NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Amid the single family homes and small apartment houses of north Riverdale looms a bright white 20-story apartment tower.
It spans a city block on 255th Street from Mosholu Avenue to Vin Mount Road all behind a 10-foot high iron railing fence, surveillance cameras, and NYPD officers stationed in the front and back to ensure the peace.
The building, which has been there for 40 years, houses Russian Consulate diplomats, their families and support staff.
Some area residents worry it also houses Russian intelligence officers, or spies.
Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres on Tuesday called on FBI Director Christopher Wray to investigate the Russian Diplomatic Compound and its occupants.
Torres said his office has received many allegations that among the legitimate Russian diplomats and families living in the compound are also Russian intelligence agents.
Torres quoted Robert Dreeke, who used to serve in the FBI's Russian Military Intelligence Squad, as saying, "It is an open secret that members of both the Russian military intelligence service and the foreign intelligence service, members of both intelligence services, reside right here at the Russian Diplomatic compound."
Noting the recent arrest and expulsion of many Russian agents from the U.S., Torres believes the people of the Bronx have a right to know if any of those spies lived in the compound and what the FBI is doing to uncover spies still living here.
"Russia has emerged as the single greatest threat to the national security of the United States and so we in the Bronx can no longer afford to be in the dark about espionage in our own backyard," Torres said. "Russian espionage must be exposed wherever it exists and it must be expelled wherever it is exposed."
In a letter to Wray, which Torres posted to Twitter on Tuesday, the congressman requested the FBI consider opening an investigation into the compound.
“As Russia continues its unjust and unprovoked war against Ukraine, I believe the U.S. must take every action possible to protect our nation from potential Russian espionage operations," Torres wrote. “If these allegations are true, I believe we must take steps to protect our homeland and ensure these Russian spies are expelled from the United States."
In a statement to the New York Post, Torres said the compound has been "shrouded in secrecy" since opening its doors in 1975 and claimed in the letter to the FBI that "in 2011, the FDNY remained outside the gates as a small fire occurred inside the building."
Torres has also introduced legislation, dubbed the “Reveal Risky Business in Russia Act,” which would require publicly-traded U.S. corporations to disclose their business dealings in Russia, or any other country that invades or annexes the territory of a sovereign nation state.
“The investing public has a right to know which corporations are doing business in Russia, which has become a dangerous place to operate. Corporate America must send a message of zero tolerance for the kind of aggression Russia has shown. We have to isolate Putin’s regime as a pariah state, and we have to show solidarity with the Ukrainian people,” said Torres.
Torres said the purpose of the law is to "name and shame" companies that continue to do business in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
"It is not enough for us to show solidarity with the Ukrainian people with our words, we have to put our money where our mouth is," Torres said.
Torres said he's "cautiously optimistic" that the legislation will gain bipartisan support.
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