The Spy Factory

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/21/world/americas/russia-brazil-spies-deep-cover.html

https://archive.ph/fLPI7

The Spy Factory
Russia’s intelligence services turned Brazil into an assembly line for deep-cover operatives. A team of federal agents from the South American country has been quietly dismantling it.
By Michael Schwirtz and Jane Bradley
May 21, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET


...

Brazil seemed an ideal place for Mr. Putin’s chosen spies to build their lore. The Brazilian passport is one of the world’s most useful, allowing visa-free travel to nearly as many countries as the American one. Someone with European features and a slight accent is unlikely to stand out in multiethnic Brazil.

And while many countries require verification from a hospital or doctor before issuing birth certificates, Brazil allows a niche exception for those born in rural areas. The authorities will issue a birth certificate to anyone who declares, in the presence of two witnesses, that a baby was born to at least one Brazilian parent.

The system is also decentralized and vulnerable to local corruption.

With a birth certificate in hand, it’s just a matter of applying for voter registration, military papers and, finally, a passport.

Once this is obtained, a spy can go nearly anywhere in the world.

...

[Irish_Dem]

1. Putin has KGB agents all over the world.

And it shows.