For years, according to an investigation by the American newspaper The New York TimesRussia used Brazil as a starting point for the elite of its intelligence officers, the so -called “illegal.”
In a bold and comprehensive operation, these spies erased the tracks of their Russian past. They opened companies, made friends, lived novels – experiences that, over time, became the foundations of entirely new identities.
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These Russian agents took advantage of weaknesses in the system to obtain legitimate certificates and records, but with the names of people who never really existed. Thus, they won the Brazilian passport and took advantage of the doors that the document opens to spy on other countries.
Some of these spies were known. Others have been revealed now. Below, see who the spies used to use Brazil as the basis of operations.
Gerhard Daniel Campos Wittich
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Gerhard Daniel Campos Wittich was the name used by Artem Shmyrev, who lived in Rio de Janeiro for five years saying he is called Daniel Campos and being Brazilian Austrian family. Wittich would have left Rio and returned to Moscow in January last year, along with his wife Irina Romanova, another alleged spy investigated in Athens, Greece, which pretended to be called Maria Tsalla.
She was passing by Mexican and fled the country before being arrested by local police, according to Greek newspapers Zougla e Kathimerini. The two would have left local boyfriends behind.
Daniel Campos would recently have rented a property near the US Consulate in Rio. He drove a series of 3D printing companies in the city that produced, among other things, resin sculptures for Brazilian military and key chains.
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He disappeared in January, in the middle of a trip to Malaysia. Without sending messages to her girlfriend in Rio de Janeiro, she promptly started a “frantic search for her missing partner,” says Guardian. Itamaraty and Facebook communities in Malaysia mobilized to look for the missing.
Serguei Cherkasov
Serguei was arrested at the beginning of April 2022 by the Federal Police after the Dutch police intercepted him at the airport, where he landed to act at the International Criminal Court, and send him back to Brazil. He worked for years as a spy of the Russian Military Intelligence Service, GRU, in the United States, pretending to be a Brazilian student.
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Like Victor Muller Ferreira, Sergei graduated from John Hopkins University in Washington, the American capital, where he could approach any sector of the US Department of Cia State Department.
According to a statement registered by the FBI, the access he obtained made possible that the spy gathered information about the ways in which government authorities Joe Biden responded to the concentration of Russian troops near Ukraine, shortly before the invasion.
After graduated from college, Cherkasov came close to reaching a more influential insertion, when invited to occupy a position in the Hague. He was about to start a six -month internship at the Court last year, as the institution began the investigation of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, but was rejected by the Dutch authorities, who received FBI information about his performance in Washington.
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The spy is still in prison in Brazil and is investigated for acts of espionage, money laundering and corruption. In June last year, he was sentenced, in the first instance, to 15 years in prison by the Federal Court for the use of false Brazilian documents. On the 18th of this month, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) approved Russia’s request for extradition, but determined that this should only occur after the end of the alleged crimes committed in the country.
Cherkasov was initially arrested not for spying, but for a more modest accusation: use of fake documents. Even this was more complicated than they thought. During the interrogation, Cherkasov maintained an arrogant posture and insisted that he was Brazilian. And he had documents to support his version.
His blue passport was identical to that of any Brazilian. He had a voter title, as required by law, and even a certificate of completion of compulsory military service. All documents were authentic. “There was no connection between him and the ‘great mother’ Russia,” said a federal policeman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, as the others, as the investigation is underway.
Only when the police found his birth certificate that the story of Cherkasov and the entire Russian operation in Brazil began to collapse. In the past, Russian spies used to get documents using names of dead people, often babies.
This time it was different. The agents confirmed that Victor Muller Ferreira never existed, although he had an authentic birth certificate.
The document indicated that he was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1989, the son of a royal Brazilian, who died four years later. But when locating the woman’s family, the agents found that she never had children. There was no record of someone with the name of the supposed father either.
Mikhail Mikushhin
Mikhail Mikushin was arrested by Norway police in October last year after pretending to be a Brazilian researcher at a university in the country. He was arrested on suspicion of espionage, but his alleged actions were still unknown at the time of prison.
Before being arrested, Mikushin had been acting as a researcher for about a year and a half in the city of Tromo, located near the Arctic, about a year and a half ago. He focused on studying Norwegian politics in the region, where the country shares 19 kilometers bordering Russia, and hybrid threats. According to Thomas Blom, the authority of the Norwegian Intelligence Service, this fact alone can compromise national security by putting it in contact with researchers who provide information to the authorities for the formulation of public policies.
According to investigators, Mikushin sought to create a network of contacts, launch information channels and enter the circles that deal with confidential information.
Before moving to Norway, Mikhail Mikushin lived in Canada, where he attended Carleton University and University of Calgary. In Ottawa, he volunteered for a political campaign, according to Global News. He obtained his master’s degree from the Center for Military, Security and Strategic Studies at Calgary University in 2018.
Aleksandr Utekhin
Another Russian spy discovered by the Brazilian police was identified as Aleksandr Utekhin. He presented himself as a Brazilian jeweler, Eric Lopes, “specialist in precious stones”. But investigators believe that the company, which was highlighted in the successful business owners, was a façade.
After leaving Brazil, he would have spent time in the Middle East. His whereabouts are now unknown, but it is suspected that he has returned to Russia.
Vladimir aleksandrovich danilov e Yekaterina Leonidovna danilova
Agents Vladimir Aleksandrovich Danilov and Yekaterina Leonidovna Danilova, in turn, presented themselves as by the names of Manuel Francisco Steinbruck Pereira and Adriana Carolina Costa Silva Pereira. The couple, in their 30s, disappeared after moving to Portugal in 2018.
Roman Olegovich Koval, Irina Alekseyevna Antonova E Olga Igorevna Tyutereva
There are also three Russian agents who went to Uruguay. Among them is the couple Roman Olegovich Koval, Irina Alekseyevna Antonova. They adopted the names Federico Luiz Gonzalez Rodriguez and Maria Isabel Moresco Garcia, who said he was a model. They suddenly left Brazil in 2023, and went to the neighboring country.
Already Olga Igorevna Tyutereva had a Brazilian birth certificate with the name of Maria Luisa Dominguez Cardozo, with a Brazilian birth certificate. Then he got a Uruguayan passport. Its last known location was Namibia.
With the support of intelligence services from other countries, researchers in Brazil identified at least nine Russian agents with Brazilian documents.
With the identities recorded in police databases and the real names signaled by intelligence services, these agents will hardly return to acting as spies abroad.
