Aside from fake identities, authorities say, they used Cold War spycraft — invisible ink, coded radio transmissions, encrypted data — to avoid detection. The court papers described a new high-tech spy-to-spy communications system used by the defendants: short-range wireless communications between laptop computers — a modern supplement for the old-style dead drop in a remote area, high-speed burst radio transmission or the hollowed-out nickels used by captured Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel in the 1950s to conceal and deliver microfilm.

LONDON – One of the Cold War's most famous defectors says Russia may have as many as 50 deep-cover couples spying inside the United States.

Oleg Gordievsky, a former deputy head of the KGB in London who defected in 1985, said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would know the number of illegal operatives in each target country.

The 71-year-old ex-double agent told The Associated Press on Tuesday that, based on his experience in Russian intelligence, he estimates that Moscow likely has 40 to 50 couples operating under cover in the U.S.