Bridge of Spies tells the story of lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) and his client Rudolf Abel, a real-life ‘sleeper agent’ who seamlessly blends into New York while spying for his Soviet handlers. Abel returned to Russia in a 1962 spy swap, but that wasn’t the start or end of Moscow’s ‘illegals’ program. A previous generation stole Atomic secrets in the 1940s and a disturbing new intake of accused sleeper agents are under arrest today. Don't forget to explore our Archive and Share & Subscribe with your friends!
Sleeper agents
When Britain accused three Bulgarians of spying for Moscow this month, a chillingly recognizable sequence of events unfolded. Stunned neighbors voiced astonishment that 'ordinary' individuals with slight accents had allegedly infiltrated the suburbs and cultivated networks that concealed a web of espionage. It’s not a script for The Americans. It’s become an alarmingly familiar story - one with a disturbing new twist.
The notorious Anna Chapman was one of the 10 illegals arrested by the FBI and exchanged in a 2010 spy swap in Vienna. Curiously their paymaster and controller, a ‘Canadian’ using the alias Christopher Metsos, was never jailed. In fact, Metsos fled to Cyprus where he was arrested, bailed, and driven to the bank by police to withdraw the $30,000. Metsos quietly disappeared, but was it really his final act?
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When 'Maria Adela' walked into a room, men stood up. She was friendly, beautiful, and introduced herself as a Latino jewelry designer but her legend unraveled when ‘Maria’ applied for a Peruvian passport using a baptism record from a church that hadn’t yet been built. Maria - aka Olga Kolobova - was the focus of a Bellingcat investigation that navigates the complex illegals program.
When Warsaw arrested one of Poland’s major-league hockey players in June and accused the 20-year-old of being part of a spy ring, intelligence historians must have smirked at the irony. Russia certainly isn’t the only country to run an illegals program. Poland’s deep-cover agents have infiltrated Israel's Shin Bet and spread their tentacles across the Scandinavian countries.
While Moscow’s deep-undercover program is the most secretive of operations, there is rich literature on the topic from former operatives like Jack Barsky (above, an illegal who even made a cheeky appearance as an extra on The Americans) to Oleg Gordievsky, an MI6 double agent who started his career in the KGB’s illegals section. What makes them tick? Two intelligence experts share their secrets.
Moscow’s enigmatic GRU is the foreign intelligence agency accused of an incredible mix of operations from interfering in the US election to poisoning Sergei Skripal in England, and a hacking campaign targeting Ukraine. (Russia denies all.) Most intriguing is Directorate S, the section that purportedly plants sleeper agents with fake IDs in foreign countries.
