A former Russian sleeper agent who spent years living in Westchester County before he was arrested in a spy-sweep that inspired the TV show “The Americans” has died, a new report said. He was 79.
Mikhail Vasenkov was one of 10 agents living undercover in the US who were busted in 2010, then deported in a widely reported spy swap with Russia.
Vasenkov’s death on April 6 was announced by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service earlier this month, but no cause was given.
The service praised Vasenkov for “creating and heading an illegal residency, which obtained valuable political information, which was highly appreciated,” according to a translation by The Moscow Times.
The notice said the spy had served in the special reserve of the PGU KGB in Soviet Russia and attained the rank of colonel in 2005, when he was aged out of military service.
That was six years before he was arrested while living with his family in Yonkers, and teaching as an adjunct political science professor at Baruch College. Using the name Juan Lazaro, the spy had claimed to have been born in Uruguay and a citizen of Peru.
He had met his wife, journalist Vicky Pelaez, in Peru in the 1980s. The couple was arrested alongside infamous spy Anna Chapman and others, then sent to Russia in a swap with four people who had been convicted of spying for the US.
Vasenkov, under the name Juan Lazaro, and his wife were arrested with four other people on spy charges. Sara GernsbacherVasenkov and his wife moved to Peru in 2013, according to the Times.
The FX show “The Americans,” which told the story of spies living in the suburbs, was inspired by the situation.
“That was absolutely the inspiration for the series,” series executive producer Joseph Weisberg told Time Magazine in 2013.
Vasenkov was living with his family in Yonkers and teaching as an adjunct political science professor at Baruch College at the time of his arrest. Robert Kalfus“Those spies are called ‘illegals,’ a type of spy that is somewhat unique to Russia’s intelligence service. They were the spies living among us. Some pulled off some real espionage of note, but more often, they would come over, open a business, and try to get a cover going.”
Vasenkov’s cover had even his stepson convinced.
“I still believe Juan Lazaro is from Uruguay,” Waldo Mariscal said after the arrest. “I never saw him speaking in Russian… I don’t know where that name came from.”
