Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
 

bathroommonkey76

(3,827 posts)
Tue Feb 21, 2017, 03:19 AM Feb 2017

Have there been any investigations into Anna Chapman's ties to Donald Trump?

Last edited Tue Feb 21, 2017, 08:38 PM - Edit history (3)

Anna had ties with the NY real estate scene-- She's also the beauty that attracted attention away from the other spies in the group of 11 that were deported in 2010--What did they know? Were there any associations with Trump or those around him?


Here is a list of the other members of the Russian spy ring:


Christopher Metsos

Claimed to originally be from Canada.
Acted as an intermediary between the Russian mission to the United Nations in New York and suspects Richard Murphy, Cynthia Murphy, Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills.
Traveled to and from Canada.
Met with Richard Murphy at least four times between February 2001 and April 2005 at a restaurant in New York.
Was first surveilled in 2001 in meetings with other suspects.
Left the United States on June 17 and was detained in Cyprus on June 29, but appears to have skipped bail.

Richard and Cynthia Murphy

Claimed to be married and to be U.S. citizens.
First surveilled by the FBI in 2001 during meetings with Mestos.
Also met with the third secretary in the Russian mission to the United Nations.
Communicated electronically with Moscow.
Richard Murphy’s safe-deposit box was searched in 2006 and agents found a birth certificate claiming he was born in Philadelphia; city officials claim there is no such birth certificate on record.
Engaged in electronic communications with Moscow.
Traveled to Moscow via Italy in February 2010.

Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley

Claimed to be married and to be natives of Canada who are naturalized U.S. citizens.
FBI searched a safe-deposit box listed under their names in January 2001.
FBI discovered that Donald Heathfield’s identity had been taken from a deceased child by the same name in Canada and found old photos of Foley taken with Soviet film.
Engaged in electronic communications with Moscow.
Tracey Foley traveled to Moscow via Paris in March 2010.

Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills

Claimed to be married and to be a U.S. citizen (Zottoli) and a Canadian citizen (Mills).
First surveilled in June 2004 during a meeting with Richard Murphy.
Engaged in electronic communications with Moscow.

Juan Lazaro and Vicky Pelaez

Claimed to be married and to be a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Peru (Pelaez) and a Peruvian citizen born in Uruguay (Lazaro).
First surveilled at a meeting in a public park in an unidentified South American country in January 2000.
Evidence against Vicky Pelaez was the first gathered on the 11 suspected operatives.
Lazaro appeared to communicate with a diplomat at the Russian Embassy in an unidentified South American country.
Engaged in electronic communications with Moscow.

Anna Chapman

First surveillance mentioned was in Manhattan in January 2010.
Communicated with a declared diplomat in the Russian mission to the United Nations on Wednesdays.
Knowingly accepted a fraudulent passport from an undercover FBI agent whom she believed to be a Russian diplomatic officer June 26, but turned it in to the police the next day shortly before her arrest.

Mikhail Semenko

First surveillance mentioned in the criminal complaint was in June 2010 in Washington.
Revealed to an undercover officer that he had received training and instruction from “the center” (a common term for the Moscow headquarters of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR).
Accepted a payment of $5,000 and followed orders given by an undercover FBI agent posing as a Russian diplomatic officer to deliver the money to a drop site in Washington.

https://www.wired.com/2010/07/whos-who-in-the-russian-spy-ring/







The FBI on Monday released surveillance tapes, photos and hundreds of pages of documents that shed new light on operation "Ghost Stories," the bureau's investigation of a ring of Russian sleeper agents that ended after more than a decade in the biggest spy swap since the Cold War.

Called illegals because they took civilian jobs instead of operating inside Russian embassies and military missions, the spies, including New York real estate agent Anna Chapman, mostly settled into quiet lives in middle-class neighbourhoods.

Their long-range assignment from Moscow: burrow deep into US society and cultivate contacts with academics, entrepreneurs and government policymakers on subjects from defence to finance.

The heavily-edited files provide a glimpse into the intensive surveillance the deep cover agents were under, in some cases for almost a decade, showing the middle-class spies with their children, shopping or in one case attending a graduation ceremony.

The code name Ghost Stories appears to refer to the ring's efforts to blend invisibly into the fabric of American society. An FBI spokesman said the decision to release the material on Halloween was coincidental.

FBI videos of the Russian agents show Chapman, whose role in the spy saga turned her into an international celebrity, and the other illegals surreptitiously passing information and money as part of their operations, which included the use of spy tools as old as invisible ink and as modern as cryptographic software that hides messages in digital images posted on the internet.

The linchpin in the case was Col Alexander Poteyev, a highly placed US mole in Russian foreign intelligence, who betrayed the spy ring even as he ran it. He abruptly fled Moscow just days before the FBI rolled up the deep cover operation on June 27, 2010. Poteyev's role in exposing the illegals program only emerged last June when a Russian military court convicted him in absentia for high treason and desertion.

The US swapped the 10 deep cover agents for four Russians imprisoned for spying for the West at a remote corner of a Vienna airport on 9 July, in a scene reminiscent of the carefully-choreographed exchange of spies at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge during the Cold War.

While freed Soviet spies typically kept a low profile after their return to Moscow, Chapman became a lingerie model, corporate spokeswoman and television personality. Donald Heathfield, whose real name is Andrey Bezrukov, lists himself as an adviser to the president of a major Russian oil company on his LinkedIn account. President Dmitry Medvedev awarded all 10 of the freed deep-cover operatives Russia's highest honors at a Kremlin ceremony.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/31/fbi-russian-spy-ring-anna-chapman
5 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Have there been any investigations into Anna Chapman's ties to Donald Trump? (Original Post) bathroommonkey76 Feb 2017 OP
... Lucinda Feb 2017 #1
kick KewlKat Feb 2017 #2
Very interesting. . . Borchkins Feb 2017 #3
Smart reporters need to dig deep into this group of 11... bathroommonkey76 Feb 2017 #5
K&R drm604 Feb 2017 #4
 

bathroommonkey76

(3,827 posts)
5. Smart reporters need to dig deep into this group of 11...
Tue Feb 21, 2017, 08:36 PM
Feb 2017

I think something is there to find-- I'm just not smart enough to put my finger on the heart of it.

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Have there been any inves...