Russia's Federal Security Service has released a photograph of a letter that it claims contains instructions on spying for the United States. The FSB said the letter was found on a U.S. diplomat, who they claim is a CIA officer caught trying to recruit a member of one of Russia's special services. There was no immediate response from the U.S. State Department. This is the Associated Press' translation of the typewritten letter shown on Russian state television channels:
Dear friend,
This is an advance from someone who is very impressed by your professionalism and who would greatly value working together with you in the future. For us, your safety is of the utmost importance, so we have chosen this route to make contact with you. And we will continue to take steps to secure your safety and keep our correspondence secret.
We are prepared to offer you $100,000 and discuss your experience, expertise and cooperation, and your payment might be far greater if you are prepared to answer some specific questions. Additionally, for long-term cooperation we offer up to $1,000,000 a year with the promise of additional bonuses for information that will help us.
To contact us again, please open a new Gmail account, which you will use only for communicating with us, in an Internet cafe or a cafe with a WiFi connection. When signing up, do not use any personal information that could be used to identify you and the new account. So do not offer any real contact information, i.e. your telephone numbers or other email addresses.
