The Real Spy Story
Via Jorge Benitez at the Atlantic Council:
A former top Russian spy who defected to the U.S. after running espionage operations from the United Nations, Sergei Tretyakov, has died in Florida, his wife and a friend said Friday. He was 53.
Tretyakov's defection in 2000 was one of the most prominent cases involving Russia's intelligence agency in the past decade. Tretyakov later said his agents helped the Russian government steal nearly $500 million from the U.N.'s oil-for-food program in Iraq. He was 53 when he died, according to a Social Security death record.
[...] His widow, Helen Tretyakov [...] said she announced his death Friday to prevent Russian intelligence from claiming responsibility or "flattering themselves that they punished Sergei."
Helen Tretyakov said her husband warned U.S. authorities when he defected that Russia was expanding deep-cover operations. "He was aware that the part of the [Russian intelligence] budget for supporting illegals increased dramatically in the 1990s[.]"
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