Former US Marine Paul Whelan became the subject of international scrutiny when he was arrested by Russian authorities on suspicion of espionage in December 2018.
The Michigan security executive spent over five years imprisoned in Russia – and continued to languish behind bars when other prisoners, including WNBA star Britney Griner, were released.
He was finally returned to the US on Aug. 1, 2024, when he and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich were released as part of a history prisoner exchange.
Early life
Paul Nicholas Whelan was born on March 5, 1970, in Ottawa, Ontario, his twin brother, David, told the Detroit Free Press.
Whelan’s parents were British citizens of Irish descent, according to the BBC.
In addition to his twin brother, he had another brother and a sister.
Whelan eventually moved to Michigan, and was entitled to Canadian, US, Irish and British citizenship – the latter two thanks to his parents’ background.
Career in law enforcement
Whelan started a career in law enforcement sometime in the early 1990s, the Washington Post reported.
In a 2013 deposition related to a case Whelan was not a party in, he claimed to have been a sheriff’s deputy in Washtenaw County and a police officer for the city of Chelsea, the outlet said.
The Washtenaw County sheriff’s officer, however, had no record of his employment, and the Chelsea police only showed him working part-time as an officer, dispatcher, crossing guard and parking officer from 1990 through 1996.
Julie LeBourdais, a former colleague of Whelan’s at the Keego Harbor police department, remembered him as “straight as an arrow.”
Whelan worked in Keego Harbor as a patrol officer from about 1998 to 2000, she explained.
Whelan seemed knowledgeable about global affairs, LeBourdais recalled.
Military career
Whelan enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1994, the Washington Post reported.
He took military leave from his job as an IT manager at Kelly Services staffing firm to serve full-time from 2003 through 2008, including tours in Iraq.
One person who deployed with Whelan remembered him learning Russian and writing the Cyrillic alphabet on a board, as well as taking holiday time to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Washington Post said.
Whelan had achieved the rank of staff sergeant when, in January 2008, he was convicted by a court-martial on multiple charges including attempted larceny, three instances of dereliction of duty, making a false official statement, wrongfully using another person’s Social Security number and 10 instances of making checks without sufficient funds.
Whelan was sentenced to 60 days’ restriction and had his pay docked, military documents showed.
He received a bad-conduct discharge and was let go from the Marine Corps on Dec. 2, 2008, with the rank of private.
The Marines declined to release more information about the charges in the wake of Whelan’s arrest.
After his dismissal, Whelan went into corporate security, and eventually became the senior manager of global security and investigations for Kelly Services.
In the 2013 deposition, he described his job as overseeing security-related issues for the company, including allegations of employee misconduct, building security, and access to company decisions, the Washington Post said.
Neither Kelly Services nor BorgWarner, where Whelan was employed at the time of his arrest, had records of him ever traveling to Russia for work.
Arrest in Moscow
Paul Whelan was arrested in the Moscow area by Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) on Dec. 28, 2018.
He had arrived in the Russian capital on Dec. 22 to attend the wedding of a fellow former Marine at the famous Hotel Metropol Moscow.
He was scheduled to return home on Jan. 6 via St. Petersburg, David Whelan told the Detroit Free Press.
Members of Whelan’s family told the BBC that he had traveled to Russia multiple times in the past, and boasted about being close with an FSB agent.
He claimed to have visited the man’s house the winter before his arrest, where he said he loaned him over $1,140 for the upcoming wedding.
The FSB insisted that the payment was actually for intelligence – an allegation that Whelan repeatedly denied.
Whelan insisted that his friend – later identified by the Russian newspaper Kommersant Ilya Yatsenko – framed him by showing up at the Hotel Metropol with authorities in tow.
US officials also denied the espionage charges against Whelan – with multiple sources pointing out that his disciplinary record made him an unlikely candidate for an intelligence officer.
“As with all Russian propaganda, 90 percent of the story is true and the rest is lies,” former CIA officer Dan Hoffman suggested to the Washington Post.
‘Sham’ trial
Whelan was formally charged on Jan. 3, 2019.
He was housed at Moscow’s infamous Lefortovo Prison where, as of March 2019, he was sharing a cell with a fellow inmate who did not speak English, CNN reported.
Whelan’s lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenko, initially floated the possibility of exchanging Whelan for Maria Butina, a Russian politician who was jailed in the US for operating as an unregistered foreign agent, the New York Times said.
Whelan was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison on June 20, 2020.
During the proceedings – which he followed with the help of an interpreter – Whelan held up a paper sign denouncing the trial as a “sham.”
“This is slimy, greasy, grubby Russian politics. Nothing more. Nothing less,” he lamented.
As of December 2020, Whelan was held in IK-17, a high-security prison eight hours southeast of Moscow, per the BBC.
Imprisonment
Whelan and his family spent five years campaigning for his release.
“Why hasn’t more been done to secure my release?”
Whelan demanded of President Biden after the April 2022 prisoner swap that freed fellow US veteran Trevor Reed.
In a separate statement, Whelan’s family said that news of Reed’s release from Moscow brought “varied emotions” for their own relative who has “already spent 3 and a quarter years as a Russian hostage.”
Whelan was also caught up in the diplomatic firestorm that followed the February 2022 arrest of WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was caught by Russian authorities with traces of cannabis oil in her luggage.
In July of that year, Biden offered to trade Whelan and Griner for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout – but Russia also demanded the release of Vadim Krasikov, who was serving life for killing a Kremlin dissident in Germany.
The US and Russia ultimately agreed to only trade Griner and Bout, who Russia considered on the same level because they were both criminals.
Because Russia considered Whelan an American agent, the Kremlin refused to swap him unless they received a prisoner of similar stature.
Griner’s release in December 2022 was “catastrophe for Paul,” Whelan’s relatives said – though David Whelan, his brother, added that he agreed with Biden’s decision to take the deal on offer as opposed to waiting for “one that wasn’t going to happen.”
“I can’t imagine he retains any hope that a government will negotiate his freedom at this point. It’s clear that the US government has no concessions that the Russian government will take for Paul Whelan. And so Paul will remain a prisoner until that changes,” David added.
Shortly after Griner returned home, the Biden administration vowed that the negotiations for Whelan were still ongoing.
Meanwhile, Whelan continued to weather life in a Russian penal colony. In November 2023 – nearly five years into his detainment – he was attacked while working at a sewing table on the inmate block, his twin brother said.
Historic release
Whelan, 54, was one of over 20 prisoners released as part of a historic prisoner exchange between Russia and the West on Aug. 1, 2024.
The deal – the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War – also saw the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, 32, as well as Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was detained in October 2023.
Whelan’s family learned of his release from Biden at the White House the morning of the announcement, officials said.
“Our family is grateful to the United States government for making Paul’s freedom a reality,” the Whelans’ statement read.
“Paul was held hostage for 2,043 days. His case was that of an American in peril, held by the Russian Federation as part of their blighted initiative to use humans as pawns to extract concessions,” they added.
Whelan and the other prisoners were exchanged at the airport in Ankara, Turkey.
Shortly after the swap, he, Gershkovich and Kurmasheva were pictured holding an American flag.