By now, the exploits of Maria Butina, an alleged Russian agent, are everywhere: according to the charges filed against her by the Justice Department, the 29-year-old used a combination of effervescent charm and gun-rights activism to work her way through the conservative movement, eventually growing close to the leadership of the National Rifle Association. This, federal prosecutors allege, was part of a Kremlin plot to infiltrate the right—and, by extension, the highest levels of government—and build back channels between high-ranking conservatives and Russian officials. (According to several associates from her graduate program at American University, she wasn’t very good at—or concerned with—hiding her intentions.)

Much of the interest in Butina centers on her relationship with Paul Erickson, an unmarried, well-connected Republican activist nearly twice her age—the sort of hapless ancillary character who might find himself bamboozled in a subplot of The Americans. Last month, a Daily Beast report portrayed him as a balding, lonely fool in love. (In the indictment filed against Butina last month, prosecutors alleged that she had “expressed disdain for continuing to cohabitate” with Erickson.) Like any political operative of his vintage, Erickson—whose résumé includes stints representing a Congolese dictator, running P.R. for a man whose wife infamously cut off his penis, and working for Pat Buchanan—seemed an unlikely match for a college student. (Erickson has not released a statement related to the charges against Butina.)

Butina and Erickson apparently shared an odd sense of humor, dressing up as Rasputin and Empress Alexandra Romanov for Butina’s Russia-themed birthday party. But according to private bank transactions uncovered by BuzzFeed News, the essential nature of their relationship was financial. Bank activity flagged by anti-fraud investigators at Wells Fargo shows the two sent hundreds of thousands of dollars back and forth between their accounts—Butina’s at Alfa Bank in Russia, Erickson’s at Wells Fargo—to conduct what Butina referred to in an e-mail as her “special project.” (Butina has pled not guilty to the charges filed against her.) These transactions, BuzzFeed reports, allegedly often passed through a shell company based in South Dakota that Erickson says was established to help finance Butina’s education, though it’s hard to see how that claim holds up: while graduate school is notoriously expensive, the transactions seemed to go far beyond a normal student’s budget: