FBI, 28 July 2010: . . . . Counterintelligence: The foreign intelligence threat to the United States continues unabated, as foreign powers compete with the United States in economic, military, and diplomatic arenas. As we saw with the recent arrest of a network of 10 Russian spies, foreign intelligence services remain active and aggressive in the United States.
The Russian “illegals” spy case demonstrates the long-term commitment of our adversaries. Sent here over the past two decades, the Russian agents took on the appearance of average Americans, in many cases adopting fake “legends” as United States citizens, obtaining work, and settling into quiet family lives. These agents received hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from their handlers to maintain their secrecy in America, even as they communicated through encrypted radio bursts and steganography posted in photos on the Internet. While these agents were in the United States, the FBI tracked their movements, activities, and intentions up until the time of their arrests.
Similarly, the conviction of Cuban spies Walter Myers, a former State Department official, and his wife, offer similar counterintelligence lessons. Myers and his wife were recruited by the Cubans in the late 1970s and passed classified information to the Cubans for 30 years. Within the last month, Myers was sentenced to life imprisonment for his crimes; his wife received a sentence of nearly seven years.
These cases reinforce how foreign intelligence services continue to target political and military intelligence as well as information from economic institutions, both in and outside government.
Foreign adversaries, however, do not rely exclusively on such traditional agent networks, as they increasingly employ non-traditional collectors—such as students, visiting scientists, scholars, and businessmen—as well as cyber-based tools to target and penetrate United States institutions.
To counter this threat, the FBI relies on its traditional counterintelligence programs and methods, but also has developed the National Strategy for Counterintelligence to deter and disrupt the modern counterintelligence threats. Its success relies heavily on strategic partnerships to determine and safeguard those technologies which, if compromised, would result in catastrophic losses to national security. Through our relationships with businesses, academia, and U.S. government agencies, the FBI and its counterintelligence community partners are able to identify and effectively protect projects of great importance to the U.S. government. . . . .
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CI Centre Courses
FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES / FOREIGN OPERATORS
- 107 China’s Current Targeting Trends (1 day)
- 163 Dying to Kill Us: Understanding the Mindset of Suicide Operations (1 day)
- 158 Venezuela: An Introduction to Myriad National Security Threats to America (1 day)
- 159 An Introduction to Cuban Intelligence and Counterintelligence Methodologies (1 day)
- 191 Russia’s SVR/FSB/GRU Intelligence: An Introduction to Today’s Russian Intelligence and Counterintelligence Operations and Methodologies (1 day)
- 207 An Introduction to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) Intelligence and Counterintelligence Methodologies (3 days)
- 210 KGB/SVR 101: The Evolution of Russian Espionage Tradecraft Training (2 days)
- 220 An Introduction to Israeli Intelligence and Counterintelligence Methodologies (3 days)
- 263 An Introduction to Saudi Arabian and Iraqi Intelligence and Counterintelligence Methodologies (1 day)
- 267 Hezbollah: A Worldwide Terrorist Organization (1 day)
- 268 Jihadi Strategies in Africa (1 day)
- 270 An Introduction to Iranian Intelligence and Counterintelligence Methodologies (1 day)
- 361 The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine (3 or 5 days)
- 560 Middle Eastern Intelligence Services and Terrorist Organizations (5 days)
- 1700 Fundamentals of Iran Training Program — 1701: Crossroads of Conflict in the Middle East, 1702: The Islamic Republic of Iran: Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Terrorism and Geopolitical Issues in the Modern Age (1701: 5 days, 1702: 5 days)
FBI, 22 July 2010: In the suburbs of Toledo—a bustling city on the northern border of Ohio—three men were leading seemingly normal lives. One worked at a travel agency. Another ran a car dealership with his brother. The third was a self-employed businessman with several kids.
All three, however—two American citizens and the third a legal permanent resident—were secretly part of a homegrown terror cell conspiring to recruit and train insurgents to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq. (Also part of the cell—two Chicago cousins named in a superseding indictment who were sentenced earlier this month after being recruited by one of the Toledo defendants.)
How did he end up in an American courtroom? Because U.S. law says that if human rights violators are U.S. nationals, commit offenses against U.S. citizens, or are present in this country, they can be charged here. In Taylor’s case, he was born in America, and he was arrested in 2006 while trying to enter the country illegally.
What the men didn’t realize was that we knew all about it—thanks to a cooperating witness who helped our investigation from start to finish, and testified at trial.
The case was opened in 2004 by our Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in our Toledo Resident Agency. Also pitching in were JTTFs in our Cleveland and Chicago Divisions, as well as a host of local, federal, and international partners.
Our cooperating witness, who began working for us after 9/11, was actually a decorated veteran of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, specifically playing the part of an ex-soldier, only with a twist—he’d grown disenchanted with U.S. policies, become a radical convert to Islam, and was willing to provide training for violent jihad.
For two years, during the operational phase of the investigation, our witness met with the three men—Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan El-Hindi, and Wassim Mazloum—and made more than 100 secret (and fully lawful) recordings of those meetings, giving us a real-time view into the activities of the cell. At the same time, we were able to control what the trio obtained from our witness—for example, he didn’t give them actual explosives training.
Because of his military expertise, our witness gained the trust of all three men—crucial in such an operation. He even took a trip overseas to Jordan with Amawi, where he was introduced to Amawi’s family.
The recordings revealed a litany of activities and support in the name of terror. Working together or separately, the three men:
- Taught themselves how to make and use explosives;
- Conducted their own training exercises;
- Looked at and shared often graphic jihadist videos and materials on the Internet, including on how to make a suicide bomber’s vest;
- Tried to provide computers and explosives to mujahideen fighters overseas and attempted to set up a false company that would funnel money; and
- Discussed possible targets for their violent jihad, ultimately agreeing that they should go after U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
In February 2006—because of mounting concern about the intentions of Amawi, who was in Jordan at the time—we shut the operation down and took all three suspects into custody. All were found guilty at trial in June 2008, becoming the first members of a homegrown terror cell since 9/11 to be convicted at trial on terrorism-related charges. And the three men were sentenced last fall to prison terms ranging from eight to 20 years.
In the end, the success of the investigation was the result of both time-tested law enforcement techniques and our growing post-9/11 partnerships and intelligence-gathering/analysis capabilities.
Washington Post, 12 July 2010: An anxious June 26 phone call from Russian spy Anna Chapman to her father, a KGB veteran working in Moscow’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led the Obama administration to hasten the arrests the next day of Chapman and nine other “illegals” in the United States, according to U.S. law enforcement and intelligence sources. In the call to Moscow, apparently monitored by the United States, Chapman voiced suspicions that she might have been discovered.
Planning had begun in mid-June to arrest four couples, who had been under FBI surveillance for years, plus Chapman, 28, and another new Russian “illegal” Mikhail Semenov, who had been in the United States for only months. Part of the plan involved getting Chapman and Semenov to undertake acts, at the suggestion of FBI informants, that would enable them to be indicted for more than just carrying on secret communications with Russian officials.
Chapman’s call to Moscow, after a troubling meeting with an FBI informant, came on the eve of a scheduled trip by one of the other Russians, Richard Murphy. He was to leave for Moscow the next day to consult with his superiors at Moscow Center, headquarters of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence agency.
The FBI knew Murphy’s plans would take him first to France and then to Russia, and the agency had followed him on a similar trip to Moscow in March. But his FBI monitors feared that the SVR, alerted by Chapman’s call, might not allow him to return. They also worried that the SVR could alert the other “illegals” — the term used for deep-cover agents who do not have diplomatic cover — in the United States to flee the country or seek shelter in Russian diplomatic missions. . . . .
Washington Post/SpyTalk, 10 July 2010: Two longtime veterans of the intelligence wars between Russia and the West say it’s inconceivable that the spies deported to Moscow Friday didn’t detect FBI surveillance years ago. And that, they say, could explain why the FBI never produced evidence in court that the “illegals” had obtained any classified information: They stopped spying as soon as they discovered they were being watched — but stayed just busy enough to distract the FBI, potentially, from more important operations. . . .
Washington Post, 3 July 2010: The Russian spy case that exploded into public view this week was preceded by nearly a decade of cat-and-mouse activities with the FBI, according to court documents and an interview with a senior U.S. official familiar with the case. . . . . A close examination of court documents indicates that by mid-2006 investigators had already searched the homes of four of the couples, planted microphones in at least three of their residences, regularly reviewed their encrypted computer messages, and videotaped meetings where money and equipment were exchanged . . . .
. . . . . Indeed, the investigation into the 11 alleged foreign agents appears to have been a case study in counterintelligence. As a matter of technique, the FBI and the CIA generally weigh the opportunity of gaining valuable counterintelligence against the danger of allowing subjects of interest to continue operating, lest they obtain U.S. intelligence or manage to flee.
In the Russian spy case, the counterintelligence gains could have included the names of Russian couriers and spy handlers, the names of Americans whom the Russians had sought to recruit, or knowledge of Russian espionage techniques and practices that could be employed in counterintelligence activities elsewhere in the world.
Already, the FBI has revealed enough information about the suspects to indicate that it may have gained valuable counterintelligence about Moscow’s spy operations. According to a Justice Department letter filed in U.S. District Court in New York, for example, the FBI has acquired and decrypted more than 100 messages exchanged between one couple, Richard and Cynthia Murphy, and the SVR, the Russian spy agency. Only about 10 of those messages were described in the criminal complaint against the Murphys, who reside in New Jersey.
Separately, the Yonkers, N.Y., apartment of Vicky Peleaz, a columnist for New York’s El Diario La Prensa, and Juan Jose Lazaro, a political science professor, was bugged in February 2002. Yet in court papers the Justice Department described only five conversations recorded inside the apartment over the intervening years. . . . .
. . . . . Since the arrests were announced, many observers have expressed puzzlement as to why spies would live, say, in Yonkers or work in real estate. But counterintelligence experts say the suspects’ chief role probably was as “spotters,” as they are known in the intelligence world. A spotter would select individuals who could be recruited to work for Russia, either through persuasion or entrapment.
[Agent-Navodchik – Talent-Spotting Agent
Intelligence service agent used to identify individuals in a target country who may be of interest as potential candidates for recruitments, to carry out an initial assessment and to create suitable conditions for an intelligence officer to make contact with them. Talent-spotting agents are recruited from people whose job or social position gives them the opportunity to have contact with the kinds of people in whom the intelligence service is interested. More SVR terms]
They were in “a good position for spotting possible recruitment targets for Russian intelligence,” Peter Earnest, a former CIA officer and now executive director of the International Spy Museum, said in a recent Washington Post online chat.
In a 2004 message, court papers say, Heathfield sent an encrypted message in which he spoke of making contact with a U.S. government employee who worked at a research facility and dealt with planning related to nuclear weapons development. A year after the search of Heathfield’s house, the FBI was able to intercept an SVR message to him reporting Moscow’s response to his presentation of potential sources.
“Agree with your proposal to use ‘Farmer’ to start building a network of students in D.C.,” the SVR wrote him, according to the court papers. The SVR went on: “Your relationship with ‘Parrot’ looks very promising as a valid source of info from US power circles. To start working on him professionally we need all available details on his background, current position, habits, contacts, opportunities, etc.” The personal information about “Parrot” would, in the normal course of the counterintelligence trade, be turned over to a trained recruiter in Russia who would “work on him professionally” — using Moscow Center’s terms. . . . .
