Who is the ex-Russian spy (protected by the CIA) that Moscow’s intelligence wants to assassinate
Russian intelligence has planned the assassination of a defector who took refuge in the United States. All the details
Russian intelligence services planned to assassinate a former Russian intelligence officer, who had defected to the United States and was living in an apartment complex in Florida.
WHO IS ALEKSANDR POTEYEV
Russian intelligence has targeted Aleksandr Poteyev, who served as deputy director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) from 2000 to 2010. Poteyev was reportedly in charge of the SVR's "S" directorate, which oversees the work of illegal immigrants, a term referring to SVR operational officers working without official cover around the world. Poteyev is believed to have started working for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1999, as an agent on the spot.
INFORMATION PROVIDED TO THE CIA
In 2010, when he openly defected to the United States, Poteyev provided intelligence to the CIA that led to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) high-profile arrests of 10 Russian illegal immigrants. It is believed by some that the SVR defector was also responsible for the arrests of Russian spies in Germany and the Netherlands. In 2011, a Russian court tried Poteyev in absentia and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.
Poteyev remains at large and is believed to be living in the United States under the protection of the CIA's National Resettlement Operations Center.
THE CIA'S PROTECTION FOR FOREIGN CITIZENS
In this regard – like MI6 – the United States Central Intelligence Agency also has a protection program for foreign nationals whose lives may be at risk because they have spied for the United States. The CIA's security division, called the National Resettlement Operations Center, helps resettle and sometimes hide and protect dozens of foreign agents, or assets. But following the Skripal case, some CIA officials had expressed concern that levels of protection would have to be significantly increased. Apparently these concerns were and are well founded.
Given his dangerousness, the SVR allegedly recruited a Mexican scientist living in Singapore, Hector Alejandro Cabrera Fuentes, to travel to Miami, Florida, in 2020, in order to locate Poteyev. But Fuentes caught the attention of authorities while driving into Miami and was later arrested by US Customs and Border Protection officers as he was trying to board a flight to Mexico City. Fuentes then provided details of his mission to the FBI. The Bureau eventually discovered that the SVR's objective had been to assassinate Poteyev.
WHAT THE NYT WROTE
According to the New York Times , the attempt to assassinate Desert Ducci was one of the main causes that led the White House in April 2021 to expel 10 Russian diplomats to the United States including, coincidentally, the SVR station chief, a Washington. The Kremlin responded by expelling an equal number of American diplomats from Russia, including the CIA station chief in Moscow.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/intelligence-russia-assassinio-poteyev/ on Fri, 23 Jun 2023 09:33:15 +0000.