Anna Chapman

Biography

Anna Vasilyevna Chapman (Russian: А́нна Васи́льевна Ча́пман; born Anna Vasilyevna Kushchenko, 23 February 1982) is a Russian former intelligence agent, media personality, and model who was arrested in the United States on 27 June 2010 as part of the Illegals Program, a Russian spy ring. At the time of her arrest, she was accused of espionage on behalf of the Russian Federation's external intelligence agency, the Sluzhba vneshney razvedki (SVR). She had previously gained British citizenship through marriage, which she used to gain residency in the U.S. Chapman pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government. She and the other Russians were deported to Russia on 8 July 2010, as part of the 2010 Russia–U.S. prisoner swap. Learning that Chapman had wanted to return to the United Kingdom, the UK government revoked her British citizenship and excluded her from the country. Since her return to Russia, Chapman has worked in a variety of fields, including for the government as head of a youth council, a catwalk model in Russian fashion shows, and running a television series.

== Early life == Chapman was born Anna Vasilyevna Kushchenko (А́нна Васи́льевна Кущéнко) on 23 February 1982. Her father, Vasily Kushchenko, was reportedly a senior KGB official who once served as the Russian ambassador to Kenya, and in 2010 occupied a senior position at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to her ex-husband, Anna earned a master's degree in economics with first class honours from Moscow State University. According to other sources, she got her degree from Peoples' Friendship University of Russia.

== Zimbabwe: 2001 == In 2001, Brighton DJ Marcus Read, aged 37, met Anna Kushchenko, who was 19, in a club while he was working on holiday in Harare, Zimbabwe. Anna Kushchenko persuaded Marcus Read to sign a form to formally invite her to the UK, which needed two other witnesses. Chapman then came to Britain in the summer. Anna Chapman told Marcus Read that her father was in the KGB. Anna was staying with her father, then Russian ambassador to Zimbabwe.

== London: 2001–2006 == In 2001, Anna Kushchenko and Marcus Read went to a rave party at his friend's warehouse flat in London Docklands, where Kushchenko met former public schoolboy from Bournemouth and 30-year-old trainee psychiatrist, Alex Chapman, who worked at Sony, and she "ditched" Marcus Read. They married shortly thereafter in Moscow, and she gained British citizenship, in addition to her native Russian one, and a British passport. In 2003, or 2004, Anna Chapman moved to London where she worked at NetJets and Barclays. Anna and Alex Chapman divorced in 2006. In March 2018, it was reported that Alex Chapman had died in May 2015, aged 36, from a drug overdose.

== New York: 2009–2010 ==

In 2009, Chapman moved to New York, taking up residence at 20 Exchange Place, one block from Wall Street in Manhattan. Her LinkedIn social networking site profile identified her as CEO of PropertyFinder LLC, a website selling real estate internationally. Her husband Alex stated that Anna told him the enterprise was continually in debt for the first couple of years. But suddenly in 2009, she had as many as 50 employees and a successful business. Chapman was reportedly in a relationship with Michel Bittan, a divorced Israeli-Moroccan restaurant owner, while she was living in New York. Around this time, she had allegedly attempted to purchase ecstasy tablets. She later described her time in the United States with the Charles Dickens quote, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times". After Anna was arrested in New York on charges of spying, Alex hired media publicist Max Clifford, and sold her story to The Daily Telegraph. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. Attorney General. In 2010 she was deported to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia.

== Illegals Program and arrest ==

Chapman is one of only two of the Illegals Program Russians arrested in June 2010 who did not use an assumed name.