Investigators have discovered an undercover Russian spy in Italy who allegedly “charmed her way into NATO circles”, say reports.
Researchers from Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence, said a woman named Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera posed as a Latin American jewellery designer and travelled the world as a Peru-born socialite and had made friends in the NATO offices in Naples while she worked as a deep-cover spy.
The woman was defined as a “GRU illegal” by the investigators.
“Maria Adela” reportedly travelled to Malta and Rome between 2009 and 2011 and tried to obtain a German passport because she reportedly had a German father. The investigators said she received a Russian passport in 2006.
Also Read: Russian spy held for trying to enter war crimes court in Netherlands
“Maria Adela” also allegedly married an Italian man. Investigators, however, claimed the man was born in Moscow and held Ecuadorian and Russian citizenship. The man reportedly died in Moscow in 2013.
Watch: Russian hacking group targets Norway’s public websites
The woman’s mother had reportedly left her in the former Soviet Union in 1980 as she visited the country to witness the Olympic Games. The mother apparently never returned after leaving for Peru. She was adopted by a Russian family which had befriended her mother. Maria claimed her adoptive parents abused her during her childhood.
Adela moved to Naples in 2015 and worked as a “Russian spy” and worked for the military intelligence agency, the GRU, as she mixed in the local social scene and opened a jewellery boutique which became a trendy club. She was also part of the Lions Club and reportedly mingled with many NATO staff members and one NATO employee allegedly had a “brief romantic relationship with Maria Adela”.
She also reportedly had access to US Navy officers in Naples and attended NATO annual balls, fund-raising dinners and US Marine Corps balls.
The mysterious ‘GRU illegal’ also visited Bahrain in 2017, Bellingcat revealed, however, in 2018 she suddenly flew to Moscow and allegedly said on her Facebook page that she had cancer and had undergone chemotherapy.
(With inputs from Agencies)
WATCH WION LIVE HERE
