When an alleged Russian spy, under cover in New York City as a merchant banker, had 30 FBI agents show up at her apartment with a battering ram, she speed-dialed convicted operative Maria Butina. It seems to federal prosecutors that 61-year-old Elena Branson used her dual U.S./Russian citizenship to run a “Russian propaganda center” which was supposedly “communicating directly with President Vladimir Putin.”
Well connected spy
Ms. Branson recently appeared on a chat broadcast, flung out over the airwaves by Russian state broadcaster RT, where she related all the dirty details of the FBI raid and “recalled how Butina had been one of the first people she’d contacted.”
Butina was also part of the broadcast and they soon started swapping spy stories. One of the nuances of the Russian language is that different verbs are used when speaking to friends and acquaintances. Those are the kind Branson used, jabbering away like they were best friends. Agents had a bunch of pointed questions for her.
At the time, Branson was a chairperson with KSORS, which is what they call the “Russian Community Council of the USA.” The building manager is glad they knocked before using the battering ram.
As soon as she opened the door, “there were about 30 FBI agents standing on the doorstep, all of them dressed in uniform, carrying guns and wearing bulletproof vests, and armed with a battering ram.” Well, Hello there. They served the alleged spy “with a search warrant and a warrant allowing them to detain me if they so decided. They then asked me to leave and spent the next several hours searching the apartment.”
By the time they left, they carted off 34 separate electronic devices, “including 11 cell phones.” She buys them by the dozen. Some came from her home and some from “the Russian Center of New York’s Manhattan office.”
The accused spy relates “They took away all the iPhones, all the iPads, 3-4 computers that I had. They seized all the documents that were related to taxes and KSORS’ activities.”
DOJ announces charges
On Tuesday, March 8, The Department of Justice announced charges against Branson, “alleging she illegally worked as a spy for the Russian government since at least 2011.”
They hit her with “six counts, including acting as an agent of a foreign government while failing to notify the Attorney General, failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, conspiring to commit visa fraud and lying to the FBI.”
Master spy Maria Butina did her time and now she’s free. A quick 15 months in prison after prosecutors cut her a deal.
She got busted “trying to infiltrate influential conservative political circles before and after the 2016 election.” She also helped Branson find a lawyer.
The reason Branson left New York so suddenly was a simple one. “Branson fled the U.S. in fall 2020 because she was ‘scared’ and thought she would be arrested.”
It turned out that the primary aim of the Russian Center and KSORS wasn’t cultural events. It was to “illegally-lobby US politicians to promote Russian interests.” In other words, a spy shop.