The Prettiest And Most Foolish Russian Spy

If you are living in New York City these days you have not been able to escape the news of the F.B.I. sting of that group of Russian spies that have been uncovered operating both in the city and in New Jersey. Easily the most interesting of the group is the 28 year old Anna Chapman (real name Anya Kuschenko) who's cover was to pose as a party girl/real estate agent while she spied for Moscow. Not only is she the most stunning looking of the bunch she may also have been the most dim witted too. According to court documents filed by the justice department in the case, which describe the day to day operations of the F.B.I. sting, Chapman not only did not seem to have the first clue that she was being followed but engaged in some truly ponderous and stunningly foolish behavior for a secret agent. When she was contacted by the F.B.I., who were pretending to be Russian Intelligence, she was not even suspicious that the call to set up a meeting came from someone other than her usual contact. A person in fact that she had never seen or heard of before. Later that day when they met at a coffee shop in Manhattan she began complaining that her laptop was having connection problems and she handed it over to the agent and asked him to have it fixed. The laptop contained all the information the F.B.I. needed about all of her communications back to Moscow. After the meeting was over Chapman left and again failed to notice that she was being tailed by other agents. She went into a Verizon store where she bought a new cell phone and a couple of prepaid phone cards. On her way down the street she quickly discarded the receipt. The agents recovered it from the trash can and found out that she gave a fake Russian name in order to buy the phone (Irine Kutsov) and a fake address (99 Fake Street). Giving a fake Russian name may not be the most clever idea if you are a Russian spy trying to hide the fact that you are a Russian spy. The silliness of the fake address is truly like someone asking to be caught. Her careless behavior is even more surprising when you consider that she holds a Masters Degree in Economics, her former husband has described her as having an I.Q. of 160, and she is believed to be able to fluently speak four languages. President Obama has said that this spy case is not going to effect the "Restart" that the President wants in U.S./Russian relations. The President knows that if we make a big case out of this thing the Russians are going to start rounding up American spies in Moscow and that would make the whole matter so not worth it.