At the federal courthouse in Manhattan, the conclusion of a spy swap deal reached between the US and Russian governments.
Ten suspected spies pleaded guilty to being unregistered foreign agents for Russia while living undercover in the United States and agreed to be deported back to Russia. In exchange, Russia agreed to release four people convicted of spying for Western countries and imprisoned, at least in one case, in harsh regions once housing the communist Gulag. The convicted agents in New York ranged from red-headed Russian Anna Chapman, whose nude pictures and racy sexual history have filled tabloids around the world, to Peruvian-American journalist Vicky Pelaez, who admitted to carrying a letter written in invisible ink. However, the ring appeared to have been amateurish and made little impact in the decade since being formed. Washington cited security and humanitarian grounds in allowing the agents, arrested June 27, to leave without serving a potentially five-year prison term.