U.S. Spy Suspect Is Swapped to Russia, Reportedly Will Return to Peru
By Alex Galbraith
Vicky Peláez, prominent Spanish-language journalist arrested as an agent of the Russian government, was expelled to Russia July 9 along with nine other suspects, including her husband, Juan Lázaro.
They were exchanged for four persons jailed in Russia on charges of working for the U.S. government.
Among 11 people rounded up June 27 by the FBI, Peláez, 55, stands out. The Peruvian native, who has dual U.S. Peruvian citizenship, worked as a columnist for El Diario La Prensa in New York City for 20 years after four years reporting for the Peruvian network Frecuencia Latina. She was the only one living in the United States under her real name.
Quoting her lawyer, Carlos Moreno, El Diario reported July 12 that Peláez plans to return to Peru when her papers are in order. That should take at least a month. reported Peruvian radio station RPP.
Moreno said the Russian government has already provided Peláez with a Moscow apartment and offered her a $2,000 monthly pension for life.
While Peláez’s El Diario columns were often extremely leftist, extolling the virtues of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, her colleagues at El Diario expressed shock at the charges.
“I thought it was a joke,” said fellow columnist Gerson Borrero. “Nothing…would indicate to me that she was a part of this.”
Peláez and her husband were arrested June 27 following a multi-year FBI investigation known as the “Illegals Program.” According to court documents, the program tracked persons suspected of collecting information for the SVR, the intelligence arm of the Russian government and the successor to the Soviet KGB. An e-mail intercepted by FBI agents laid out the alleged spies’ purpose: “You were sent to the USA on a long-term service trip. Your education, bank accounts, car, house, etc. — all these serve one goal: fulfill your main mission, to search and develop ties in policy-making circles in U.S. and to send (intelligence reports to Moscow Center).”
The FBI claims that those arrested were trained by the Russian government in espionage techniques such as “brush-passes,” clandestinely handing off a package on the street, and “steganography,” the process of encrypting data and hiding it in image files.
Peláez and Lázaro regularly visited South America, where FBI agents claim they transferred messages with Russian
officials in a park.
“I believe that during Peláez’s most recent visit to South America, she received $80,000 for hers and her husband’s work on behalf of the Russian government,” said Maria Ricci, a special agent assigned to the case.
Peláez was videotaped receiving bags in a South American park and when she returned to her Yonkers, N.Y., home, wiretaps recorded the couple counting a large sum of money. Lázaro had also been videotaped in the same park meeting with Russian officials.
While Lázaro has lived in the United States, he has claimed to be a Peruvian citizen born in Uruguay.
However, wiretaps caught him talking about his childhood, saying in 2002 that “when the wars started…we moved to Siberia.”
Stacking intrigue on intrigue, a July 12 RIA Novosti dispatch out of Mexico City stated that Peláez’s husband isn’t really Juan Lazaro from Uruguay, but “is reportedly a 66-year-old Russian Mikhail Vasenkov from Siberia” and “Peláez “said she had no idea her husband of 30 years was Russian.”
It added the tidbit that their 17-year-old son “is expected to remain in the United States with his 38-year-old half-brother, Peláez’s son from a previous marriage.”
On Jan. 8, 2003, Lázaro was recorded instructing Peláez how to pass messages to her Russian contacts, FBI agents claim.
Russian officials initially denounced the charges as “Cold War-era spy stories” but have since backtracked, claiming no valuable intelligence was received.
Because no truly damaging secrets were gleaned from their operations, Peláez and Lázaro along with the others were charged with conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign government as opposed to the much heavier charges of espionage or treason.