Alexander Foley was born on June 3, 1994 to Tracey and Donald Foley of Toronto, Ontario……..or so he thought. Their real names were Elena Vavilova and Andrey Bezrukov and they had moved to Canada using false identities in order to establish a deep cover that would allow them to travel the world and spy for Russia’s KGB. In Canada, they seemed like a normal, happy young family. Alexander’s older brother Timothy was born just 4 years before, also in Toronto. At one point, his parents started up their own diaper delivery service. When Timothy was 2, the family moved to France and then later to the U.S., settling near Boston. That's where they were apprehended by the FBI in 2010, when Alexander was 16. They pleaded guilty and were deported to Russia in a spy swap in exchange for 4 Russians who had been imprisoned by Moscow for providing intelligence to the West. After returning to Russia, Bezrukov and his wife were awarded the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" 4th Class. Shortly after his parents were apprehended, Alexander’s passport was not renewed and his citizenship was revoked in 2014 by an official working for Canadian immigration. The government said that since Alexander’s parents worked for a foreign government at the time of his birth, being born on Canadian soil wasn’t enough to grant him citizenship. Alexander’s legal team disagreed and began the fight to regain his citizenship. Meanwhile, Alexander moved to Europe to go to college, but said he struggled to find employment because of his life story. Nearly 5 years later, the Supreme Court in Canada ruled that since Alexander’s parents were not granted diplomatic status, his citizenship was valid. That decision meant his older brother Timothy also got to keep his citizenship. The brothers have always maintained that they were kept completely in the dark about their parents’ spying activities. Both brothers have now changed their last name to Vavilova and remain in Canada. Meanwhile, Bezkrukov regularly leads a column on current tops in the business newspaper Izvestia. Vavilova is a writer, publishing the novel A Woman Who Can Keep Secrets in 2019 and her second novel, The Encrypted Heart, in 2021.
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| Alexander and Timothy Vavilova |
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| Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova |
