NYC Bank Employee Accused of Being Russian Spy: Feds

The FBI arrested a man they say is a Russian spy Monday in a Bronx parking lot, law enforcement officials tell NBC New York.

Evgeny Buryakov is charged in a criminal complaint with being an unregistered agent of the Russian government.

The court papers describe Buryakov as being an agent of the SVR, the foreign intelligence agency for the Russian Federation. Buryakov entered and remained in the U.S. as a private citizen under “non-official cover” and posed as an employee in the Manhattan office of a Russian bank.

Buryakov’s mission on behalf of the SVR was to gather intelligence on potential U.S. sanctions against the Russian Federation and U.S. efforts to develop alternate sources of energy, the court papers say.

Also charged in the criminal complaint are Igor Sporyshev, who had served as a Trade Representative in New York for the Russian Federation, and Victor Podobnyy, a former attaché to the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. Both Sporyshev and Podobnyy are believed to be in Russia.

Between 2012 and 2014, Buryakov and Sporyshev used coded language to signal they needed to meet and then met more than four dozen times at outdoor locations during which Buryakov passed bags, magazines and slips of paper to conceal the exchange of intelligence information.

Buryakov is expected to appear in federal court in Manhattan Monday afternoon. Attorney information for the man wasn't immediately available.

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