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Anna Chapman is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian with an IQ of 162, a diplomat father and a taste for the high life. She also has a romantic streak, having married her British boyfriend within a few months of meeting him. With such attributes it is hardly surprising that she has been called a real-life Bond girl. Anna Kushchenko, to use her maiden name, was born in the industrial southern Russian city of Volgograd, then Stalingrad, to a maths teacher mother, Irene, and a diplomat father, Vasily. She does not appear to have had an especially gilded youth, having suffered from...

The whole escapade makes no sense. With the exception of the “money man” Christopher Metzos who escaped, none represented a threat. It would have been far better to keep the remaining 10 under observation, as they had been for years. So the question is why did the FBI roll the operation up at this time? We tend to think operations like this are well thought out and run according to plan. But it is more likely this was an enormous screw up between the FBI and the White House. First, no FBI director in his right mind would conduct such...

NEW YORK – Their cover blown, 10 Russian spies have given up their lives in the U.S. and headed home, but in at least one case their children probably won't follow. A lawyer for Vicky Pelaez said Thursday that the teenage son she had with fellow Russian agent Mikhail Vasenkov during the decades they spent living in New York will most likely remain in the U.S., as will her 38-year-old son from a prior marriage. More at link... "He's 17 years of age. He'll probably stay with his brother," attorney John Rodriguez said. Arrangements were being made to relocate other...

An elaborate spy swap reminiscent of the Cold War took place Friday at Vienna International Airport -- a minutely choreographed operation involving 10 members of a Russian espionage ring that infiltrated American suburbia and four Russians who had been jailed in Russia for their contacts with the West.

Deep in your heart you knew there are tax-payer’s money wasted somewhere in the whole Russian spy drama. Why did the Obama administration and the Russian government wanted to get rid of them so fast? We may never know. However we can prove that USAID funded the agro- and eco-tourism project in 2004 run by the company 4Vlast for which Anya Chapman and Vasily Kushchenko worked at the time. As you know from the previous research Chapman was the London contact person for the 4Vlast firm, Kushchenko was running their tourism firm and worked for the 4 Vlast Mrs. World...

Mikhail Semenko, one of 11 Russian "illegals" accused of spying for Moscow against the United States, targeted leading Washington think tanks in an apparent effort to get close to policy makers in the American government. Semenko, 28, who speaks fluent English, Spanish and Mandarin, is understood to have sought work at the New America Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment, both influential centrist think tanks with close ties to the Obama administration. He was part of an alleged network of spies arrested on June 27 and 28 in northern Virginia, New York, Boston, New Jersey and Cyprus. A "spy swap" between...

The U.S. and Russia have agreed to the first swap of accused spies in 24 years, and the exchange will begin to take place by the end of Thursday.Anna Chapman, will appear in New York court today and then head directly to the airport to fly back to Moscow.All 10 suspects are scheduled to be in court in New York Thursday, but it is not clear if all will be sent to Russia. At least three of the 10 have U.S. citizenship. As the U.S. and Russian governments scramble to put together a huge spy swap before the 10 accused...

A prisoner swap is being planned to bring 10 suspected Russian spies back from the US, according to reports from Russia.

Russia has offered a mass Cold War-style 'spy swap' deal to the U.S., it was revealed today. The deal could see up to 11 convicted spies - allegedly including a Russian colonel - exchanged for 'femme fatale' Anna Chapman and her co-accused. Chapman is being held with nine others in the U.S. on accusations of being part of a 'deep cover' spy ring in the U.S. Read more:

An American geologist held and tortured by China's state security agents was sentenced to eight years in prison Monday for gathering data on the Chinese oil industry in a case that highlights the government's use of vague secrets laws to restrict business information. (snip) Its verdict said Xue received documents on geological conditions of onshore oil wells and a data base that gave the coordinates of more than 30,000 oil and gas wells belonging to China National Petroleum Corporation...

An espionage incident only weeks prior to chancellor Angela Merkel’s planned China visit may be threatening the bilateral relations between Berlin and Beijing said German news magazine Spiegel Online in a June 26 article. Just days earlier, China’s intelligence gathering activities were prominently highlighted in a report issued by Germany’s Ministry of the Interior. Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s office is investigating two high-ranking Chinese officials on allegations of espionage, and the matter could make Angela Merkel’s upcoming China visit more difficult. According to information obtained by the Spiegel, Federal Prosecutors are investigating two Chinese individuals on accusations of spying against practitioners...

The former British husband of the 'femme fatale' at the centre of the Russia spy ring broke his silence last night - revealing she held secret meetings with Russian 'friends'. Alex Chapman, 30, a trainee psychiatrist, has told of his fears that Anna, his wife of four years, had been 'conditioned' by Moscow after she dramatically changed during their four-year marriage. Following questioning from MI5, the former public school boy from Bournemouth, said that her father, a high-ranking KGB officer, could have groomed her to be a spy.

LARNACA, Cyprus – Cypriot police began searching late Wednesday for an alleged Russian spy wanted in the United States who vanished after being released on bail a day earlier in the Mediterranean island nation.... Katsounotos said a search failed to locate Metsos and authorities have begun the procedures to issue a warrant for his arrest for breaching the terms of his release....

That sexy Russian spy, Anna Chapman, is everywhere this week, with pictures and excerpts from Facebook showing up throughout the media. But Mediaite has obtained a never-before-seen video of Chapman talking about how great a time she had at New York Entrepreneur Week (she attended in November and April). We have a feeling you’ll be seeing this a lot. So here’s the deal – Chapman went to NYEW in November and enjoyed it. A production company, And Now Media, was putting together a video of attendees at the November event describing how good a time they had, in anticipation of...

Posing for a series of photos, this is the woman at the centre of the alleged Russian spy network uncovered in the U.S. In one, Anna Chapman - the name she gave investigators - smiles coyly at the camera wearing a shiny green tracksuit top and black-and-white striped T-shirt as she poses in front of Big Ben. The 28-year-old redhead apparently lived and worked in London for five years before allegedly becoming part of a spy ring based in the States which sent secrets back to the Kremlin.

... "The choice of timing was particularly refined," Lavrov said sarcastically, referring to the fact that the arrests occurred after Obama met with Medvedev on Thursday for a visit widely seen as the latest step in the "reset" of relations between the former Cold War rivals. A source in Obama's administration said the president was not happy about the timing of the arrests, but investigators feared that some of their suspects might flee, The New York Times reported. The arrests might have been spurred by an FBI sting operation on Saturday in which one of the, Anna Chapman, was given...

Intelligence: The Justice Department's surprise roundup of 11 Russian "illegals" acting as unregistered foreign agents is being dismissed as irrelevant to the Obama administration's "reset button" with Russia. We doubt it. Late Monday, the FBI shut down a major ring of Russian "illegals," a term used to describe agents who burrow deep in American society, blend in with the locals over years, perform spylike tasks and otherwise await orders from Moscow. "You were sent to USA for long-term service trip. Your education, bank accounts, car, house, etc. — all these serve one goal: fulfill your main mission, i.e., to search...

Obama administration officials say the arrest of 11 people accused of being part of a Russian spy ring is a mere bump in the road to better relations with America's former Cold War foe. The White House and the State Department both downplayed the implications of the blockbuster investigation, which revealed an elaborate Russian intelligence plot to infiltrate the U.S. government. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that President Obama had been briefed a "number of times" before the arrests and was "fully and appropriately informed" of the investigation......

Anna Chapman has the face of an angel. A stylish redhead with model looks and a master's degree in economics, the 28-year-old lived the New York high-life, renting a $2,100-a-month apartment and hobnobbing with Manhattan's social elite. She also was a "practiced deceiver" who worked as an agent for the Russian government, attempting to secretly transmit information from her laptop computer to a Russian government computer, according to U.S. federal prosecutors. Chapman, along with 10 others, was charged Monday with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general, which carries a maximum...

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