NEW YORK
Russian spy ring member Evgeny Buryakov, also known as “Zhenya,” plead guilty today to conspiring to spy for the Russians in what authorities described as Cold War-style espionage.
Evgeny Buryakov, aka Zhenya, 41, plead to being an unregistered spy agent for Russia. He also tried to recruit New York residents to spy for Russia, officials allege.
Buryakov will be sentenced on May 25 and is facing up to five years in prison.
“An unregistered intelligence agent, under cover of being a legitimate banker, gathers intelligence on the streets of New York City, trading coded messages with Russian spies who send the clandestinely collected information back to Moscow,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.
“This sounds like a plot-line for a Cold War-era movie, but in reality, Evgeny Buryakov pled guilty today to a federal crime for his role in just such a scheme. More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, Russian spies still seek to operate in our midst under the cover of secrecy. But in New York, thanks to the work of the FBI and the prosecutors in my office, attempts to conduct unlawful espionage will not be overlooked. They will be investigated and prosecuted.”
Buryakov, 39, was arrested in the Bronx, New York. Two other alleged spies Igor Sporyshev, and Victor Podobnyy who were also trying to gather information about the U.S. economy no longer reside in the United States and have not been arrested.
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These are the facts and circumstances surrounding this case, according to officials.
- During the course of their work as covert SVR agents in the United States, Buryakov, Sporyshev and Podobnyy regularly met and communicated using clandestine methods and coded messages, in order to exchange intelligence-related information.
- From as early as March 2012 through as recently as mid-September 2014, the FBI has conducted physical or electronic surveillance of Buryakov and Sporyshev engaging in over four dozen brief meetings, several of which involved Buryakov passing a bag, magazine, or slip of paper to Sporyshev.
- These meetings typically took place outdoors, where the risk of effective surveillance was reduced relative to an indoor location.
- These meetings were nearly always preceded by a short telephone call between Buryakov and Sporyshev during which one of the men typically told the other that he had an item to give to him.
- Typically, during these telephone calls, which were intercepted by the FBI, the item in question was referred to as some non-specific “ticket,” “book,” “list,” or other ordinary item; e.g., “umbrella” or “hat.”
- Subsequently, at each meeting surveilled by the FBI, Buryakov and Sporyshev met and sometimes exchanged documents or other small items.
- Notably, despite discussing on about one dozen occasions the need to meet to transfer “tickets,” Buryakov and Sporyshev, were—other than one occasion where they discussed going to a movie—never observed attending, or discussing in any detail, events that would typically require tickets, such as a sporting event or concert.
- In fact, Buryakov and Sporyshev used this coded language to signal that they needed to meet, and then met to exchange intelligence information.
From November 22, 2010, to November 21, 2014, Sporyshev served as a Trade Representative of the Russian Federation in New York.
From December 13, 2012, to September 12, 2013, Podobnyy served as an Attaché to the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations