SVR 'illegal' agent arrested in Canada

On November 14, 2006 a Russian agent pretending to be a Canadian ciziten Paul William Hampel was arrested at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport at about 6 p.m. just prior to boarding a plane departing Canada. When he was arrested, he had in his possession a fraudulent Ontario birth certificate, $7,800 CDN in five currencies, a shortwave radio, index cards with detailed notes about Canadian history, two digital cameras, three cell phones and five cell phone sim cards, some of them password-protected.

He was detained under a security certificate, signed by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg. According to the National Post, the certificate asserts that the individual "was a foreign national engaged in espionage, a member of an espionage organisation and 'a danger to the security of Canada.'" Specifically, he is suspected of being an agent in the SVR. According to Canadian authorities, Hampel had been undercover in the country for more than a decade.A Federal Court judge has found the certificate reasonable and ordered Hampel to be expelled from Canada.

In order to speed up the deportation, Federal Court Justice Pierre Blais made a deal with the accused to seal the man's real name because of concerns for the safety of his family. In exchange, Hampel will not contest deportation to his homeland.

Hampel has admitted through his lawyer "that he is not Paul William Hampel, that he is a Russian citizen, born on October 21, 1961, and that he has no legal status in Canada." He does not admit to being a spy. SVR has been denying any links with Hampel since his arrest.

Hampel started an "emerging markets" consultancy in Dublin, Ireland, but the business was stagnant in recent years. In 1997, Hampel set up in Dublin a company called Emerging Markets Research and Consulting Limited, and put one million dollars of capital into the company; however, the company never filed any returns. The company formed part of a business empire that Hampel controlled, and which operated in Sark, Belgrade, Cyprus and Canada.

Paul William Hampel frequently traveled to Balkans and published a book of photographs "My Beautiful Balkans".

When the ring of Russian illegals was exposed in summer 2010 it turned out that Paul Hampel was possibly connected with the ring and might be helped to find an identity to one of the Russian agents arrested in the United States.

Andrey Bezrukov was posing as Donald Howard Heathfield, a Canadian infant who died in 1962. The FBI said it found a copy of Donald’s birth certificate in the agent’s safety deposit box in Cambridge, Mass. The Russian assumed the dead baby’s identity. The late Donald Heathfield is buried with his grandparents at a cemetery in Montreal, where Paul Hampel had lived, leaving open the possibility he found the name during a visit to the graveyard.

Agentura.Ru March 2011