corbero, who lives next door, said of Ms. Foley. The sons shoveled snow for her in the winter, Ms. Monne-Corbero said, but they also had “very loud” parties.

Lila Hexner, who lives in the building next door, said Ms. Foley told her she was in the real estate business. “She said they were from Canada,” Ms. Hexner said.

Another of those charged, Mikhail Semenko, was a stylish man in his late 20s who drove a Mercedes S-500, said Tatyana Day, who lives across the street from him in Arlington, Va. He had a brunette girlfriend, and the young couple spoke to each other in Russian and “kept to themselves,” Ms. Day said.