Accused of being a Russian sex spy, woman fights for Canadian residency
In the spring of 1994, Elena Filatova was in her apartment in Tver, a city northwest of Moscow, when her phone started to ring. Filatova, an interpreter by trade, had been working two jobs at the time. One promoting a master’s program for the Portland School of Business in Tver, another doing translation work for a local Canadian housing project. Hoping to drum up interest in the university program, she had taken out an ad in the local newspaper, attaching her number to it. When she answered the phone, it appeared her bait had worked: the man on the other end seemed interested in the program. When she told him they should meet to discuss it, he said he happened to be just across the street from her. Next thing she knew the man was at her front door, showing her his badge from the Federal Security Service (FSB), the security agency that succeeded Russia’s KGB. The man, later identified as agent Aleksander Dyomin, was not interested in the university program — he wanted to know about the Canadian project. “Can you tell me about David Crenna?” he asked. Nearly 25 years later, Filatova, now known as Elena Crenna, sat before an Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada panel member in Montreal on Thursday.
Through hours of testimony, she tried to convince the board she’s not what the federal government contends she is: a Russian “sex spy” who seduced her eventual husband to obtain information from him and use it as leverage. Crenna, 56, and her now-husband, David Crenna, 74, have been fighting for her to become a permanent Canadian resident since 2013. The couple met in 1994 when David Crenna, a policy adviser who once worked in the Prime Minister’s office, hired her to work as an interpreter for the Tver housing project. Sponsored in part by the World Bank and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the project aimed to introduce Canadian wood frame home building technology to the Russian market and train former soldiers to build homes. David was married at the time, and Elena was divorced. But their working relationship quickly evolved into what Crenna described as “a passionate love affair.” The two separated in 1996, but reconnected in 2008 after a memoir published by a former Russian spy seemed to describe their affair. The book, titled Comrade J, speaks of an individual given the code names Kirill or Kaban who shares several characteristics with David Crenna. It alleges he was providing classified Canadian documents to the Russians and speaks of a translator he became involved with, a relationship the book says the FSB would later use as leverage. After reconnecting when the book was published — both deny its contents — the Crennas married in California in 2012. Elena had become an American citizen by then, having moved to the United States in 1998. The newlyweds then moved to Ottawa in 2013 and applied for her to become a permanent resident. But the office of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness alleged Crenna was inadmissible to Canada for engaging in “an act of espionage that is contrary to Canada’s interests” between 1994-98. In written arguments, which appeared to stem from claims made in the Comrade J book, the minister argued Crenna fit the modus operandi of “sex spies” used by the FSB, seeing how she was providing information to an agent while having an affair with David Crenna. After several hearings, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada ruled in Crenna’s favour in May 2018, finding the minister didn’t establish reasonable grounds to believe Crenna participated in espionage. The minister filed an appeal the next month, leading to this week’s hearings before the Immigration Appeal Division of the IRB. While testifying Thursday, Crenna erupted in laughter on several occasions as she explained her relationship with David Crenna and her interactions with the FSB. It was agreed as fact that she met with Dyomin, the FSB agent who first called her in 1994, on approximately seven occasions between then and 1998, during the same period as the housing project. Crenna described the agent’s questions as “pedestrian” and “benign.” They were always about the housing project, she said. Dyomin wanted to ensure the Canadians in Tver were “really doing as they said they were doing.” She said she was uncomfortable with the meetings but answered Dyomin’s questions to prevent the project from being derailed. David had told her it was best to cooperate and answer the agent’s questions since they “had nothing to hide.” She said she never felt pressured to solicit information from David, never learned any confidential or classified information about the project or Canadian policies, and was never rewarded for her answers. “Did you become involved with David because of FSB demands?” she was asked. “No,” she answered, holding back laughter. “Did you have any particular motives, in terms of getting close to him quickly?” “Other than love?” she asked. “No.” Crenna said the affair grew out of long working hours together and from having “everything” in common with each other. “I just couldn’t resist him,” she said. “His passion for life. Curiosity. His sense of humour. Being an intellectual. He was everything that Russian men weren’t.” Crenna said she hasn’t been contacted by the FSB since leaving Russia. The hearings continue on Friday.