Ten Arrested On Espionage Charges

The New York Times reports that ten people have been arrested for allegedly being Russian spies:

WASHINGTON — In what law enforcement officials portrayed as an extraordinary takedown of a Russian espionage network, the Justice Department on Monday announced charges against 11 people accused of living for years in the United States as part of a deep-cover program run by S.V.R. — the successor agency to the Soviet-era K.G.B.

Criminal complaints filed in federal court on Monday read like a thriller: secret Russian agents assigned to live as married couples in the United States, even having children to further their cover. Spies swapping identical bags as they pass each other in a stairwell. Invisible writing and codes. Money caches buried for years in a rural field.

The complaints followed a multi-year investigation that culminated with the arrest on Sunday of 10 people in Yonkers, Boston, and northern Virginia. The documents detailed what authorities called the “Illegals Program,” an S.V.R. effort to plant Russian spies in the United States to gather information and recruit people able to infiltrate government policy-making circles.

The “Illegals Program” extended to other countries around the world, the charging documents said.

The 11 defendants were charged with conspiring to act as agents of a foreign government without registering with the Justice Department, and 9 of them were also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering. The complaints do not include charges of stealing any secrets.

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