World | Wed Mar 9, 2016 3:31pm EST

FBI penetrated New York-based Russian spy ring using hidden recorders

NEW YORK | BY NATE RAYMOND

The FBI eavesdropped on meetings involving Russian intelligence personnel in New York City, including a suspected spy posing as a trade representative, by hiding recorders in binders containing supposedly confidential information about the energy sector, U.S. prosecutors said.

The hours of covert recordings from 2013 were disclosed in papers filed in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday in the case of Evgeny Buryakov, a Russian citizen who U.S. prosecutors say posed as a banker while participating in a Cold War-style spy ring.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's eavesdrops enabled the agency to penetrate the workplaces of Russia's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, and hear about Buryakov's work for it, prosecutors said.

They also captured one Russian agent, also charged in the case, complaining about the lack of excitement in his job, saying he expected it "would be just slightly more down to earth than in the movies about James Bond."

The disclosure came ahead of an April 4 trial for Burkyakov, who was arrested in January 2015 as prosecutors unveiled charges against him and the two other Russians, Igor Sporyshev and Victor Podobnyy.

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