I was recruited at 19. Intelligence work from the first person.

[Cloned Boy]

The children thought they had a boring realtor mom, until one day uninvited guests showed up at a family celebration: FBI agents.
For 23 years, Elena Vavilova lived abroad under a false name and pretended to be Canadian.
This is the story of the most high-profile spy scandal between Russia and the United States.

Contents:

• It all ended when the FBI agents came knocking on our door.
• How the KGB Recruits and Trains Intelligence Agents
• How the Legend of a Life Never Lived Is Created
• We played the role of born but dead babies
• The smallpox vaccination could have given me away
• What money did intelligence officers live on abroad?
• Communication with politicians is one of the main goals of the work
• FBI Evidence: Russian Spies Exposed
• How spies make bookmarks
• Parents and children didn't know what we were doing
• Arrest of Russian spies. The husband smiled
• Who betrayed the scouts?
• What does an American interrogation look like?
• The end of the spy scandal
• The song "A Glass of Vodka on the Table" was a revelation for us

It all ended when the FBI agents came knocking on our door.
What do you think is going on? This is undercover FBI footage. It shows a Russian illegal agent searching for a place in a designated hiding place. Then he hides the object. Apparently disguised as a newspaper package. Canadian Tracy Leanne Foley did the same thing.
Until she was declassified.

Intelligence Officer:
Our career in intelligence ended when the FBI agents came knocking on our door and, in front of our now grown-up, so to speak, children, they handcuffed us and led us out to waiting buses that were located on the street. As a result of our betrayal, our activities became known to the Americans, and we were arrested.

Interviewer:
We are Tracy and her husband, Donald Heatveld. Now let's take things in order. Imagine, the 2000s in the USA and an unremarkable family from Canada. She is a real estate agent and a loving mother. He is the head of a consulting company. His clients are governments and large corporations. But the couple has a secret. They were recruited by the Soviet KGB back in the 80s.
And the real names of the intelligence officers are Andrei Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova. In 2010, the Americans found out about this.

The people arrested in the United States in connection with the case of espionage for Russia are citizens of our country. All the detainees were illegal agents who carried out long-term missions under deep cover for Russia.

Interviewer:
For 23 years, this couple lived in different countries and under different names. But where did this story begin? How did Elena Vavilova turn into Tracy Leanne Foley?

How the KGB recruits and trains intelligence officers.
Intelligence officer:
I was born in Tomsk, a Siberian city, a wonderful student city. My parents, my grandparents lived there. In general, I am a native Tomsk resident, as they say here, my youth, school and university. And I also came to intelligence by chance, you could say, specifically an offer to start training for a job in the position of an illegal intelligence officer, but, in general, it was done one day, when I was in my third year of studies, and also in an atmosphere of secrecy in a safe house.
At that time, I was in a relationship with a certain Andrey, also a student of the history department, and I was told that he also agreed to go into intelligence.

Interviewer:
The wedding and move were organized hastily. My parents were told that we were invited to work at the Sociology Research Institute in Moscow.

Intelligence officer:
After moving to Moscow, the training began. External surveillance, encryption, Morse code. There were shooting lessons, because we both became officers, and, in general, our training implied weapons skills. And there was also karate. Karate, again, so that we are in good physical shape and have self-defense skills.
And we had to master French first, then add English, bring both languages to the level of native, well, or almost native, because this is the key to calm and successful work.

Interviewer:
Often in language classes we had to pretend to be French, then English, then Canadian. One of the first lessons we learned was how to count on our fingers correctly. Most foreigners straighten their fingers when counting, while Russians bend them.

Intelligence officer:
And in the Soviet Union it was very difficult to prepare a person for work abroad, because the West was, in general, such a very incomprehensible world for us. We could not communicate with foreigners, we did not have the opportunity to go somewhere, so initially we studied both the life and mentality of foreigners through the language and the perception of culture.
And, above all, through films. And we had a period when we were brought for some time to live in a house near the city of Moscow, which was equipped with all the technology that was produced in the West. There was a VCR, record players, a coffee maker, a toaster. We were supposed to feel like residents of some Western city.
Clothes are also a separate conversation, because there was a separate problem. We were not allowed to have any clothes that were produced in the Soviet Union. In general, we could not take any objects that surrounded us with us when we left for work.
And we had a special trip organized for us, a trip to West Berlin. At that time, Germany was still divided, but, having arrived in East Berlin, we were taken to West Berlin for a day, for one day, and we had to buy all the equipment, as we called it, in one department store.
In general, buy clothes that would last us for a certain period, the initial period, until we got used to it and got to our permanent place of residence, there we would start buying things from local stores. I remember there was also a knitted sweater and a blue jacket that I wore. Well, for us, of course, it was also a unique experience, because we found ourselves in a completely different store, which was not like our Soviet one, where we could calmly touch things, try them on.
And no one was watching us. And, in general, for us, of course, it was also new.

Interviewer:
Of all the places that have recently brought the journalist to glasnost, this was and remains the most secret.

How the legend of a life never lived is created.
Intelligence officer:
At first, when an intelligence officer starts working, he, of course, has such a rather limited legend. And, of course, you had to imagine where you lived, what friends you had in childhood, imagine your school. We had to find some specific addresses, go to these places, see if there was a school, maybe it is no longer there.
And this would have been the best option, when you could say that you studied there, and then it was disbanded or rebuilt. In general, so that there would be no, let's say, any connection to this place. But, nevertheless, it was necessary to study at least the street, the approaches, some interesting architectural details of the place where you spent your childhood. This was the beginning of the legend.
Then it began to throw in some specific elements in which we already lived. Moreover, we began our work separately, separately. We even went to Canada to different places and at different times in order to protect each other, of course. And then, when we already... Each of us settled separately, we began to create a legend of our acquaintance.
Already, you could say, not even a legend, but a more truthful story. So that it would be clear that first we met, then we decided to get married, and our family was formed in this way, already, well, you could say, before the eyes of our few friends who were at that time.

Interviewer:
And here is a photo from the second wedding of Elena Vavilova and Andrey Bezrukov. Or rather, the wedding of Tressie and Donald, native Canadians.

We played the role of born but dead babies.
Intelligence officer:
My name was Tressie Lee Ann Foley. That's three names and the last name Foley. And my husband's name was Donald Harvard Heathfield. Two first names and a last name. And we didn't choose these names, they were given to us. There was a system in Canada when death and birth were not combined into one database. It helped, and our intelligence services used it.
Not an isolated case, this is already a classic of our intelligence, about assigning names to doubles. That is, we played the role of real born babies, but who did not live long, in general, they died.
But the task was to quickly get used to the society where we had to work, get certain documents, which we naturally lacked, and then start getting to know our neighbors, look for work. This was also important, because you couldn’t just live without explaining what money you lived on. At first, the center helps, and then it’s our job to provide for ourselves in order to maintain this super secrecy, so that no one would guess that you have some kind of second, double life.

I could have been given away by a smallpox vaccination.
Intelligence officer:
The most important thing for an intelligence officer is to be able to explain any inconsistencies in his, perhaps, legend, perhaps some details of his appearance. Well, for example, Atospa’s scar was quite visible for us, while the Canadians or the West did it more carefully and not on the outside of the arm.
What should have been done in this case? It was necessary to come up with an explanation for this. The same thing, for example, with fillings, which we had for a long time, amalgams, these are dark fillings, and in the West they have been making light, white ones for a long time, which were not visible.
The main thing is to find the right explanation. And in my case, I said that as a child I lived with my parents in an African country, where dental materials were not so good, and so it happened that I had so many fillings that were not light. And the same thing with the scar, that I was vaccinated this way, and my parents did not watch it.
So much was told about this and retold to other people. We began to believe in it ourselves. And such a transformation happened. This very legend was somehow becoming reality itself.

On what money the intelligence officers lived abroad.
Interviewer:
The couple lived in Canada for several years. During this time, they received higher education and began to work. Tressie and Donald even founded a company selling diapers. Here is an article about this business in a local newspaper. The couple's sons were also born in Canada - Alex.

Intelligence officer:
Then, when we moved to France, before moving, we sold our business. And this allowed both others to explain, and ourselves to have enough money to pay for education at the next university. Moreover, in our financial reports, which we made and sent to the ciphers, we had to indicate how much we earned, and all the money we earned, they, in general, belonged to our state, Russia.
We could not even use everything we earned in our reports, even for ourselves. This is a kind of rule that had to be followed so that a person does not get carried away with making money.
And in return, we were entitled to a certain amount, which, well, as it was considered, was our salary.

Interviewer:
In the States, the family settled in Cambridge. For all their new acquaintances, they were an example of the American dream coming true. Immigrants who had achieved great success.

Communication with politicians was one of the main goals of the work.
Intelligence officer:
Of course, I cannot talk about the assignments, because it would be a violation of the rules of secrecy in intelligence, and, in general, I have no right. I can say in general terms that, yes, several people were studied for recruitment to work for our intelligence. There were cases when we needed to understand and find out whether a person was a representative of the special services, for example, the American special services.
There were such assignments, but basically we ourselves were looking for information and purposefully went where it could be. And these are always people, so we strove to be effective in finding those people who influence the formation of US policy. And that is why we were targeting some university, an educational institution where these people could be.
And Harvard University became such a university. And ultimately, in general, this plan turned out to be effective and interesting from the point of view of implementation and reaching those people who, by the way, some of them still form the policy of the United States.

Interviewer:
The main goal of Russian intelligence officers abroad is communication with high-ranking people. It is precisely such contacts that can provide information important for the country. For example, one of Donald's classmates is...

Intelligence officer:
This is the former president of Mexico, Filippo Kelderon. Of course, intelligence always has a certain center that coordinates tasks for all intelligence officers. And those people who work, for example, in Latin America, they can also receive assignments to collect information concerning American politics. And there should be no connection between people who work under such covers.
This is a guarantee that they will all be safe, and no one will be able to pose a threat to another person. Therefore, there is never such a connection between illegals.
And this is right, this is what helps to work calmly, understanding that no one can give you away, except for treason, which has already been found, as they say, elsewhere.

FBI evidence. Exposing Russian spies.
Interviewer:
The FBI published one photo during the investigation. In these images, Richard Murphy, one of the Russian intelligence officers, encrypted a message. And here are the negatives found by the FBI in a hiding place in Boston. The information on them is secret, so it is covered in black. Next is a secret letter. Here is another interesting find. A 27-digit password.

Intelligence officer:
In fact, the fewer spy gadgets and devices you have, the calmer you are. That's why they tried not to burden us with all these tools. We had a radio, and the radio receiver looked like a completely ordinary household radio receiver. We had small cipher pads, which also didn't look like anything special.
And that's about it. We didn't have any special equipment to protect us from any suspicious moments.

Interviewer:
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation had been monitoring Russian illegal agents for a long time. Their specialists collected evidence of direct transmission of secret data.
A traitor in the Russian rear revealed the locations of hiding places, where the Americans later installed hidden cameras. For example, here is Michael Zatoli taking a package from a secret place.

How spies make caches.
Intelligence officer:
We could have picked up a cache and sent this information to someone, and they could have given us a place that was designated for a cache. Some kind of container is always used, where either paper media or some information is placed, for example, an ordinary brick or stone. In general, the object must be such an unsightly one.
Well, another such classic example, probably, is a Coca-Cola can. And then it is placed in a certain place. The main thing is that it is somewhere not in plain sight, it must be hidden. And this place is described further. The person who places it does it first, then he sets a signal, a sign, gives a sign that the container is there, in place, and we already go at another time, also a certain hour or day, and take it from there.
And there was even such an interesting case when the container was in a park area, and we went there with the children, and, in general, it depicts that we are digging in the ground with the children, showing them something, looking for something.
At the same time, one parent covers, and the other digs in a certain place, and they took out the container that was already there. In general, we used an ordinary everyday scene in order to complete the task.

The parents and children did not know what we were doing.
Interviewer:
The children of Russian intelligence officers did not suspect who their parents really were. They never met their relatives and considered themselves Canadians.

Intelligence officer:
Of course, we could not tell either our parents or even our closest relatives about what we were doing. They had their own legend. According to this legend, we were translators and worked in different organizations. Of course, it was possible to come on vacation from time to time, and we, one by one, me, then my husband, would come and visit our parents.
But this, of course, was a problem. Because it was probably hard for the parents themselves to live for many years without being able to communicate directly with us. We had to explain that we work in an organization that does not welcome frequent communication. And the birth of our son, and how we named our first son, then the second, all this our parents received by telegram from our colleagues already in Moscow.
Accordingly, we reported in code that a boy was born on such and such a date, they named him Alexander. We did not speak Russian and tried to avoid even Russian-speaking people around us. There was such an interesting episode when our sons got carried away with video games.
And there was a game, it still exists, quite famous, Call of Duty. And there was an episode, I think it happened in Afghanistan. There were Russians and locals, so they fought, they played for the Russians. And when the game was over and they won, as, you know, the one who won, the anthem sounds for them.
And the anthem of the Soviet Union sounded in our house. Imagine, the children are playing in a large room, and suddenly we hear, I am in the kitchen, my husband, probably in his office, hears the anthem of the Soviet Union, for no apparent reason, playing loudly in our house. Well, and, in general, we did not react to it at all, of course. Well, it sounded, it sounded.
And it was even interesting that during these games our children repeated some words. Well, simple ones, like, "Hello", "Come on", "Come on". Or "Yes", "No". Things like that. And they said it, naturally, with an accent.

The arrest of Russian spies. The husband was smiling.
Interviewer:
The family of illegal agents lived in the States for more than 10 years. They lived in this house in their last years in Cambridge. FBI agents arrested Elena Vavilova and Andrey Bezrukov on June 27, 2010.

Intelligence officer:
We spent the first night in a police station... I spent the night in a police station, I didn't know where my husband was. And then we met the next day in the courtroom. And what's interesting is that we saw each other while waiting to enter the courtroom. And when I saw him, he was smiling, and I came out in a rather sad mood, and suddenly I see him standing there smiling.
He was in a very optimistic mood. And indeed, this helped me to perceive it a little in spirit. And his unbending, probably some kind of inner will, strength, it also helped him, and he began to discuss specifically what kind of lawyer we would use, what we needed to do and how we should give such instructions to the children.
We entered the courtroom, and our children were there. And I managed to say literally a few phrases to them in French, so that not everyone would understand, I said, leave, because we did not want them to remain in the city under siege by journalists and helicopters around.
And then we told them that, in my opinion, I said a phrase that this is treason, do not think that we did something wrong. But they, of course, did not understand any of this, because they did not know at all what we were doing. But it was interesting with my husband. He was very... And he later admitted that he believed that we would be exchanged someday, even after 5 years, and that our main task now was to go through the trial.
The punishment was serious. For those charges that were brought against us, in general, up to 35 years in prison was assumed. Because there were several charges, working for a foreign state, espionage, money laundering. In total, 35 years totaled up.

Who betrayed the intelligence officers.
Interviewer:
Who betrayed you?

Intelligence officer:
And the traitor turned out to be a person who knew us and our colleagues, which is why our entire group of arrestees was arrested. He worked in the center, in Moscow. And at a certain point, he went over to the American's side. He probably knew everyone who was working in the United States of America at the time. Because he had, in general, access to all of our documents in Moscow.
And even as far as the arrest and possible interrogation, suspicion, all of this was worked out, thought out. And we even had a planned escape route from the country, an exit. We knew where to go, where we had our spare documents. I don't think that in our case, even if we had tried to do it, we would have been able to do it.
It was already too late. Then, when we realized that something strange was happening around us. We began to suspect, seriously suspect that something was happening around us literally a few days before the arrest.
Under such a far-fetched pretext, they took our car away for one day, because, apparently, it was necessary to install equipment there, naturally, to monitor our movements, we must give them credit, they behaved very carefully, understanding that if they began to act somehow more actively, we would notice it. Here, in fact, it was a game of professionals against professionals.
And if they had done something stupid a little earlier, perhaps we would have made some attempts to leave or somehow escape from all this.

What does an American interrogation look like?
Interviewer:
What did an American interrogation look like?

Intelligence officer:
Our American interrogation did not look very good, generally speaking, it was scary. And the threats, generally speaking, were quite respectful. Here, too, it probably played a role that they understood that they were talking to professional people, much like we would talk to a career intelligence officer from the USA. Therefore, the first interrogation, of course, was an accusation.
They wanted to show that they knew everything. We understood that we should not say anything. We refused. But I immediately refused to talk and demanded a lawyer. In general, everything was quite correct, except, of course, for the manner itself. You had to be in handcuffs, in shackles. You were not left alone for a minute. They even escorted me to the ladies' room and watched me there.
Therefore, such a rather serious situation was in terms of formalities, and in terms of the conversation itself, in general, everything was quite correct. Later in prison, of course, it was more difficult, because the situation there was also difficult, solitary confinement. In order to go somewhere, for example, to meet with a lawyer, you had to go through many checks, where they checked you from head to toe, you had to undress, show everything.
Naturally, the prison clothes were huge. Shoes without laces. In a solitary confinement cell, you were not allowed to have hot drinks. And food was passed to you through a small window that opened.

The finale of a spy scandal.
Intelligence officer:
Several weeks and suddenly a lawyer shows up accompanied by our Russian diplomat.
In my prison, at a meeting, on a date. And, in general, they say there that soon I will be free.

Television:
On the airfield of the Vienna airport, two planes are parked next to each other. The television cameras filming the finale of the spy story record how a group of people descend the steps, get into a black minivan and drive to the American plane. Then the minivan returns, and another group, larger, boards the Russian airliner. Immediately after this, the liners taxi to the runway and take off into the sky one after another.

The song "A Glass of Vodka on the Table" was a revelation for us.
Intelligence officer:
In Vienna, our plane landed at the same time as another plane that arrived from Moscow. There were four of our fellow citizens on it, who were just named as Americans for exchange. They got them. In exchange, we were returned to
our homeland. It is interesting that in 25 years we had completely fallen out of the cultural background of our country, and we did not know any modern singers, or modern actors, or films that were discussed and known. The songs of Grigory Leps, for example, were, in general, unknown to us. "A glass of vodka on the table." This, of course, was a discovery for us. Friends had to be won again, sought again. This also took some time, we understood that we had to surround ourselves with people with whom we were interested.
And we did this, already having experience, probably, infiltrating other societies. Again, it helped that we started working, we joined teams. I started working at the Norilsk Nickel company, where I still work. And it helped me find a team, people around me. The cigar club was one of the places where we, you could say, very quickly met many interesting people.
Now, of course, a certain amount of time has passed, when we got used to it, and, finally, the Russian language has become our first language. But sometimes we still switch to English, because it is easier. It is easier for us to discuss some topics in English, well, things that concern American politics, for example, or geopolitics.
We always have this tendency to switch to English. And if we talk about some, say, culinary, some French dishes, we can speak French.

Interviewer:
Your sons, how did they adapt to Russia?

Intelligence officer:
The sons have adapted to Russia normally. That is, they finally saw the real Russia and saw that people are not all that bad, but that there are many warm-hearted, wonderful people. They were very struck by the beauty of our girls. And having learned Russian, of course, they already understand both the culture and our essence. They criticize some things. That we do not always follow the laws, we always try to get around the rules somehow and find some extraordinary solutions.
But overall, they have integrated well, they speak Russian, and they live and work in Russia peacefully. Of course, we miss our work. We believe that our conscious life was spent in intelligence. And, of course, we would be interested in continuing our career as long as possible.
Unfortunately, it was cut short. But from time to time we think that we could still be useful now if we had stayed there and worked, and were still active intelligence officers.