'The Illegals Program' enters the chat
The
Illegals Program (so named by the
United States Department of Justice) was a network of Russian
sleeper agents under
unofficial cover. An investigation by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) culminated in the arrest of ten agents on June 27, 2010, and a
prisoner exchange between
Russia and the United States on July 9, 2010.
[1]
The arrested spies were Russian nationals who had been planted in the U.S. by the Russian
Foreign Intelligence Service (known by its
Russian abbreviation,
SVR), most of them using false identity.
[2] Posing as ordinary American citizens, they tried to build contacts with academics, industrialists, and policymakers to gain access to intelligence. They were the target of a multi-year investigation by the FBI. The investigation, called
Operation Ghost Stories, culminated at the end of June 2010 with the arrest of ten people in the U.S. and an eleventh in
Cyprus.
[2] The ten sleeper agents were charged with "carrying out long-term, 'deep-cover' assignments in the United States on behalf of the Russian Federation."
[3][4][5]
en.wikipedia.org
