Family Business Anna Chapman's descent
into espionage began before she was even born, with her father, Vasily Kushchenko,
who'd been spying for the Russian government when the KGB was their primary intelligence agency.
Alex Chapman, Anna's ex-husband, described his former father-in-law as your typical
secretive spy type. He went on to say that he's not surprised about his ex-wife.
Alex recalls Chapman telling him on many occasions how much she admired her father and
the career he'd made for himself. Alex was always skeptical of Anna's admiration for her father,
and in 2010, his doubts were realized after Chapman's arrest.
However, before the arrest, the trial, and the inevitable fame, very few people knew what Chapman
was doing in the U.S.—including Alex, who had separated and divorced from Chapman in 2006.
Chapman moved to the U.S. in 2009. On paper and Linkedin, Chapman moved to
the Big Apple to sell international real estate through her website PropertyFinder.
To look businessy, Chapman even rented out a swanky apartment
one block from the financial capital of the world, Wall Street. However,
according to Alex, who maintained contact with his ex years after the divorce,
Chapman once confessed to him that her business was deep in debt. Nevertheless,
that same year, Chapman's company boasted some startling numbers. One report supposedly said
PropertyFinder had 50 employees, a far cry from the zero employees she started with when Chapman
first arrived in New York. The numbers seemed too good to be true. Anyone who's ever started a
business knows that growth is slow and steady. So, what was Chapman really doing out in Manhattan?
Illegals Program To answer that question, first, we need to
go over what the Illegals Program is. In the early 90s, the entire Russian government, known then as
the Soviet Union, fell along with the KGB. Though the infamous Cold War was over, the new Russian
Federation, primarily led by Vladimir Putin, still saw their rival across the pond as a threat. So
they created an intelligence program from scratch called the "Illegals Program."
The program was designed for one purpose: to obtain key information from the United States
using trained Russian citizens. Before the so-called illegals were sent over to the United
States, the SVR, Russia's foreign security agency, trained each operative in foreign languages,
primarily English. Most importantly,the SVR trained the Illegals in code sending
and receiving. The code training was extensive and, to put it frankly,
old school, like Cold War-era old school. The program focused on three messaging methods:
sending Morse code messages and short wave cipher operations.
One question remains though, why are they called illegals? As it so happens,
some legal spies can gather certain kinds of intelligence under diplomatic immunity.
The only drawback with being a legal spy is you're limited to where you can go and
who you can talk to. Whereas an illegal can go wherever they please because
no one knows they're spies. And since no other governments were aware, the spies were illegal.
Private Server Chapman and a Russian government official
met every Wednesday. Sometimes they would meet at a coffee shop, other times, a bookstore. However,
Chapman and the official never actually met one another face to face. Instead, the official would
pull up in a van, usually right out front, park, get his laptop out, and start working.
It is common for people to park outside of places with free WiFi like coffee shops and bookstores.
Except, the official in the van wasn't using the business's WiFi. They were using a private network
from inside the building— a network belonging to Chapman. Since the server was private,
no one else could access it except Chapman and the official in the van.
Compared to her peers,
Chapman's methods of relaying information back to the spymasters were pretty high-tech.
Nevertheless, the FBI picked up on their activities in January of 2010,
a few months after her arrival in 2009. From January to June, FBI agents followed Chapman
all around Manhattan. Whenever the van showed up and the driver pulled out their laptop,
the agents made sure to pull out their cameras and take lots of photos of Chapman and the
official typing away on their computers. Agents were also able to catch some of the wireless
transmissions being sent from Chapman's device to the device in the van. On a couple occasions,
the agents caught the van doing what the FBI calls a "brush
pass," which is when a vehicle passes by a stationary person transmitting information.
Eventually, Chapman and the official noticed the surveillance personnel across the street
while exchanging intel at a library. Chapman tried aborting the mission,
but it was too late. The FBI already had enough evidence to make an arrest. Specifically,
they'd identified two Mac IP addresses, which they called MAC ADDRESS A and MAC ADDRESS B
communicating on a network called AD HOC NETWORK. Using the photos and network readings,
the FBI created and released a report detailing their investigation into these unregistered spies
after arresting them in 2010. Bourne Ultimatum had come out three years ago, so,
to many in the west, illegal spying was something Matt Damon did on their tv screens, not real life.
When news broke that the FBI had busted ten Russian spies living on U.S. soil, the media
went crazy, writing story after story about the new generation of Russian and American spies. Of
course, as time went on, the story died out, but the world's fascination with Anna Chapman did not.
At first, the media politically roasted Chapman. Some outlets dubbed her the "red under the bed."
The nickname is both an ode to the old Soviet colors and the bright red hues in Chapman's
hair. In the end, the media, specifically social media, would become more interested in Chapman's
beautiful hair than where she came from and who she spied for. That is, after her trial.
Nabbed Chapman's arrest played out like a Bourne
movie. The setting was perfect: a coffee shop in Manhattan, a spy sitting on one side of the table,
an undercover FBI agent sitting on the other. According to records, the agent asked Chapman,
"are you ready for this step?" Then he handed her a fake passport and instructed her to give it to
another spy. Chapman took the passport, and with it, an admission of guilt. When she
got to her New York apartment, Chapman called her espionage-veteran father, who could smell the trap
all over the fake passport in his daughter's hand. Knowing she would be hunted if she tried to leave,
Kushchenko instructed his daughter to turn herself in to the authorities.
Chapman hung up the phone and held on to the passport. She went to the nearest police station,
gave them the passport, and subtly offered her hands up to be cuffed by the police,
who later turned Chapman over to the FBI.
Trade Chip Authorities found Chapman and nine others
guilty of espionage. But instead of imprisoning them in the United States, the government decided
they could use Chapman and company to broker a deal with Russia. Putin had four U.S. agents in
Moscow locked up for espionage. These agents were actual professionals who the U.S. wanted back. So,
they flew Chapman and the other nine spies to Vienna to make an exchange.
After landing in Vienna, the ten Russian spies were swapped for the four U.S. agents,
and Chapman found herself on another plane, this one heading for home.
A New Chapter Eventually, Chapman landed in Russia,
her future unknown. She wasn't sure how Russia would receive her or what her life would be
like now that millions of people knew her name and associated it with espionage of all things.
Chapman would have to find a way to either capitalize on her newfound fame or let it ruminate
in the public's mind and see what happens. Of the two routes, Chapman took the former.
Make Anna Great Again Back in 2010, Vice President Joe Biden went on
the Tonight Show hosted by Jay Leno. The illegal's story had just broken out, and Anna Chapman was
the most discussed spy. So much so that Jay Leno asked Biden if we, the United States, had any
spies as hot as Chapman. Biden replied, "Let me be clear. It was not my idea to send her back."
Though Biden and Leno only saw her physical strengths, Chapman had much more to offer the
media than just her body. As soon as she got back to Russia, the Federation set Chapman up
with a job on the council of the Young Guard of Russia, an institution that aids in the
education of Russia's youth. Months after her appointment to the YGR council, Chapman landed
an even bigger gig: she would host a tv show called Secrets of the World. And a few months
after that, Chapman was appointed to the editor of a Russian magazine called Venture Business News.
All of this appointing and hiring occurred from December 2010 to June 2011, just seven months.
However, a few years later, Chapman found her true medium: social media.
Chapman's Instagram, @anna.chapman, boasts hundreds of thousands of followers. Chapman has
posted over 1200 times to build those followers, with almost every single post featuring her face.
However, underneath those glamorous photos is the reason Chapman's Instagram has garnered so
much controversy and interest from the media. These days Chapman's captions focus on her
many businesses and side hustles. These businesses include a clothing line,
a successful modeling career, a YouTube channel, all of which seem to revolve around
a self-help brand, complete with courses and inspiring captions written in Russian.
Before Chapman started a campaign to share her own success, she was supporting someone else's
campaign: Donald Trump. Amid Russian-gate, Chapman was posting selfies with captions about Trump
being backed by influential forces as those who back Clinton. She concluded her eloquently written
caption by saying there will be no room for people like Clinton, who have blood on their hands.
In another caption, bolstered by a well-lit glamorous photo,
Chapman criticized American and European diplomats.
She wrote that most of the western diplomats are currently expressing their condolences to Russia
over the death of our ambassador in Turkey. In which case, she would really like to ask them:
weren't you the ones accusing our country of made-up war crimes in Syria?
These posts were from 2017. In 2020 and 2021, Chapman began gravitating more
towards positive and uplifting messages. Of course, the visual aesthetic never changed.
At the end of the day, getting caught for spying turned out to be the best thing that could've
happened to Chapman. Today, Chapman still graces runways, has strong opinions,
and runs several successful businesses doing way better than PropertyFinder ever did.
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Let us know in the comment section whether you think President Trump
conspired directly with the Russians or not!