Original subtitles

July 2010, and four american spies stand On the airport tarmac.

After years of imprisonment, They are just moments from freedom.

They are there to be traded For 10 deep-cover russian agents,

Being sent home after a lifetime of deception in the west.

On the surface, it's an old-fashioned spy swap.

In reality, it's anything but.

This is a story of loyalty, betrayal and revenge.

More than a return to the dark forces of the cold war,

It marks the beginning of a new era of global espionage, With russia's spymaster at its heart.

In the full glare of the media spotlight, President obama of the united states

And president medvedev of russia put their signatures To a new nuclear arms reduction treaty.

The white house hoped this moment would mark an end To eight years of tension.

And always watching was the man responsible The former and future russian president,

Vladimir vladimirovich putin.

Leon panetta was cia director at the time.

There was no question That even though medvedev was president,

That putin was still the power behind the throne.

If you wanna know putin, know that he is a former kgb agent.

He will always work the angles to make sure

That russian interests are protected.

For putin and the svr, russia's successor To the kgb, the cold war wasn't over.

For him, a deadly spy war was in full swing.

The reality is that there's a long history Of russians trying to place their spies

In the united states.

The united states spend an awful lot of time trying To determine where those spies are

And where they're located.

And in April 2010, even as obama And medvedev were speaking of a new era

In east-west relations, the fbi had been passed information Of a sinister russian plot,

Which would shock america to its core.

The fbi's focus was on a young And seemingly entirely ordinary american couple:

Cynthia and richard murphy of montclair, new jersey.

Liz lapin was their neighbor.

She was very charming and fun to talk to.

She would always be outside at the weekends With her short shorts, and doing the gardening.

He was such an enigma.

I used to wonder why is he such a strange guy?

Cynthia murphy was the family's bread winner, Working in the finance scene of upstate new york.

Richard murphy was a stay-at-home dad, Looking after their two young daughters.

And I'd see her coming home, she'd take a bus Across the road here every day from work.

I had thought, "oh, I should talk to her about investing.

"oh, maybe we should discuss what stocks she likes "to invest in."

But the murphys' wholesome all-american image Was an elaborate facade.

Frank figliuzzi went on To become the fbi's assistant director For counterintelligence.

Richard and cynthia murphy were a married couple,

But married only per instructions and arrangement

By the russian svr, the russian intelligence service.

The murphys from new jersey Were really vladimir and lydia guryev,

Trained members of russia's foreign intelligence service.

Deep cover agents, Who had assumed false identities to enter the united states.

These illegals lived like you or I would live, Except for what I call the big lie.

The big lie being that they were leading a double life, They had another agenda.

They were not what they appeared to be.

Their children, their homes, Their lives were mere cover positions

For their real purpose in life, which was to work Against us interests on behalf

Of the russian intelligence service.

The guryevs' goal was to pass themselves off As true american patriots,

To embed themselves completely in us society.

Alexander vassiliev was a kgb operative.

The idea of sending them to america was To use them as talent spotters.

They would be joining clubs, scientific societies,

Political organizations, in order to meet interesting

And influential people and become friends with them.

And then pass information about them To the center, to moscow.

Such was the unique skillset of an illegal, Each was hand-picked from the elite students

At russia's notorious spy school known as the institute.

This was an establishment run By the mysterious directorate s of the svr,

And was attended by, among others, alexander vassiliev.

I believe they select people From the red banner institute, from the high school

Where I was a cadet in 1980s.

The school is training legal spies Who will be working as diplomats and journalists.

They will take this person from the school And put him on a special program.

Agents were trained to talk, think and act, Even subconsciously, like regular americans.

Some say muttering russian in one's sleep was grounds For a promising recruit's dismissal.

After years of training, Vladimir and lidiya guryev were dispatched to the us

As richard and cynthia murphy.

In the mid-1990s, They befriended their new jersey neighbors,

Started a family and embarked on a life of deception.

They are illegals, They don't have diplomatic immunity, They are not even journalists,

So if they get arrested, that's a big problem for them.

Their cover was so deep, They should have been impossible to detect.

Uncovering illegals or illegals networks Is the hardest thing a

Counterintelligence service can do.

John sipher ran the cia's russia operations For the national clandestine service.

It's not the kind of thing That our counterintelligence services Can just stumble across.

I think when you look back over sort of the history

Of spy cases and spies that have been uncovered,

You'll find that almost in every case there's a source

On the other side that gave us information.

In early 2000, the russian illegals Were betrayed to the cia by an agent believed

To be high up in directorate s.

Without getting into the details, Which are classified, The source was someone who was credible

And was in a position to know just exactly What was being done in russia to try

To establish these spies here in this country.

Although his name was not disclosed At the time, the cia's source was later revealed

To be colonel aleksandr poteyev.

Poteyev, being deputy head of Directorate s in the svr, He had incredible access.

He knew who these people were, he knew their real names,

He knew why they were there and what they were doing.

But what poteyev revealed About the russian illegals program sent shockwaves

Through the agency, because the murphys of montclair, New jersey, were not operating alone.

They were part of a deep cover spy ring Of 10 russian agents, who over the previous decade

Had systematically infiltrated some of america's most secure And well-to-do neighborhoods.

We saw a placement of these illegals literally Across the continental united states,

From new jersey to boston, massachusetts, To seattle, washington.

This was a continent-wide effort to place and penetrate,

With intelligence officers, our society.

In my 25-year career in the fbi, there was no precedent For something of this magnitude.

The illegals spy ring had been unearthed By the cia, but it would be

The fbi's counterintelligence unit who'd run them to ground.

The us intelligence unit had one goal:

To disrupt the operation and to defeat the operation.

The fbi codenamed the investigation Operation ghost stories

And initiated round - The-clock surveillance On suspects across the continental united states.

The fbi coverage and penetration of each And every one of these sleepers' homes

And lives was pervasive and comprehensive.

We literally owned these operatives, We understood what they drank, what they ate,

What they smoked and when they did it.

The end game for the fbi in a case like the illegals, Is to see how far that network extends,

Who is pulling the strings, who is controlling them.

The decade-long surveillance would become one Of the longest running counter-espionage operations

In fbi history.

You can imagine that this involved, at some points, Almost every field office in the fbi.

It all helped contribute to a complete total understanding And control of the russian operation.

What the fbi couldn't know was That unmasking the sleeper agents

Would later inspire a deadly revenge from the kremlin.

By now, the fbi's operation ghost stories Was focused firmly

On the man they believed was the ringleader Of the russian illegals:

Richard murphy, the stay-at-home dad From montclair, new jersey.

Fbi surveillance footage revealed him engaging

In fleeting information exchanges known as brush passes With his svr handlers.

Federal agents recorded other illegals making dead drops

Of documents and data, even hiding packages of money In a park in arlington, virginia.

But in time the operation grew more sophisticated.

In a span of a decade we saw increasing technology Being inserted into the operation.

So, we went from traditional brush passes and dead drops,

But then we also saw added in the tech side, And it got higher and higher.

The illegals sat in coffee shops And flashed messages from their laptops

To suspicious vehicles parked outside.

Coded texts were embedded in images posted online.

It's impressive that the fbi was able To monitor these people as long as they did

Without jeopardizing the larger case.

Because if any of them at all during the entire years That they're under scrutiny believe

They're under surveillance by the fbi, It would blow the entire operation.

Then came a red flag for the fbi.

Cynthia murphy's job in a new york accounting firm Had given her access to influential clients.

Cynthia murphy was getting very close To a man named alan patricof.

Alan patricof was connected to hillary clinton,

During a time when hillary clinton was considering a run

For the us presidency, and that got our attention.

Cynthia murphy's handlers back in russia Would have been extremely interested

To learn the intentions, the strategies Of a major us political candidate

To a degree where they might be able to influence And shape american politics.

It was the kind of audacious gambit The fbi had been waiting for

In order to make their move against the illegals.

The fbi idea was to watch Whether those illegals would recruit a serious agent.

But almost immediately, The intelligence services received news

That threatened to close down the entire operation.

Richard murphy had just bought a ticket to moscow.

The fbi feared operation ghost stories had been blown.

We had found out that one of the individuals

That we were surveilling was going to go back to russia.

And that raised the concern that if that happened The russians might end their mission.

Now they had a problem.

Any attempt to round up the illegals risked exposing

The cia's moscow source, colonel aleksandr potoyev, The man who had revealed their identities.

It was clearly important knowing that At some point we were gonna take action

Against these illegals, that we had to protect the source.

The pressure was now on the cia To get its man out of moscow before the fbi made its move

On the illegals in the us.

If he had been caught as a spy in russia And he didn't have an exfiltration plan,

He would have been charged with high treason

And probably a prison sentence of 25 years, if not executed.

An exfiltration operation Of this significance could only be authorized

By the commander-in-chief, president barack obama.

Explaining the delicacy of the situation to the president

Fell to the director of the cia, leon panetta.

These events were beginning to all come together At the same time.

And so it was important to brief the president.

I thought it was important to raise the concern

That if we were to take action against these illegals,

What would we do in order to protect the source Who had provided the initial information?

Robert gates was president obama's Defense secretary at the time.

I remember getting a phone call from cia director,

Leon panetta, telling me that there was gonna be a meeting

At the white house and discuss what to do.

There was pretty broad unanimity about that, That we had a responsibility to save this person.

But for president obama The timing could not have been worse.

Within two weeks, russian president, dmitry medvedev,

Was due to arrive in washington for a state visit.

Obama believed the spy games would jeopardize any hopes Of a thaw in us - Russian relations.

He was actually angry at panetta and at the fbi director,

Bob muller, for exposing this, because he thought This counterintelligence operation

Had thrown a monkey wrench in the works.

We had it discussed at the meeting About how should this be handled in a way

That would not necessarily embarrass president medvedev

Or undermine the effort to try To establish better relations, but, at the same time,

Not allow these potential spies to get away with it.

Then there was the added complication Of who was really in charge in the kremlin.

I had a suspicion that mevedev had no knowledge Of this at all,

That putin may well have because of his close ties To the security service.

The three men devised a plan.

To avoid a damaging international incident,

The timing of its implementation would have to be perfect.

When medvedev's plane was in the air heading back To moscow, that would be the moment

That the fbi would arrest all of the illegals.

The cia would have until then To get their source, colonel aleksandr poteyev, Out of russia.

So with without going into classified details,

It was arranged for the source to be able to find a way

To be able to leave moscow.

The plan was, if he made it out alive, He'd spend the rest of his life in the us

In a resettlement program.

Poteyev decided to leave moscow June 24th, 2010.

And he left on a train to belarus, Using his brother's passport.

He then, I understand, went to ukraine, changed documents,

Found his way to frankfurt and he was ferried back To the united states.

On the very same day poteyev Was making his escape, russian president medvedev arrived

In washington dc for his state visit.

Somebody's got to do it.

Nobody mentioned the russian spy cell In america or the source.

President obama simply acted normally And charmed medeyev with an impromptu lunch.

Sir, can I assist you?

No, no, no, this one's on me.

The president's intent by taking him To a hamburger place was to create a better relationship

And disarm him.

All right.

But while the two leaders dined on burgers And fries, the fbi initiated their plan

To round up the network of russian illegals.

Their operation first targeted the weakest link Anna chapman.

Chapman was the daughter of a former kgb general.

She had arrived in manhattan in 2009, Posing as the ceo of a real estate firm.

Unlike the other illegals, Chapman was using her real identity And was hiding in plain sight.

She used her british surname that she had taken From marrying a brit some years earlier.

She didn't try to hide in the shadows in the same way That some of these illegals had.

The kgb had a tradition of using women for kind Of espionage purposes, essentially trying to kind

Of compromise western diplomats, All the way back to the kind of cold war.

Chapman worked her way Into the new york social scene.

The benefits to russian intelligence Of someone like anna chapman is that she can blend

Into society, she doesn't go there under any form Of diplomatic cover, any diplomatic presence,

The russians can much more easily hold up their hands

Deniably and say this is nothing to do with us.

Well, anna chapman differs From the rest of these guys

Because, in my opinion, she wasn't a professional operative.

The fbi had been following anna chapman's Every move.

They knew her russian handler, codenamed roman,

Communicated on wednesdays, and never face-to-face.

She would carry her covert comm Laptop around manhattan

On shopping excursions or to coffee shops.

She'd press a few keys on the keypad as directed

And her russian handler in a line of sight would be able

To send or receive messages back and forth with her.

While presidents medevedev And obama addressed the g8 conference in ontario, canada,

In new york the fbi made their move.

Chapman received an urgent message Requesting an in - Person rendezvous

In an uptown new york coffee shop the next day.

Meeting face to face broke protocol, but she took the bait.

She had agreed to meet with someone She thought was a new russian handler,

But, in fact, was an fbi undercover agent.

The fbi needed taped evidence Chapman was working for russian foreign intelligence.

Posing as her handler, The fbi agent gave chapman an assignment

To pass a fake passport to another russian agent, An assignment she promptly accepted.

And that's not all.

She handed over her malfunctioning Covert communications laptop,

She actually asked the fbi undercover agent If he could fix it.

The fbi now had access to every covert communication On chapman's computer.

But chapman realized almost immediately That she had made a mistake and placed an urgent call

To her father in moscow.

We captured that conversation.

She told her father what she had done.

The father immediately chastised her, Reported that conversation.

We knew we had a problem, we knew the timing was short.

The fear was the russians Would summon chapman back to moscow immediately.

But the fbi couldn't arrest her yet,

Because president medvedev still had a day On north american soil at the g20 summit.

There was a real sense developing That she could get on a plane at any time and head out

Of the country and we would lose one of our major players.

On June the 27th, 2010, Russian federation president dmitry medvedev's plane

Left north american airspace, bound for moscow.

At that moment, in cities and towns All across the united states,

The fbi swooped on the illegals spy network In a coordinated takedown.

It was Sunday, there was a line of black cars With new york license.

We didn't know what was happening.

The neighbor went up to the fbi and said, "should we be worried?

"are we in danger?"

A few doors up from elizabeth lapin, Cynthia and richard murphy were led handcuffed

Into the waiting vehicles.

I found out they were spies when my neighbor said, "are you sitting down?"

I was shaken up.

If you had told me that martians were living next door, I would have been less surprised

Than hearing they were russian spies.

For the murphy's two young daughters, The discovery that their parents were trained members

Of russia's foreign intelligence service Was a shattering revelation.

This is the part that gives me the chills.

The children were also being fooled In the most intimate level.

I don't know if you call it child abuse, But we were very upset as a community.

Simultaneously, across the us, The eight other members of the illegals spy ring

Were arrested, including anna chapman.

There was no resistance with the arrests, It went without incident.

There was some short-feigned surprise, but, quite frankly,

In almost every case we saw a look of resignation,

A look of inevitability on the subjects' faces.

They knew some day this could happen And they realized it was happening now.

Now though, the us intelligence services Faced a dilemma.

Do we notify The russian diplomatic establishments That we know who these people are?

Or do we pretend, for the time being, That we've arrested americans who say

That they're americans, and so therefore we don't need To tell their government?

Us intelligence officials were uncertain As to whether their russian counterparts

Would own their illegals or deny all knowledge of them.

Cia director leon panetta made the call To his russian counterpart,

Head of the svr, mikhail fradkov.

I said, "mikhail, you need to know "that we've picked up your people."

And there was a silence.

And then he said, "yes, they are ours."

Everybody in the room kind of, you know, You could tell they were surprised

By the fact that he was acknowledging that.

The russian's admission allowed panetta To make a bold proposition:

To use the diplomatically delicate situation To the advantage of both sides.

I said, "is there a way to work out possibly some kind

"of trade that would allow us to exchange these spies

"for those that the russians were holding?"

What panetta was offering harked back To the height of the A spy swap.

He said, "let me look into that"

He was going to have to check with higher authorities Which we all assumed meant

That somebody had to talk to putin.

Any decision concerning the special services Couldn't be taken without putin's knowledge.

Of course, putin had to be consulted About the swap of the agents.

The message came back from the kremlin:

The swap was on.

And the cia now had an opportunity to extricate men

Who had sacrificed their freedom for the west.

What it shows, I think, Certainly for british intelligence And for american intelligence,

Is how they look after their own.

They never forget those who will work for them, Who will really sacrifice or be prepared

To sacrifice their lives for the cause that they believe in.

Moscow agreed to swap four men imprisoned For spying for the 10 russian illegals in fbi custody.

Now the cia needed to decide who they would bring back in From the cold.

Joe augustyn ran the cia defectors unit That paved the way for the repatriation of former agents.

Zaporozhsky was probably number one on our list Of people to get back.

Zaporozhsky was a very important recruited spy For the united states.

He helped to give up people like aldrich ames And perhaps even robert hanssen.

Vasilenko was a kgb officer who came to washington

And developed a relationship with a cia officer, A legendary cia officer named jack platt.

So they charged him with some bogus crimes And he wound up in jail.

Charged with high treason was sutyagin, igor sutyagin.

He took information on nuclear submarines And russian nuclear defense systems,

And he analyzed it and he provided it To a uk consulting firm.

Then, in a move That would later trigger an extraordinary sequence

Of events, the cia turned to their partners At britain's foreign intelligence agency,

Mi6, to provide a fourth name.

Of course they said, "yeah, we've got sergei skripal,

"who did work for us, he's currently in prison "in a penal colony, and let's get him out."

Skripal was a gru officer, a colonel, recruited By mi6 in the '90s in Spain.

He was an incredibly important asset for the uk.

He basically gave up the european operations of the gru.

The gru was russia's feared Military intelligence unit.

So getting skripal out of an internment camp built

For stalin's political prisoners would be a significant coup For the west.

The four men knew nothing Of the cia's plans to extricate them.

Now, without explanation, each were transported To the infamous lefortovo prison in moscow.

These individuals were totally blindsided, They'd been in prison for a long period of time,

Some of them sure thought they would be there For the rest of their lives.

President medvedev had agreed to the men's release.

Prime minister vladimir putin had added a condition Before the men could be released,

A confession of their treachery would need

To be extracted from each of them, by any means necessary.

In the first week of July 2010, Sergei skripal was visited By a man claiming to be from the cia.

He had with him a presidential pardon, With notification of skripal's release.

Skripal thought it was a great russian ruse to get him To own up to what he'd actually done.

He had never admitted to being an mi6 spy.

So when he was presented with a document saying you're about

To be released, you're about to be flown To the united kingdom, just sign here

And confirm that you've been a russian spy all along, He was unsurprisingly very, very skeptical.

Skeptical or not, Skripal did what was necessary.

At cia headquarters, director leon panetta Chose a theatrical location

For the biggest east-west spy swap since the cold war.

We decided that vienna Would be probably an appropriate place to do this,

Based on a lot of old spy movies.

I mean, it was a bit like going through a wormhole,

About 50 years, to the early 1950s, and you had

To pinch yourself and say, "actually, no, this is 2010."

Just 13 days after the fbi's dramatic arrests Of the russian illegals spy network in the us,

Two planes touched down at vienna airport.

In front of the world's media, 10 deep-cover russian illegals were about

To be exchanged for four alleged cia and mi6 agents.

I was sitting in my soviet sort of Style flat with a phone

And an old style desk, and I was watching the news About this kind of breaking story

Which sounded like something from the 40s and 50s, But, of course, it was real, it was dramatic.

Panettal one group made their way across the airport

To the other plane, they literally crossed paths.

I have often said it was right out of the third man.

The illegals would go on To receive a hero's welcome from the kremlin.

Anna chapman reverted to anna kushchenko And became a media sensation.

When she came back to moscow, putin used her For patriotic education of young russian people

And she herself became a successful business woman,

She had a career in show business, in modeling and so on,

So it's a beautiful spy story, everyone was happy.

On the airport tarmac, The four russians accused of spying

For the west toasted to their freedom and new lives.

But that wasn't the end of the story.

History tells us the soviet intelligence And russian intelligence do not forgive people

Who have betrayed the motherland.

Putin is very clear on this.

The defectors know they are traitors, They know they are scumbags.

In the summer of 2010, sutyagin, vasilenko,

Zaporozhsky and skripal began new lives with putin's threats Of revenge ringing in their ears.

Eight years after the arrest of the russian illegals And the vienna spy exchange,

East-west tensions were once again rising.

Now putin was back in the kremlin, Accused of interfering in the 2016 us presidential election.

At the same time, in a peaceful cathedral city

In the southwest of England, former mi6 agent sergei skripal

Was enjoying a quiet life in a resettlement program.

Skripal, when he was resettled in the uk, Probably thought he could get away

With living quite an open life.

He'd been pardoned by a previous russian president, Previous russian administration.

He did not adopt a covert lifestyle, He did not adopt a different name.

On March the 3rd, yulia skripal, Sergei's daughter, flew from moscow to visit her father.

She was unaware her movements were being closely monitored By her father's former colleagues

In russian military intelligence.

The following day, father and daughter dined at a restaurant In the city center.

Within just two hours came news of a catastrophic incident.

I was in london, at home, when the news broke.

It was the Monday evening when there was a statement

That came out that a former russian spy had fallen ill

In suspicious circumstances and was possibly poisoned.

The two people, a man aged 66

And a 33-year-old woman Were found unconscious in a bench

In the maltings area of salisbury city center.

The police investigation revealed father And daughter had been poisoned by a deadly nerve agent

Developed by the russian Novichok.

We know from metropolitan police Records and photographs

That the poison was transported to the uk In a small spray bottle, small perfume bottle.

Cctv revealed two men, Later identified as alexandr mishkin and anatoly chepiga,

Arrive at salisbury railway station, And make their way toward the skripal home.

Mishkin and chepiga they were colonels in the gru.

They applied this nerve agent novichok To the front door handle of skripal's semi-detached home.

Many believe evidence pointed To a russian state-sponsored assassination plot.

The method of assassination, Or attempted assassination,

Was practically identical to what happened in 2006

With alexander litvinenko.

Only one man is capable Of approving a risky international plot like this.

That man is president of the russian federation.

But the claim that putin Was behind an assassination attempt

On british soil was hotly disputed by the kremlin.

Instead, mishkin and chepiga offered their own explanation For their visit to salisbury.

Experts and journalists Have been trying to come up

With a reasonable explanation of the salisbury case, But they can't.

Why to kill sergei skripal with novichok, why?

He's not worth it, he's just a guy, he's just a traitor.

In the wake of the skripal affair, The uk government expelled 23 russian diplomats.

The total expelled worldwide exceeded 150, Perhaps the largest collective expulsion

Of russian intelligence officers in history.

Decades after the collapse of the soviet union,

Putin's russia was still bitterly at odds with the west.

I think there is now a realization Among the american public that we still have adversaries,

That the cold war is not over.

Instead, we may just be entering a new era, One in which russia's spymaster-in-chief

Has taken his spy war directly onto british And american soil.

Putin is kgb.

That's probably in many ways what identifies

The way he behaves, because he will always work the angles

To make sure that russian interests are protected.

In 2011, an anonymous kremlin official Suggested a russian hit squad was planning

To assassinate the man who had revealed the existence

Of the russian illegals and triggered the whole affair:

Colonel aleksandr poteyev.

Then, in July 2016, russian state tv announced that poteyev,

Though living under protection in the us, was dead.

It doesn't surprise me, let's put it that way.

You know, there have been attempts and speculation About whether putin would actually, you know,

Go after people on american soil.

It doesn't surprise me in the least.

Putin is not going to let a former spy suddenly live In another country and die a happy life.

Putin is gonna take action to go after that individual

To send a real clear signal that nobody else ought To do the same thing.

By publicizing a traitor's death, The kremlin claimed a public relations victory over the us.

But it just could be that the bizarre case Of alexandr poteyev illuminates a moment

When us intelligence agencies chose not To contradict russian propaganda

As the best way to ensure the safety of their agent.

Despite his obituaries, some claim the man Who gave up russia's illegals network

Is still very much alive.

And the story seems far from over.