Beginning around 1999, he began working secretly with the CIA, helping to reveal a hidden network of Russian spies operating within the United States, known as the Illegals Program.
Afterward, he entered the service of the KGB, working primarily in Minsk, and then later in Afghanistan as part of Zenit, an elite special forces unit.
[6][7] Working under official cover as a representative from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Poteyev took around a dozen short trips to several western countries during the 1990s, including Mexico, Chile, and New York City in the United States.
[4][8][9][10][11] In 2000, Poteyev was appointed to Deputy Head of Directorate "S" of the SVR, where he was tasked with overseeing a network of spies living inside the United States.
From there, he moved to obtain a false passport in Ivano-Frankivsk, then headed to Frankfurt, before finally arriving at CIA headquarters in the United States on June 26, 2010.
[23][24] In July 2013, Der Spiegel reported that Poteyev had been responsible for the October 2011 arrest of a German-based Russian spy couple who had been living under the names of Andreas and Heidrun Anschlag.
[33] In March 2017, journalists for BuzzFeed News reportedly found a person matching Poteyev's biography living in Florida at Trump Towers.
Two days later, while trying to leave the US through Miami International Airport, US Customs found a picture of Poteyev's license plate in Fuentes's travel companion's "recently deleted" folder.