Sunday Times 2
Russia names CIA’s Moscow station chief
Russia’s Federal Security Bureau has breached protocol to name the man they say is in charge of the CIA’s work in Moscow.
A spokesman for the bureau named the CIA’s ‘rezident’ while speaking to Russian media about the capture of alleged spy Ryan Fogle.
The diplomat’s name matched that of a U.S. embassy counsellor in a recent directory of foreign officials in Moscow, reports the Daily Telegraph.
It is customary for Russia and the U.S. to tell each other who their top embassy officials are, and the move is likely to provoke anger in Washington.
The two countries agreed to work together to share intelligence for the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings.
The alleged bombers, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaevas, are said to have links to Russia’s North Caucasus region.
Embarrassment for the CIA’s wig-wearing Agent Blond deepened this week as it was revealed he was detained by the very FSB officer he was seeking to recruit.
Undercover diplomat Fogle has been mercilessly mocked on the web both in Russia and the West for his apparently amateurish Boy’s Own approach to espionage in Moscow.
But the FSB claimed that the Russian anti-terrorism expert he was hoping to lure to treachery wasted no time in personally apprehending him, pinning him to the ground, and handing him over to the authorities.
‘The man behaved like an officer worthy of his name, detaining the recruiter and handing him over to counterintelligence authorities’ said an FSB source yesterday.
‘He will continue to serve. There is no threat to his career.’
The Russians have not named the target of the CIA approach but he is believed to be a specialist in terrorism linked to extremist Islamic groupings.
Fogle called him seeking a meeting at which he intended to recruit him, it is claimed.
Instead he ended up face on the ground, and handcuffed, before being taken to the notorious Lubyanka HQ of the secret services for questioning.
FBI agents first came across the Russian agent when they were given assistance by Moscow over the Boston marathon bombings, it is understood.
Fogle, 29, a third secretary in the embassy’s political department, was detained wearing a blond wig under his baseball cap while on a mission to recruit the FSB operative on the night of May 13.
Seized: After his arrest, he was taken to the FSB headquarters at the Lubyanka, in Moscow, and later handed over to the US embassy in keeping with diplomatic protocols
In his possession, Fogle had another wig, a compass, a map of Moscow, sunglasses, and a ‘Dear Friend’ letter – apparently translated into Russian on Google – which offered $1million a year plus bonuses to the FSB man.
Fogle has been ordered to leave Russia in the next few days following his return to U.S. representatives in the city.
The FSB stressed yesterday that the US and Russia ‘will try to avoid ratcheting up tension around the Ryan Fogle case, focusing instead on the positive aspects of their relations’.
But Russian intelligence services say they have trapped a CIA ‘spy’ as he offered millions of pounds to a senior Russian agent.
Spy sources said Fogle was caught after a lengthy covert operation.
US ambassador Michael McFaul – who refused to comment on the news – has been summoned to Russia’s foreign ministry.
A letter in Russian which Fogle carried suggests – if genuine – that the CIA hoped to reel in a big fish.
Addressed ‘Dear friend’, it states: ‘We are ready to offer you $100,000 [£65,000] and discuss your experience, expertise and co-operation, and the payment may go much higher if you are ready to answer certain questions.
‘For long-term co-operation we offer $1million [£650,000] per year.’
The recruit is instructed to use an internet cafe to ‘create a new Gmail mailbox which you will use only for staying in touch with us’.
The incident is the biggest spy scandal since the arrest of glamorous agent Anna Chapman and nine other Russians in the US in 2010.
© Daily Mail, London
Follow @timesonlinelk
comments powered by Disqus