Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI's assistant director of counterintelligence, said Miss Chapman's handlers at Russia's SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service) had intended her to be a "honeytrap" and she had got "closer and closer to higher and higher ranking leadership".
He added: "She got close enough to disturb us." Chapman, now 30, was one of ten "illegals" – Russian sleeper agents – who were ejected from the US in July 2010 after their attempts at spying were monitored for several years by the FBI.
The group was previously thought to have been mostly harmless. FBI surveillance suggested the spies were tasked with penetrating US policy-making circles but garnered no sensitive information.
However, Mr Figliuzzi said the fear of Miss Chapman ensnaring a particular cabinet member was one of the prime reasons that FBI agents swooped on the Russian spy ring.
"We were becoming very concerned," he told the BBC's Modern Spies [[correct]] programme. "They were getting close enough to a sitting US cabinet member that we thought we could no longer allow this to continue."
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1 comment:
I've seen pictures of Miss Chapman. I would gladly do my patriotic duty and volunteer to be seduced by her. Oh, the things I do in the name of patriotism!
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