Russian Spies stole identities of dead infants, possibly more

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by AsianStew, Jul 29, 2022.

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  1. AsianStew

    AsianStew Moderator Staff Member

    Wow, that's one in a few million or billion of a chance they went that far for so long too! They cleared some special clearances that are needed for government jobs, I wonder how!

    And how can their attorney say it's government overreaching when they stole identities of others, how can they be "law abiding citizens"?! How can that person even be a lawyer!

    Link: Couple stole identities of 2 dead Texas infants, prosecutors claim (msn.com)
     
  2. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    The attorney says the pictures of them in the KGB uniforms was not what it seems. They said it was one uniform they took turns trying on and taking pictures in (playing around). Honestly, that was my impression. The uniform doesn't appear to fit her well and it seems to be the same jacket (same badges placed the same). May have passed secrets, etc but the pictures looked odd. Plus what secret operative would leave photos lying around of themselves in KGB uniforms.

    Perhaps doing nefarious things and wannabes at the same time.
     
  3. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    And wouldn't be the first spies with delusions of Bond like suaveness and cloak and dagger that the Soviets/Russians manipulated. Here's one uniform but you have to to share it. Part of the 5 year austerity plan by Comrade Brezhnev.
     
  4. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    It certainly looks like a Government agency that checks people for security clearances bungled badly. Maybe some higher-order officials should re-investigate the employee(s) who issued clearances to "Mr. Primrose" and "Ms. Morrison." Might be an Axact degree or two in here somewhere. Do Primrose and Morrison claim any degrees? Did the Government security people claim any - those who approved their clearance? :)
     
  5. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

  6. Garp

    Garp Well-Known Member

    Not just Mossad. The article says everyone is using Canadian passports.

    "Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian al-Qaeda foot soldier and member of Montreal's notorious Islamic jihadist cell, applied for and was issued a Canadian passport in 1999 in the name of a long-deceased Quebec infant as he prepared for the Millennium bombing attack intended to blow up Los Angeles airport."

    Etc, etc
     
  7. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    Is Canada just really lax about passport requirements or something? Getting my US passport in the first place was a huge hassle, even though it was supposed to be simple.
     
  8. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Evidence would tend to support that - at least in the past. Don't expect admissions from anyone involved, though. Canada is known for polite apologies - but I don't think we'll be hearing one for that, anytime soon.
     
    Last edited: Jul 31, 2022
    Rachel83az likes this.
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Before the information age it used to be not that difficult in the US to find an infant who had been born in one county but passed away young in another, obtain its birth certificate, and use that as a the gateway to all other documents. I believe it's no longer so simple.
     
    Dustin likes this.
  10. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    This technique is called the paper chase, or paper chasing. Birth certificates are no longer released by Vital Statistics agencies to people other than the family in most cases which cuts down on the ability of people to do this. The Death Master File (DMF) maintained by the SSA also includes people who died abroad, though I'm assuming you're not on it until you have a Social Security Number. I watched a documentary about a guy in the late 90s who ran a variety of cyber-crimes in the nascent internet, one of which involved stealing the identity of dead people in California and filing tax returns for them, collecting the returns by withdrawing them from hundreds of bank accounts he had established.

    Even that late, the IRS wasn't cross-referencing their files with the DMF to identify obvious fraud. I assume now it's a lot more computerized.
     
  11. nomaduser

    nomaduser Active Member

    Russians still send spies lol
    This is 2022. They still think communism can beat capitalism?
     
  12. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member

    This reminds me the Cleveland2 project.
    Russians built a replica of a US City were children growing up exposed to US culture, attending US replica schools. Exposed to US media and basically rasing US English native like speakers for infiltration in to US.
    I would not be surprised if they used stolen US children identities.
    They attended US colleges to complete their "Americanization" then infiltrated military, government and other critical US facilities.


    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40367736.amp
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2022
  13. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member

    We Found Photos of Creepy Fake American Towns Built By The Soviets To "Understand America"

    Imagine Fords and Chevrolets, parked with the windows down, in a drive-in movie theater advertising Western previews; imagine poodle-skirted girls sipping milkshakes at their local diner while their letterman-clad dates sauntered off to put Buddy Holly on the Jukebox. This scene seems straight out of 1950s middle America, until you realize none of it is real – it's 1959, and you're in the fake American KGB town of Vinnytsia, Ukraine.

    Vinnytsia may be a booming, modern metropolis in the 21st century, but that wasn’t always the case. The top-secret town was part of KGB training, which taught deep cover spies how to play American during the Cold War so that they could infiltrate the country without raising suspicions.

    Vinnytsia raises so many questions: did America have secret replica Soviet towns to do the same? How many of these spies came into America without any of us batting an eye? Here's a close look at the eerie, fake American town resting in the middle of a war-ready Soviet Union.

    Photo: Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY

    • Travel Restrictions Made Vinnytsia Necessary – Otherwise, How Could A Spy Learn About American Life?
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      Photo: YouTube
      From 1954 to 1991, the KGB was the main security agency for the Soviet Union (it disbanded at the end of the Cold War). While their training was thorough throughout the '50s, the agency ran into one problem. The USSR's intense Cold War travel restrictions made it impossible for spies to experience actual American life. Most of what they knew about the western world was from what they saw on TV or in movies. To immerse recruits fully into American life before they were sent to America to blend in with the local Midwesterners, the KGB created Spy Schools. These training camps were located in specially constructed towns made to mimic English and American life.



    • The Soviet Union Enlisted Retired Agents To Play Along
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      Photo: YouTube
      To help deep agents in their training, the KGB employed the best linguists from all over the Soviet Union (you couldn't let a Russian accent slip). They also hired retired deep cover agents to pose as Americans in these towns and teach the trainees what it was like to be born and bred in the United States or UK.

      In the above photo, you can see an ex-spy posing as an American-looking police officer and talking to a suited man over a coin-slot parking meter. This small detail of American life is so easy to overlook, but the details – like the usage and lingo of the parking meter – were essential to acquire in order to pose as a someone born in the USA.



    • The Homes Mimicked A 'Typical' American Suburb
      Photo: YouTube
      The Soviets' fake American town was pretty spot on – ranch houses sprawled out in tract housing developments that perfectly captured the expanding suburbs of the American middle class. Still, everything was just a little bit off – it looked new, not lived in. Blocks, bookended with English street signs, were clean and pristine like a movie set.



    • Except Apparently The Suburb Had No Middle-Aged Residents
      Photo: YouTube
      Like something straight of the Netflix series Between, KGB training towns like Vinnytsia had an eerie youthfulness about them. It was almost as if every middle-aged resident disappeared in the middle of the night. In reality, spies had to be at their physical peak, so those being trained were often not much older than 30. In Vinnytsia, everyone – including businessmen and police officers
    © Ranker 2022
    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]
     
  14. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    The disappearance of David Sneddon disturbs me. He was a BYU student, conversational in Mandarin and Korean in addition to his native English. He was visiting China and he was last seen visiting a restaurant known by locals to be owned by North Korea. He disappears. The Chinese say that he fell into Tiger Leaping Gorge near the restaurant, but provide no proof. Additionally, he had told people he was not headed for the gorge since he'd already been there on a hike since arriving in the area, but was actually headed back to his hostel when he disappeared. Later, multiple defectors independently provide a description of a man matching Sneddon's description teaching English to Kim-jong Un.

    https://www.newsweek.com/family-us-student-who-disappeared-china-looks-north-korea-summit-answers-967469
     
  15. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    This is 2022. Russia is oligarchical, not communist.
     

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