Drew Hinshaw
Appearances
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
Nobody's perfect. It's in real life, you know, spies are human beings. And that's what happened here.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
He wears kind of silver neck chains and Armani scarves. And the joke is that he kind of dresses like the organized crime bosses that he normally investigates.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
This girl, until really a few minutes before, thought her parents were Argentinian citizens. The truth is, they were Russian spies who'd spent a decade, more, assembling an entirely fictitious life.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
The Slovenian wondered, what secret could be so sensitive that his British counterpart had to deliver it in person? Kadyvnik flew to London.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
The head of MI6 is referred to as C. It's kind of his code name. It dates back to the foundations of the spy agency. And C tells his Slovenian counterpart, you've got some Russian spies in your country. And he passes along a tip, but this tip is incredibly vague.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
Of all the foreigners in any given country, two of them are actually Russian spies, and you've got to find them.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
They did take a trip to Russia in 2018 to see Argentina play the World Cup.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
They didn't know anything about their parents, really.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
That was a trip for the mom to let the family meet their kids, you know, the grandparents, without the kids ever kind of picking up on what was really going on.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
Maybe they didn't want to leave any record on their Argentine passports that they'd been to Russia. Yeah. Because that would have been kind of alerting behavior like, oh, interesting.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
the newlyweds in that picture match the faces of two Argentinian parents living in the suburbs of the capital of Slovenia. So then the question becomes, if these two are Argentinians living in the suburbs, why is their picture, their wedding day picture, on a wall in central Russia? Huh.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
Nothing. Nothing. They were like ghosts. In the back of your mind, you're kind of like, who is this couple? What's going on with this?
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
And you have to imagine how nerve-wracking this is. These two are expert spies.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
You have guys bursting through windows. Officers are thundering through the house.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
Why are you doing America's bidding? Don't get involved in this. You don't want to get involved in this. And his message is really point blank. Let's make a trade. You need to give our people back. Give us our spies back.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
The Russians were meeting with the Americans saying, you know, basically saying, hey, we'd like to trade. Let's do a trade for these two. They could potentially be involved in a trade. And Evan's name was obviously in the mix for that.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
There's no red carpet, and out of the plane comes two journalists and a former Marine and a rock war veteran. And that's it. And the contrast, it's really striking. You can see Russia celebrating its spies and its assassins, and America's just sort of quietly receiving its two journalists and a veteran.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
There will be more August 1sts. They may not be as big, may not be as many countries, but this is by now just an established pattern of the way the world works. Every six months, a couple times a year, one country releases an ordinary American charged with trumped-up or spurious charges and exchanges them for somebody else, a money launderer, a sanctions buster, a spy.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
They are state media's idea of a patriotic Russian family.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
When she shows up, she's fully dilated. She's ready to give birth within the hour. And the doctor notices there's something a little bit weird.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
I think 10,000 babies. And this one stuck out of his mind just because he thought there was something really unusual and I couldn't put my finger on it at the time.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
He notices at one point that she seems really lonely. There's something about this woman that just doesn't seem spiritually well, the doctor says in his words.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
The doctor notices this couple, they're not FaceTiming or calling anybody. Like, normally when someone gives birth, you've got visitors, well-wishers, gifts even. Who knows? Especially in Argentina, you'd have lines of relatives of all types coming to say hi. And no one's coming to say hi to this family. Yeah.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
Yeah. The first lady off the plane is a mom.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
And said, I speak German. Send me out there. Send me out there.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
They picked up the birth certificates of children who died in their first months of life and used those birth certificates of dead babies and toddlers to pick up passports from Greece or Mexico or anywhere in the world. And they started to live lives as those individuals.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
They were really married in Russia in the 2000s, but they got married again in Argentina to create the paper trail.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
They get a new order from what's called the center, which is basically Moscow. It's time to go to Slovenia.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
It's in the middle of Europe's passport-free zone, so you can get in a car and drive all the way through Germany, France, Spain, Italy, wherever you want to go, and nobody's going to stop you and look at your passport.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
Yeah, we talked to their neighbors, all kinds of their people from their school community. And I mean, Joe and I have been journalists for, I don't know, maybe 15 years or more at this point. And we're pretty used to showing up and doing what we call vox pops with the neighbors. Stuff happens. You go, hey, do you know this guy?
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
And in my career, I've rarely met someone who just nobody remembered anything interesting about at all. Nothing. Nothing.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
Maria ran an art gallery. His story, he ran an IT firm.
The Journal.
Inside the Hunt for Putin’s Sleeper Agents
The US obviously has incredible ability to eavesdrop on our phones and emails and everything else. But leaving a rock in the woods of Slovenia, how are we going to find that?