The U.S. Department of Justice has confirmed that a spy swap took place in Vienna on Friday, after the Americans handed over 10 deported Russian agents in exchange for four other individuals.
Two planes landed at Schwechat airport within minutes of one another on Friday.
Within about 90 minutes, a Russian Yakovlvev Yak-42 reportedly took off with the 10 deported agents, while a Boeing 767-200 took off with four Russians who had confessed to spying for the West.
The U.S. plane travelled to RAF Brize Norton air base in southern England, where two of the four Russians were dropped off, according to a U.S. official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
All of the 14 people involved in the swap admitted to their activities in one way or another. In the U.S., the 10 agents entered guilty pleas; in Russia, the four released individuals signed confessions.
The people set free by the U.S. had been living under the names Anna Chapman, Tracey Lee Ann Foley, Donald Howard Heathfield, Juan Lazaro, Patricia Mills, Richard and Cynthia Murphy, Vicky Pelaez, Mikhail Semenko and Michael Zottoli. An 11th agent who went by the name Christopher R. Metsos was outed by the U.S. and arrested in Cyprus; however, he went on the lam after gaining bail. He is now wanted by Interpol.
Metsos was one of at least four of the captured agents who was using a fraudulent Canadian passport.
The four people released by the Kremlin include two Russian intelligence colonels and two others convicted of betraying Russia.
A lawyer for one of the Russia-bound agents said his client, Vicky Pelaez, had been offered a compensation package by the Russian government that included a $2,000 monthly payment for the rest of her life, as well as housing and help with her children.
Had Pelaez turned down the deal, she would have remained behind bars for years.
Among the freed Russian spies is Alexander Zaporozhsky, an ex-intelligence colonel who may have exposed information that led to the U.S. capture of Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames -- two convicted American spies whose names are synonymous with some of the worst intelligence breaches in U.S. history.
"This sends a powerful signal to people who co-operate with us that we will stay loyal to you," former CIA officer Peter Earnest said Friday. "Even if you have been in jail for years, we will not forget you."
According to the FBI website, Ames was a 31-year CIA veteran who was arrested on espionage charges in February 1994. Two months later pleaded guilty and the 69-year-old is currently serving a life sentence at the Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex in Pennsylvania.
Hanssen pleaded guilty to 15 espionage-related charges in February 2001. The former FBI agent had been spying for Russia for years. The 66-year-old is currently serving a life sentence at a prison in Florence, Colo.
Zaporozhsky had been serving an 18-year prison at the time of his release.
The other three Russians released by the Kremlin are Gennady Vasilenko, Sergei Skripal and Igor Sutyagin -- an arms control researcher whose family had indicated to the media that he was likely to be part of the pending spy swap.
The Sutgayin family also said he had been told he would be headed to London.
The New York Times reports that Vasilenko is a former KGB major. The Associated Press said he was in the midst of a three-year prison sentence, though it was not immediately clear why he was involved in the swap.
Skripal is a former Russian military intelligence colonel and he was in the midst of a 13-year prison sentence after being found of passing state secrets.
With files from The Associated Press
