US recruit turned down $40,000 offer to kill Russian dissident
The FBI disrupted Russian intelligence efforts to plan killings on US soil and around the world, according to statements from two bureau officials released alongside the Manhattan federal court indictment unsealed Tuesday.
James Barnacle Jr, who heads the FBI’s New York field office, said the bureau disrupted the plans “through relentless work” by members of the Russian intelligence services and their affiliates, whom he said “conspired to intimidate, threaten, or murder people on US soil and around the world.”
Darren Cox, head of the FBI’s Washington field office, cited “extraordinary work by multiple FBI field offices, components, and partner agencies that collectively disrupted Russia’s attempts to conduct violent acts in our nation’s capital and throughout the United States.”
According to a release from the FBI, a network of people working for the Russian Federation’s intelligence services has, since at least 2024, conspired to conduct and has conducted attacks and murders around the world, including within the United States. The release described the network as “one arm” of the Russian Federation’s apparatus designed to carry out external attacks, including murder, around the world.
The network previously focused on Russian dissidents and defectors, the release said, but most recently has shifted to targeting individuals in nations perceived to be allies of Ukraine.
The indictment also alleges that associates recruited in the network were solicited to carry out acts of terrorism against civilian and military infrastructure in European countries perceived to be aligned with Ukraine.
Among the specific allegations, the indictment says the network this summer recruited an individual based in the United States — identified in court filings as “US Resident-1” — to surveil and murder a prominent Russian dissident the network believed to be residing in the United States. US Resident-1 was sent to two locations associated with the targeted victim and given “explicit instructions on how to conduct surveillance,” according to the indictment, and was promised $1,000 and $1,500 to carry out the work.
After conducting the surveillance and providing multiple photographs and videos of locations associated with the intended victim to one of the men charged in the indictment, US Resident-1 turned down $40,000 that was offered to “eliminate” or “disappear” the target through murder.
When the offer was rejected, the member of the intelligence services who had made it tried to recruit multiple other people within the United States to do the job by offering them substantial amounts of money, the indictment said.
Cox said in the release that when the threat was first identified, the FBI’s Washington field office and its partners “moved quickly to disrupt the plot and hold the Russian government accountable for its actions.”