Illegals Program

Illegals Program
Ten Russian agents apprehended on June 27, 2010 (Photos taken by the U.S. Marshals Service).

The Illegals Program, as it was called by the United States Department of Justice, was a network of Russian sleeper agents under non-official cover whose investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) culminated in the arrest of ten agents and a prisoner swap between Russia and the United States on July 9, 2010.

Canada was a common place for Soviet, later Russian, illegal immigrants to go so they could create a "legend" of being western citizens before being deployed to target countries, often the US or Britain. The spies were planted in the United States by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (known by its Russian abbreviation, SVR). Posing as ordinary American citizens, they tried to build contacts with academics, industrialists, and policymakers to gain access to intelligence. They were the target of a multi-year investigation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI investigation, called Operation Ghost Stories, culminated at the end of June 2010 with the arrest of ten individuals in the US and an eleventh suspect in Cyprus. Ten sleeper agents were charged with "carrying out long-term, 'deep-cover' assignments in the United States on behalf of the Russian Federation."

The suspect arrested in Cyprus skipped bail the day after his arrest. A twelfth person, a Russian national who worked for Microsoft, was also apprehended about the same time and deported on July 13, 2010. The Moscow legal court documents made public on June 27, 2011, revealed that another two Russian agents managed to flee the US without being arrested.

Ten of the agents were flown on July 9, 2010, to Vienna soon after pleading guilty to charges of failing to register as a representative of a foreign government. The same day, the agents were exchanged for four Russian nationals, three of whom were convicted and imprisoned by Russia on espionage (high treason) charges.

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