PETE YOST AND TOM HAYS
Associated Press Writers
NEW YORK – They sometimes worked in pairs and pretended to be married so they could blend in as the couple next door as they worked as spies in a throwback to the Cold War with fake identities, invisible ink, coded radio transmissions and encrypted data to avoid detection, authorities say.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz, speaking Monday in federal court in Manhattan, called the allegations against 10 people living in the Northeast “the tip of the iceberg” of a conspiracy of Russia’s intelligence service, the SVR, to collect inside U.S. information, the biggest such bust in recent years.
Each of the 10 was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison upon conviction. Two criminal complaints outlining the charges were filed in U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York.