For many years, Anna Chapman was a familiar presence in London’s elite circles, where she presented herself as an intelligent, attractive and highly sociable young woman.
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She spent time in the British capital’s most famous clubs and restaurants, while the people around her included businessmen, politicians and Russian oligarchs. Everything created the impression that she was building a privileged life, but her identity concealed a truth that would come to light only years later.
In reality, Chapman was a Russian intelligence agent. In 2010, she was arrested in the United States as a member of a Russian spy network, according to The Sun.
Her journey between London, Moscow and New York, her ties to billionaires and Wall Street financiers, and her involvement in one of the biggest spy exchanges since the Cold War have been revisited in Channel 4’s new two-part documentary, Spy Next Door: The Anna Chapman Story.
Her full name is Anna Vasilyevna Kushchenko, and she arrived in Britain in August 2001, when she was just 20 years old.
Before settling there, she met British DJ Marcus Read during a trip to Zimbabwe. He remembers their first meeting as unusual and says the young Russian woman had a special ability to attract attention.
In testimony given for the documentary, Read describes Chapman as exceptionally alluring and enigmatic. After she arrived in London, they began spending a great deal of time together and formed a romantic relationship within a short period.
According to Read, there was a mystery surrounding her that he never fully managed to understand. One of the few personal details Chapman had revealed to him was that her father had worked for the KGB.
During a night at a club, Anna met Alex Chapman, a Briton involved in the music industry. She ended her relationship with Read and began a relationship with Alex, whom she married in Moscow on March 23, 2002.
Their marriage did not last long. Meanwhile, Chapman continued to expand her network of acquaintances in London.
After obtaining a British passport, she began forming close ties with influential figures in the business and finance sectors.
Nicholas Camilleri, a financier who met her during that period, says Chapman worked as a cashier at Barclays Bank, although she aspired to a more dynamic lifestyle.
Camilleri offered her a job as his personal assistant and began including her in business dinners and social events.
In the early 2000s, the London circles in which Chapman moved consisted of investors, bankers, Russian oligarchs and people with vast fortunes.
The financier remembers her as a highly attractive, intelligent and self-confident woman who possessed a rare ability to communicate with others.
According to Camilleri, Chapman was a good listener, had a sense of humor and knew how to build social connections with ease.
Among the most powerful figures she met at the time was Boris Berezovsky, the immensely wealthy Russian oligarch who had become a critic of Vladimir Putin.
Camilleri says he introduced them during an evening at a nightclub. Berezovsky bought Chapman a bottle of champagne and, according to the financier, began seeing her regularly after that meeting.
He claims the oligarch sent a limousine to pick Chapman up from Camilleri’s office in Mayfair and invited her to lunches that could last up to two hours. At that time, she had told the financier that she was married but living separately from her husband.
Later, Chapman began a relationship with a wealthy French financier. She left her job and moved into his apartment in Mayfair, while some of her London acquaintances lost touch with her.
In 2010, she moved to the United States, where her life took a dramatic turn.
The FBI began monitoring her amid suspicions that she was part of a Russian spy network. In public, Chapman appeared to be involved in New York’s real-estate market, but U.S. authorities believed her activities served another purpose.
Federal agent Ed Foley, who led the surveillance team, has recounted that during the day she appeared to be like any other 28-year-old. Chapman went shopping, practiced yoga and engaged in ordinary daily activities, but according to him, her behavior changed at night.
In the evening hours, she traveled in luxury vehicles, dressed elegantly and visited exclusive venues, including clubs intended for VIPs.
Foley claims Chapman had developed contacts with influential people in finance and politics, while using her social skills to fulfill the objectives of Russian intelligence.
The FBI investigation found that she was one of 10 Russian agents who had infiltrated the United States.
All 10 agents were arrested in 2010 in a coordinated operation.
The arrests were followed by one of the biggest spy exchanges in modern history. The United States sent the 10 agents to Russia, while Moscow released four people imprisoned for spying on behalf of the West.
Among those released was Sergei Skripal, a former Russian intelligence agent who had served as an informant for Britain.
Skripal was later settled in Britain. In 2018, he and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury with the nerve agent Novichok, but both managed to survive.
When she returned to Russia, Chapman was not treated as a failed agent. On the contrary, she became a public figure.
Vladimir Putin publicly welcomed her, while Chapman began appearing on Russian television. She also posed for the Russian edition of Maxim magazine in photographs showing her with weapons.
Thus, from a secret agent who had lived among the Western elite, she became a well-known figure to the Russian public.
Her story also includes several Russian personalities whose lives ended tragically.
Boris Berezovsky, the oligarch with whom Chapman had had contact in London, was found dead in 2013 inside his residence in Ascot.
The circumstances of his death were considered controversial and fueled speculation for years.
Another well-known Russian, Alexander Litvinenko, a former intelligence officer and Kremlin critic, died in London in 2006 after being poisoned with polonium-210.
Chapman’s former British husband, Alex Chapman, also died in 2015 as a result of a drug overdose.
After returning to Russia, Chapman became involved in several professional fields. She worked as a nutrition coach, created a clothing brand and wrote a book combining personal memories with elements of fiction.
In October last year, she was appointed head of the Museum of Russian Intelligence, an institution that reflects the history and activities of Russia’s intelligence services.
Even today, the people who knew her during her years in London are trying to understand how the charming and sociable woman with whom they frequented restaurants, clubs and luxury events was simultaneously part of an intelligence operation.
