A former U.S. Marine was released from a Russian prison Thursday, ending a nearly six-year confinement for spying in the country on charges U.S. officials say were trumped up. Paul Whelan was working in Moscow as the corporate security director for an automotive parts supplier when Russian authorities arrested him in 2018 on espionage charges. Two years later, a Russian court sentenced Whelan to 16 years hard labor.
The U.S. government has long denied that Whelan was a spy.
Intelligence officials in Turkey told local media there that the nation’s National Intelligence Organization, known as MIT, had helped broker the exchange, which took place at Esenboğa Airport in the Ankara, the Turkish capital Thursday.
Whelan’s release comes as part of a three-way prisoner exchange between the U.S. Russia and Germany that may be the largest since the Cold War, involving the transfer of 24 prisoners from all three countries. Two minors may also be involved in the transfers, according to Turkish media. Whelan was notably not released during the last U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange in 2022, which saw WNBA star Brittney Griner freed from a Russian prison for the U.S. release of convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.
The other two Americans being released are journalists. Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter was arrested in March 2023 on spying charges that the newspaper and his family have denied. Alsu Kurmasheva is a Russian-American radio journalist who holds citizenship in both countries and lives in Prague, according to an online biography on the Radio Free Europe site. She was detained in June 2023 and convicted two weeks ago for “spreading false information” about the Russian army.
Whelan served in the Marine Corps Reserve from 1994 to 2008 as an administrative clerk and administrative chief, according to his service record, which was provided to Task & Purpose by the Corps. He made two deployments to Iraq, from February to August 2004 and then from February to December 2006.
But Whelan was ultimately demoted from staff sergeant to private and given a bad conduct discharge after being convicted at a Jan. 14, 2008, special court-martial of attempted larceny, dereliction of duty, making a false official statement, wrongfully using another person’s Social Security number, and writing bad checks, according to military records.
Specifically, Whelan was found guilty of trying to steal $10,000 while deployed to Iraq in 2006, bouncing about $6,000 in checks and using the other person’s Social Security number to log into a training system to grade his own examinations, the Washington Post reported.
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