Can you defect to russia

I said, where the hell is Portland? We never heard of Portland until we ended up here. Their contract was renewed each year but there was still no sign of the promised foreign passports so the Neumanns began pushing for American identity documents. Anything to be able to build a normal life. But the relationship was already beginning to sour. Neumann said the FBI began to describe him as uncooperative.

He says the threats were not physical but to take legal action. It was important to Neumann that he not be seen as a traitor to Russia, whatever his father might think. I never screwed anyone with whom I was working. There was also a question of credibility. There are hints in legal documents that the couple promised more than they could deliver.

They called us rude and pushy. You may be too arrogant. It followed a raid on the bank in over an 8bn rouble VAT fraud scam by six shell companies. The bank was accused of laundering billions of roubles through a property deal in Turkey. Kreditimpeks was also named in an official report as having received more than m roubles in stolen government money during and That meant the end of their visas under a programme for people cooperating with federal law enforcement and the loss of work permits.

Without jobs, the money dried up. Even as the relationship with the FBI grew more troubled, the one between Victorya and Karen became more intimate. Victorya shared her fears and troubles, including a health crisis in part brought on by the stress of life in exile. Much of the relationship is documented in hundreds of text messages Victorya has kept. Among them is one from May , in which she told the FBI agent they were facing eviction from their apartment.

I will push it through. We have the money. They say they have sold many of their possessions and now rely on occasional part-time work and loans from a friend to keep the bills paid. Where did it all go? For a while the Neumanns continued to spend as they had in Moscow.

They drove upmarket cars and lived in the expensive end of downtown Portland, in part because they did not have the identity documents and credit history required to rent through normal channels. Snyder has seen the contracts with the FBI, also seen by the Guardian, which she is confident are genuine.

Snyder hired a former FBI agent to poke around among old contacts in the bureau. He confirmed that the Neumanns had worked for the FBI. Without papers to remain in the US, the Neumanns applied for political asylum.

Months later it was refused in part because the immigration service said Janosh is a threat to US national security as a former intelligence agent of a hostile foreign power. Asylum was also rejected on other grounds which are more tricky for Neumann. Neumann vigorously denies this. The problem may lay in his use of English which is good but not always precise.

Neumann said he was asked if he used force during interrogations as an FSB officer. I said, not by myself. Of course I know how this looks like. I know how to do this. But even with that qualification, it sounds as if he was present during torture. But for local guys, interrogation means using water, electricity, they cut their balls and ass.

The immigration service also concluded Neumann discriminates against people based on their ethnicity. Asked why it would think that, he said he described Russian mafia as dominated by Armenians and Jews. Most of the mafia families are Italians. Neumann is still awaiting the appeal interview.

Neumann eventually gave up on the FBI and hired Snyder who filed a notice of intention to sue against the bureau, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security and the immigration service. It claims damages for false imprisonment on the grounds the couple was brought to the US without their consent and are unable to leave because the FBI refuses to hand back their Russian passports.

The suit accuses the US government of fraud for allegedly failing to follow through on its commitments. Neumann insists the legal action is not about the money. Karen thinks differently and warns Victorya that the timing is bad with Edward Snowden in Moscow following his revelations in the Guardian.

Money will not help then. And even if the government pays, it will not be for years. A lot of permanent damage for short term gain. Karen also warns Victorya that suing the FBI may result in the release of her medical records which could make it harder for her to find a job. Eventually, Victorya tells Karen that she has lost confidence in the promises of documents. In desperation, the Neumanns turned to Oregon senator Ron Wyden, who sits on the intelligence committee.

One of his staff, John Dickas, said in an email to the Neumanns that the FBI acknowledged its responsibility to help them win approval to remain in the US.

Desperate for work, he landed a small acting job in a television series set in Portland. This produced the unusual spectacle of a foreign defector, living undercover with a new identity, popping up in the nationally syndicated sci-fi police drama Grimm.

Neumann plays a heavy sent to abduct a woman from her hotel room. Dressed in a black suit with his thick Russian accent still in place, he does a passable impression of a mobster.

There was Robert Webster, a contractor working for the Rand Development Company who tried to defect to follow his mistress but struggled with the process. The Soviet officials ushering Webster through the repatriation procedures got him liquored up before presenting him with the paperwork to apply for Soviet repatriation, according to the defector study:.

Subsequently when Webster submitted the data sheet, he stated that his dissatisfaction with the United States was due to the tendency of American employers to hire a man and then fire him when he had learned the job.

This reason was not acceptable because Webster had not personally experienced this. He rewrote the form to state that in the United States, Government controlled big business…. Although he stated he wished to cooperate in every way with the Soviet Union, the Soviet authorities tried to dissuade Webster from defecting. Shusha was the key to the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Now Baku wants to turn the fabled fortress town into a resort.

There were the agents, like George Koval, who provided Dana Stuster. June 25, , PM. The Soviet officials ushering Webster through the repatriation procedures got him liquored up before presenting him with the paperwork to apply for Soviet repatriation, according to the defector study: Subsequently when Webster submitted the data sheet, he stated that his dissatisfaction with the United States was due to the tendency of American employers to hire a man and then fire him when he had learned the job.

Dana Stuster is a policy analyst at the National Security Network. Twitter: jdanastuster. Subscriber Account active since. A former Russian official whose background matches descriptions of a high-level CIA spy hurriedly extracted from Russia has been living openly outside Washington, DC, under his own name. Intelligence sources told Insider that such a situation — a former agent living under his own name — was less unusual than it might at first appear, partly because of precedent and the unique personality type of high-level sources.

Smolenkov was named in Russian media Tuesday as a possible identity of the extracted spy. Reuters and the BBC were among Western outlets to also report the name. A spokesman for the Kremlin said Smolenkov had worked for the Russian state but reportedly dismissed reports that a high-level spy had been extracted as "pulp fiction.

Read more: 'You actually have to give a s about your spies': Intel veterans are floored by report that an asset was extracted from Russia in part because of Trump. The descriptions from Russia of Smolenkov's work for the Kremlin, the timing of his disappearance in , and his presence in the suburbs of Washington, DC, appear to match the reports. When an NBC News reporter knocked on the door of the Smolenkov house Monday night, he was intercepted by unidentified men asking what he was doing.

That asset is reported to have supplied critical information that helped shape the US government's understanding of Russian interference in the presidential election. The asset's identity remains unconfirmed. Among assets in a similar position, however, the practice of living openly in a Western country under a real name would not be unusual, according to a former US Drug Enforcement Agency agent who regularly ran intelligence and drug-cartel sources.

He asked for anonymity to protect former sources and assets around the world.