Code-named GT/WEIGH by the Central Intelligence Agency, Poleschuk was recruited in Katmandu, Nepal, in 1974 after he had gambled with KGB funds. He was recalled from his counterintelligence post at the Lagos, Nigeria, rezidentura in May 1985, having been identified as a spy by Aldrich Ames and was arrested three months later in Izmaylovskiy Park as he emptied a dead drop; Poleschuk was convicted of espionage and executed.