Alleged Russian Agent Held at Same US Prison Viktor Bout Awaited Trial

WASHINGTON, January 27 (Sputnik) — Russian national Evgeny Buryakov who was arrested in the United States on Monday, suspected over gathering economic intelligence, is currently held in a US prison in Manhattan, New York, which previously served as a detention center for Russian businessman Viktor Bout arrested in 2010, spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York field office told Sputnik News Agency Tuesday.

“The person arrested is held at MCC [Metropolitan Correctional Center] federal facility in Manhattan,” the spokesperson said.

Russian citizen Viktor Bout, who was extradited to the United States from Thailand in November 2010 and convicted for selling weapons to US agents posing as members of Colombia’s FARC rebel group, had stayed in the same facility in solitary confinement for fifteen months. He was later transferred to a different detention center.

The MCC New York holds almost 750 male and female prisoners of all security levels, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Russian diplomats will visit Buryakov in the detention facility on Wednesday, the Russian consulate general in New York said Tuesday.

Buryakov, who served as a deputy representative of Russia’s Vnesheconombank in New York, may be facing up to 15 years in prison, according to the US attorney general statement.

On Monday, New York federal prosecutors charged Russian nationals Evgeny Buryakov, Igor Sporyshev and Victor Podobnyy arrested in the US over a conspiracy to act as unregistered agents of a foreign government in the United States. Sporyshev and Podobnyy remain free as they no longer reside in the United States. Prior to leaving the country, they have been protected by diplomatic immunity, officials said.