How Russian spy Anna Chapman used beauty & romance to trick pals & lovers – and why one still can’t believe he was duped

WITH her tumbling red hair, vivacious green eyes and sultry looks, 23- year-old Anna Chapman bewitched powerful men across London society. Rich businessmen, politicians and Russian oligarchs were all captivated by the beauty and intelligence of this alluring woman who had ­settled here from Russia. Russian spy Anna Chapman in a raunchy pose for her home country’s edition of men’s mag Maxim in 2012 Credit: East2West Agent Anna Chapman wrapped in fursCredit: Refer to Source Much later, it became clear that Anna’s good looks were masking a dark secret: she was a Russian intelligence agent who would eventually have the FBI on her tail when she moved to the United States. But in an exclusive interview with The Sun, financier Nicholas Camilleri reveals that more than 20 years after meeting her, he still struggles to comprehend that the glamorous woman who accompanied him on many nights on the town had the potential to get up to no good. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! Nicholas says: “I find it hard to believe she could be capable of being a spy. “She wasn’t doing that when she was in London with me. “People were enamoured with her. She knew what she was doing — she was a social climber. “She had very good looks and a very nice personality. She was charming. She was a listener, and she had a good sense of humour.” Like the plot from a James Bond novel, Anna’s extraordinary story is told in a new two-part Channel 4 documentary, Spy Next Door: The Anna Chapman Story. Her tale encompasses a whirlwind romance, the ruthless use of her charm to climb the social ladder and an eventual return to her homeland, where she was hailed a hero by Vladimir Putin. Most read in The Sun Arriving in the UK as a 20-year-old student in August, 2001, Anna Vasilyevna Kushchenko visited Brighton DJ Marcus Read, who she had met earlier that year during a trip to Zimbabwe where he was ­spinning discs. Recalling the night their paths first crossed, Marcus says: “At the end of the night this girl walked by, wearing a white hoodie. I could see a little cute face poking through. We kind of caught eyes and I ushered her over. “She was highly seductive. I hadn’t met any girls with that power. I realised she was Russian and that made the whole thing quite exciting. She gave me her number and told me her name. “Little did I know where this whole thing was going and how crazy it would get.” After returning from Africa, Marcus got a call out of the blue from Anna, who said she wanted to come to visit. When he met her at ­Heathrow, she had permission to stay here for 90 days. Marcus says: “She was wide-eyed and seemed really happy to be in London. “We were sharing the same bed on the first night. It was like we were meant to be together. Anna with Alex Chapman at their wedding in Moscow in 2002 Credit: Collect Anna next to Big Ben in London in 2009 Credit: East2West “The air of mystique she carried with her was consistent. I never really knew what was going on in her mind. The information I did have was minimal. “The only thing that struck me was when she told me her dad was in the KGB.” On a trip to London to a techno nightclub, Anna wandered off and got talking to a man named Alex Chapman, who worked at record label Sony. Promptly dumping Marcus, she moved in with Alex and they married on March 23, 2002. The pair enjoyed the party scene before she quickly moved on from him, too. Now, with British passport in hand, she started mixing with the elite and influential. “In the 2000s, London was a great place to be,” Nicholas recalls. “There was lots of money, and a big social circuit where we would go out every night of the week. “We would start out at a ­restaurant and then go on to nightclubs — Tuesday nights to Boujis, Wednesdays to Annabel’s, Thursdays to Tramp and Fridays to private parties.” At this time, the West was ­trying to put the Cold War behind it by thawing frosty ­relations with Russia. Putin was invited to both Downing Street and the White House. Nicholas says: “There were Russians everywhere — bankers, property owners, investors, hedge fund managers. “And there were lots of Russian women. “One night I organised a dinner and I invited a Mayfair socialite who showed up with this very beautiful Russian called Anna Chapman. “I was seated next to her and I found her very charming and intelligent. “Anna was working as a teller at Barclays Bank and she said that she wanted something more exciting, so I gave her a job as my personal assistant. My wife didn’t like going to business ­dinners with me so I used to take Anna to them as well as to nightclubs. “She liked socialising and dancing. She was good at meeting clients. “They were all enamoured by her, just like I was. DJ Marcus Read speaking in the documentary about first time he saw Anna Credit: Curious Films Financier Nicholas Camilleri made Anna his PA soon after meeting her Credit: Curious Films “She was very confident and she spoke very good English. “One night at a club I introduced her to Boris Berezovsky, who was Russia’s richest man. “A vocal critic of Putin, he had been forced to leave Russia by him. Boris had been sitting at the next table and he bought Anna a bottle of champagne. “After that he would take her to two-hour lunches every day, sending a limo to my office in Mayfair to collect her. “Anna never told me much about her personal life. “I just knew that she was ­married but separated. “Through her social endeavours she fell in love with this French guy — a very wealthy financier — and she quit her job and became his live-in girlfriend at his ­apartment in Mayfair. I lost touch with her after that.” In 2010, Anna moved to the US and attracted the attention of the FBI, who began daily surveillance of this young woman who they believed was posing as an online estate agent, selling New York City properties to Russians. Ed Foley, the federal agent who led the surveillance team, says: “She was pretty uneventful ­during the day at first. Just a normal 28-year-old going shopping at the store, doing yoga. “But at night it was a different story. She would get shuttled around in high-end limos, dressed to the nines, going to clubs that were VIP-only. “She was, in fact, quite literally in bed with some of the top Wall Street financiers, people who had influence in political circles, city planning, finance. She was very dangerous because she was ­mission-driven and did whatever it took with whomever it took to get whatever she needed for the betterment of the Russian intelligence service. “Seduction is the oldest trick in the book, right? She knew exactly what she was doing.” In 2010, Anna moved to the US and attracted the attention of the FBI Credit: AP:Associated Press Military personnel starting on the decontamination of areas in Salisbury, linked to the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal Credit: Alamy The FBI discovered Anna was one of ten deep-cover spies who were seemingly normal US ­citizens originally from Russia. The group, including Anna, were arrested simultaneously. The arrests led to one of ­history’s biggest spy swaps, with America flying all ten back to Moscow while Russia returned four high-level operatives who they had arrested for spying for the West. These included double agent Sergei Skripal, who settled in Britain and was later poisoned with nerve agent Novichok along with his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in 2018. He survived, but some other Russians were not so lucky. Back home in Russia, Anna became a celebrity. Putin saluted her. She was invited on to a TV chat show and posed on the cover of Maxim’s Russian edition in a swimsuit, holding a gun. But Putin was incensed by the deportment of his ten spies and the subsequent swap. A string of mysterious deaths then befell those he considered to be traitors and now living in the UK — falling from roofs, jumping in front of Tube trains, helicopter crashes, impalement on railings. Alexander Litvinenko, another outspoken critic of Putin then living in London, had warned his friend Boris Berezovsky that Putin was out to kill them both. In 2006, Litvinenko died from a large quantity of radioactive polonium, believed to have been put in his cup of tea. Seven years later, Berezovsky — Anna Chapman’s besotted lunch companion — was found dead with a ligature around his neck, on the bathroom floor of his mansion in Ascot, Berks. Anna’s former husband Alex Chapman died of a drug overdose in 2015. As for Anna herself, last October she was appointed head of the Museum of Russian ­Intelligence, which showcases the achievements of the country’s long-running espionage operations against the West. She had previously dabbled with work as a nutrition coach, running her own clothing brand as well as writing a book which was a mix of memoir and fiction. Marcus Read, meanwhile, still holds fond memories of Anna but has come to realise that he was likely just a means of getting to where she wanted. “Whatever happened between us was definitely real,” he says. “But maybe that was a stepping stone to get on her path to become a spy.” Spy Next Door: The Anna Chapman Story airs on Channel 4 on ­Wednesday and Thursday at 9pm. Comment now