27 Jan 2015 10:07

Russian mission to UN declines comment on suspected spy's arrest in U.S

MOSCOW. Jan 27 (Interfax) - The Russian Permanent Mission to the United Nations has declined comment on the arrest of Russian national Yevgeny Buryakov arrested in the United States on espionage suspicions.

"The Permanent Mission will not comment on this information," mission press attache Alexei Zaitsev told Interfax on Tuesday.

U.S. law enforcement authorities have brought espionage accusations against Buryakov who, together with another two Russian nationals, is suspected of collecting information about anti-Russian sanctions and the activity of the New York Stock Exchange.

The U.S. Department of Justice said Buryakov had been apprehended in Bronx, New York City, and would face Manhattan Federal Court.

Detectives said Buryakov was an employee of the U.S. office of a Russian bank. According to the Vnesheconombank website, he was the bank's deputy representative to the United States. Vnesheconombank declined comment on the issue as well.

The New York Southern District prosecution service accused of espionage another two Russian nationals, Igor Sporyshev and Viktor Podobny, alleged Russian diplomats who had left the U.S. territory.

"Buryakov worked in the United States as an agent of Russia's foreign intelligence agency, known as the "SVR"," the report said.

"From as early as March 2012 through as recently as mid-September 2014, the FBI has conducted physical or electronic surveillance of Buryakov and Sporyshev engaging in over four dozen brief meetings, several of which involved Buryakov passing a bag, magazine, or slip of paper to Sporyshev," it said.

"These meetings were nearly always preceded by a short telephone call between Buryakov and Sporyshev during which one of the men typically told the other that he had an item to give to him. Typically, during these telephone calls, which were intercepted by the FBI, the item in question was referred to as some non-specific "ticket," "book," "list," or other ordinary item (e.g., "umbrella" or "hat")," the report continued.

"In fact, Buryakov and Sporyshev used this coded language to signal that they needed to meet, and then met to exchange intelligence information," it said.

"In numerous recorded communications, Sporyshev and Podobny discussed their attempts to recruit United States residents, including several individuals employed by major companies, and several young women with ties to a major university located in New York, New York ("University-1"), as intelligence sources for the SVR," the report stated.