Russian Spy Ring Thwarted by the FBI

The American public has long held the belief that espionage was a thing of the past. Assuming that it had went the way of the Cold war era. This Idea was proved to be false recently when the Federal Bureau of Investigations busted up a Russian spy ring that consisted of Eleven suspected secret agents. ten of which were charged with "conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general".

The long list of Conspirator Aliases include Christopher Metsos, suspected financier was detained in Cyprus attempting to fly to Budapest, Hungary. Richard and Cynthia Murphy husband and wife who resided in Montclair, New Jersey. Anna Chapman, resided in New York. Mikhail Semenko, resided in Arlington, Va. Also residing in Yonkers, New york, were Juan Lazaro and Vicky Palaez, Palaez was a reporter and editor for the El Diario/La Prensa Spanish newspaper. Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills, resided and arrested in Arlington, Va. Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley both resided in Cambridge, Mass.

Reports sate that the spy rings main objectives were mainly to obtain intelligence on a wide range of topics including the Presidents position on Iran, Intel on the turnover in leadership of the CIA, gathering Intel on our present foreign policies, any known rumors from the white house water cooler and presumably many more topics yet to be discovered. They were said to have employed many of the old tactics we have all seen a million times in the movies such as using disappearing ink, coded messages, and the old switcheroo, where two agents switch identical bags at the airport. Glad to see that the old tactics are still just as obvious to detect as they were in the movies.

This Snafu has many people asking were this leaves Russian/U.S relations. Both Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev attended both the G-8 and G-20 summits held in recently in Canada. Russia's Ministry and the SRV deny any current involvement. Yet one must wonder. How many more spies are lurking in the shadows? Is the START arms reduction treaty really the best move right now? Can we really trust the Russians to do what they promise or is it just a facade to keep the wool pulled over our eyes while they continue to send over spies to steal our national secrets?

We can only hope that this will not have a negative effect on our relations with Russia and that the recent meeting between Obama and Medvedev at the White House was not in vain. Russia could truly be a powerful ally in the future if these problem can be quickly resolved. We will see what happens as the details continue to surface. Sure we can expect more charges to be added to the conspirators once the investigation reaches its end and indictments are handed out.