Anna Chapman has been called the femme fatale of a spy case with Cold War-style intrigue — a striking redhead and self-styled entrepreneur who dabbled in real estate and mused on her Facebook page, "if you can dream, you can become it." Chapman's American dream, U.S. authorities say, was a ruse.
The 28-year-old Chapman, they say, was a savvy Russian secret agent who worked with a network of other operatives before an FBI undercover agent lured her into an elaborate trap at a coffee shop in lower Manhattan.
Though the U.S. has branded the operatives as living covertly, at least in Chapman's case, she had taken care to brand herself publicly as a striver of the digital age, passionately embracing online social networking by posting information and images of herself for the world to see.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz has called evidence against Chapman "devastating." She is "someone who has extraordinary training, who is a sophisticated agent of Russia," he said.
The FBI finally moved in to break up the ring because one of the suspects — apparently Chapman, who was bound for Moscow, according to court papers — was going to leave the country, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.
Chapman took an apartment a block from Wall Street and began using online social networks, including LinkedIn and Facebook, to develop business contacts and to market her skills.
On her LinkedIn page, Chapman is listed as the chief executive officer of PropertyFinder Ltd., which maintains a website featuring real estate listings in Moscow, Spain, Bulgaria and other countries.
At a court hearing on Monday in federal court in Manhattan, where Chapman was jailed without bail, her attorney called the case against her weak. He said she had visited the United States on and off since 2005 before settling in Manhattan to start a business.
"Love launching innovative high-tech startups and building passionate teams to bring value into market," Chapman's LinkedIn summary says. She lists previous jobs at an investment company and a hedge fund in London. The summary also says she earned a master's degree in economics at a Russian university in 2005. In more than 90 photos posted to Facebook,
Chapman is pictured in various countries, including Turkey, where she is in one of the rooms of the luxurious Hotel Les Ottoman, in Istanbul. There are also what look like family photographs from Russia and photographs of her dressed in a student uniform.
Her Internet footprints also include a photo of her posing with a glass of wine between two men at the Global Technology Symposium at Stanford University in March — it cost more than $1,000 to attend — and video clips, speaking in Russian about the economic opportunities in her adopted home.
An acquaintance, David Hartman, owner of a New York real estate company, described Chapman as "pleasant, very professional, friendly." "There's nothing too crazy about her that I knew of," he said. A criminal complaint alleges that, unbeknownst to her business contacts such as Hartman, Chapman was using a specially configured laptop computer to transmit messages to another computer of an unnamed Russian official — a handler who was under surveillance by the FBI.
How was Chapman caught?: An undercover FBI agent, posing as a Russian consulate employee and wearing a wire, arranged a meeting with Chapman at a Manhattan coffee shop, they said. During the meeting, they initially spoke in Russian but then agreed to switch to English to draw less attention to themselves, the complaint says in recounting their recorded conversation. She was given the task to deliver a fraudulent passport to another woman working as a spy.
The undercover gave her a location and told her to hold a magazine a certain way — that way, she would be recognized by a Russian agent, who would in turn confirm her identity by saying to her, "Excuse me, but haven't we met in California last summer?" But Chapman was leery, prosecutors said. "You're positive no one is watching?" they say she told the undercover agent after being given the instructions.
Afterward, authorities say, she was concerned enough to buy a cell phone and make a "flurry of calls" to Russia. In one of the intercepted calls, a man advised her she may have been uncovered, should turn in the passport to police and get out of the country.
She was arrested at a New York Police Department precinct after following that advice, authorities said. Authorities say the undercover's parting words to her had been, "Your colleagues in Moscow, they know you're doing a good job. So keep it up."
Female spies have been working under mysterious garbs since the World Wars. They have been leading lives full of intrigue and glamour. While some have posed as actors, others have donned the garb of exotic dancers.
Here's a look at some of the mysterious women in espionage from around the world.
Earlier this year, 53-year-old Madhuri Gupta who was posted as Second Secretary to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, was arrested for spying for Pakistan. She allegedly confessed that she was in love with her Pakistani handler and was also upset because she had been overlooked for promotion. She was a translator who handled press at the High Commission.
Gupta was summoned from Pakistan on the pretext that she was needed for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) meet in Thimphu. On her arrival in Delhi, she was arrested.
Intelligence sources say that while Madhuri Gupta did not have access to crucial information, she outed several Indian undercover agents within the Indian High Commission to the Pakistanis she was in touch with.
Roxana Saberi, was a US-Iranian journalist, who was put on trial before a revolutionary court on charges of spying for Iran's arch-foe the United States according to an official in 2009. US President Barack Obama on April 19, 2009 denied Saberi was a spy and demanded her release, after she was sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage.
The most famous, and controversial, spy of World War One was Mata Hari - or Margaretha Geertruida Zelle McLeod - a Dutch born woman who portrayed herself as an exotic dancer. Many myths and legends have surrounded her past. She was a courtesan. However, she had invented an identity as an exotic dancer from India. She was shot by the French as a spy on October 15, 1917.
In 1931 a film loosely based on Mata Hari starred Greta Garbo and popularized her legend.
She was Marie Monin, Germaine, Camille and even Diane. All the aliases point to Virginia Hall, an American spy during World War II.
Despite the fact that her leg had to be amputated from the knee down, she was dextrous in the clandestine work behind enemy lines.
Considered as perhaps the most dangerous of all allied spies by the Gestapo, the Germans even went on to give the nickname 'Artemis'.
Austrian-born actress Hedy Lamarr, a Hollywood star from the 40's and 50's, is also rumored to have been a spy. She made a valuable contribution to the intelligence division by co-producing an anti-jamming device for torpedoes. She also devised a clever way of "frequency hopping" that prevented the interception of American military messages.
Ironically, she also starred in a flick called My favourite spy.
Elizabeth Van Lew, Crazy Bet, as she was known, passed information during the Civil War. Elizabeth effectively used the Crazy Bet moniker to make people think she was mentally ill.
She would wear old clothes and bonnets and talk to herself. Because of this, most people thought that she was crazy.
Belle Boyd became the star attraction in social circles in Washington prior to the beginning of the Civil War.
In 1864, Confederate president Jefferson Davis asked Belle to carry letters for him to England. The Union Navy captured her ship, but the officer in charge fell in love with Belle and let her escape.
After the war, Boyd toured the United States as an actress under the stage name of La Belle Rebelle.
Sarah Emma Edmonds ran away from home as a teenager and in order to survive dressed as a man and called herself Frank Thompson.
In 1861, Frank (Sarah) enlisted in the Second Michigan Infantry and over the next two years not only fought in a number of Civil War battles, but also served as a spy for the Union Army. Solders in her unit called Frank "our woman" because of his feminine mannerisms and his extremely small boot size. However, none of her comrades ever figured out that Frank was really Sarah.
Noor Inayat Khan or Nora Baker, was a British agent in World War II of Indian origin and the first female radio operator to be sent into occupied France to aid the French Resistance.
