Russian spy catfished Capitol Hill with LinkedIn energy

Nomma Zarubina, 35, now sits in a New York jail awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last week to charges that she lied to the FBI about her contacts with the FSB, Russia’s biggest domestic intelligence service. But, in a playbook that comes straight from the cold war, the striking-looking Zarubina – known as “Alyssa” to her Russian handlers – was tasked with meeting prominent Americans in order to lure them into the orbit of Moscow intelligence. According to US prosecutors, Zarubina attended “seminars, forums and conventions also attended by prominent members of academia, foreign policy, the US government and the media”. Her job was to “identify potentially helpful contacts” in the US and pass them on to the FSB so the agency could invite them to Russia to “convert” them to the “Russian way of thinking”. Two police officers stand in front of a wall bearing the UK government's coat of arms British diplomat expelled from Russia after ‘baseless’ accusation of being a spy Read more The Siberian-born Zarubina persuaded several Capitol Hill power brokers to pose for pictures, worked at a representative to the UN for the Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots of the US (KSORS), and spoke at events organized by the Free Nations of Post-Russia in Washington and Ottawa, Canada. But it was all a pose disguising her espionage. Zarubina pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI relating to her relationship with the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, or FSB, and to naturalization fraud for lying about her involvement in prostitution-related offenses.