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It has all the weather of an espionage thriller: An accused Russian spy who concocted an identification as a Brazilian. The creation of an elaborate cowl story. And what Dutch authorities mentioned gave the impression to be a foiled plot to realize entry to the Worldwide Prison Courtroom because it investigates Russian struggle crimes.
These particulars emerged this week in a real-life case wherein Dutch officers mentioned 36-year-old Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov spent years constructing an identification as a Brazilian citizen, sharpening a résumé that bought him an internship on the Worldwide Prison Courtroom in The Hague earlier than Dutch officers blew his cowl.
In line with Dutch intelligence, Mr. Cherkasov pretended to be a Brazilian named Viktor Muller Ferreira, and bought an internship on the court docket utilizing an in depth cowl story that hid his ties to the Russian army intelligence company, the G.R.U.
Mr. Cherkasov was attributable to begin working on the court docket, however was denied entry to the Netherlands at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in April after the AIVD, the Dutch intelligence company, tipped off immigration officers. He was despatched again to Brazil and declared an “undesirable alien,” intelligence officers mentioned in a press release Thursday. Officers didn’t say how they recognized him as a spy.
The Worldwide Prison Courtroom is investigating potential struggle crimes by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, in addition to the Russian-Georgian struggle in 2008.
“If this individual had gotten the prospect to actually work on the I.C.C., he may have gathered info, may have noticed sources (or recruited them) and will have gained entry to the digital programs,” the Dutch intelligence service mentioned in a press release. The G.R.U. has been blamed for cyberattacks on the U.S. and Ukraine.
The Dutch intelligence company revealed a doc that it mentioned Mr. Cherkasov in all probability wrote in 2010, laying out a canopy story that included particular particulars in regards to the purported background of Mr. Ferreira, together with which highschool he attended and what number of college students have been on the college; well being details about his aunt; a crush he had on a instructor; and the way a lot hire he paid for an residence in Brasilia.
It may be arduous to know what’s true from such cowl tales, as a result of they’re typically a combination of true and false info, together with private observations which might be arduous to disprove, Dutch intelligence mentioned.
The doc blacks out the names of establishments and different particulars, although he appeared to have a connection to Johns Hopkins College.
Eugene Finkel, a Ukraine-born affiliate professor at Johns Hopkins College, wrote on Twitter that Mr. Cherkasov had been in his class and that he had written him a advice letter: “A robust one, actually. Sure, me. I wrote a reference letter for a GRU officer. I’ll by no means recover from this truth.” Mr. Finkel declined a request for remark.
Johns Hopkins, in a press release, mentioned it had “confirmed that an individual of this title graduated from our establishment in 2020” and was monitoring developments however had “no additional info to share at the moment.”
The Worldwide Prison Courtroom mentioned that it was “very grateful to the Netherlands for this essential operation and extra usually for exposing safety threats.”
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