A 10-month-long investigation by the research cooperative Bellingcat culminated in August 2022 with an in-depth look at the life and cover story of a GRU agent who targeted NATO officials in Italy for several years. Maria claimed to be the child of a Peruvian mother and Soviet father and applied for Peruvian citizenship under false pretenses in 2005, although her application was rejected by an alert Peruvian civil servant. She moved to Italy sometime in 2009 using a Russian passport and eventually opened a luxury boutique called Serein in Naples which catered to wealthy socialites in the area.
Beginning in 2013 she joined a local chapter of the Lions Club charitable organization as the Secretary. This particular chapter was filled with NATO officers from several different countries, and Maria soon became a driving force for event planning and networking for the group. Over the next five years she developed close relationships (some of which were romantic) with officers and civilian staff from Belgium, Italy, Germany, and the US.
She attended many events, dinners, and fundraisers either sponsored by or affiliated with NATO, including the US Marine Corps Ball. But it’s unclear whether she ever gained access to sensitive information of any type.
On September 15th, 2018, Maria abruptly departed Naples for Moscow, without speaking to any of her friends and associates beforehand. One day earlier, Bellingcat had posted another extensive investigation revealing a previously unknown tradecraft error by the GRU, in which they issued sequentially numbered passports in false names to their agents in the infamous Unit 29155. Maria’s Russian passport was within the range of numbers associated with the GRU.
Compared to other long-term illegal agents operating in Europe or the US, Maria was somewhat successful in that she lived and worked for nearly ten years without raising suspicion, targeted individuals of interest to Russian intelligence, built relationships with them, and left before any investigation by counterintelligence personnel.