She really was a Bond girl.
Hot-bodied Russian spy babe Anna Chapman was outfitted with a $2,300 Chanel bag featuring a hidden, high-powered Wi-Fi device so she could secretly communicate with her Moscow-led overseers.
The bag, still in FBI custody, is expected to join a bevy of other Chapman goodies going on display as part of an exhibition about spies and their gizmos that opens today at Discovery Times Square.
“If she had been here another six months, Anna Chapman could have become the most dangerous spy in American history,” said spy-book author and former CIA operative H. Keith Melton, who is curating the exhibition.
The FBI says that Chapman, wearing sunglasses, passed sensitive information to an undercover agent in a New York coffee shop. (AP)
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Anna Chapman (E2WNEWS)
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“She could access anyone,” he said.
Melton believes Chapman was well on her way to severely compromising US business interests until she foolishly handed off her Toshiba laptop — chock full of sensitive information — to an FBI informant posing as a Russian agent.
The laptop exchange came during a meeting at the Starbucks at 10 Hanover Square in the Financial District the day before she was taken into custody in June 2010, when she complained that the computer didn’t work properly, and the “Russian” agent — who told her that his name was “Roman” — offered to have it fixed for her at the Russian Consulate.
Melton owns or gained access to most of the hundreds of pieces of spy paraphernalia on display in the exhibit — including one titled “Anna Chapman’s Laptop.”
He described the sexy Russian as so friendly, personable and beautiful that her mission of gaining access to wealthy or influential American businessmen was a snap.
After gaining their trust, the modern-day Mata Hari would hand off information about the men to her handlers, who would then decide if their businesses were worth targeting for espionage to help boost Russia’s efforts to become a global economic powerhouse.
When she met with the fake Russian “Roman,” Chapman had never even met face-to-face with any of her real Russian handlers.