In yet another major setback for Russian intelligence, Brazil has uncovered the identities of nine illegal Russian spies operating under false identities. Their goal: to build deep-cover stories that would eventually be used in a third country.
According to The New York Times, the operation—codenamed “East”—began in April 2022 when the CIA alerted Brazilian authorities about a man named Victor Ferreira, who was operating in the Netherlands with a Brazilian passport. He was identified as Russian military intelligence officer Sergey Cherkasov, using a fake but officially issued birth certificate tied to a deceased, childless Brazilian woman.
Following this lead, Brazilian investigators launched a wider search for similar “ghost” identities—people who suddenly appeared in official records at an older age. This led to the exposure of several more Russian agents. Only two were arrested; the others managed to flee.
One agent, Mikhail Mikushin, was arrested in Norway in 2022 while posing as a Brazilian academic. He was returned to Russia in August 2024 in a prisoner swap involving political detainees. Another spy, Alexander Otyukhin, who operated under the alias Eric Lopez as a diamond dealer, left Brazil and is now believed to be somewhere in the Middle East.
Other agents reportedly relocated to Europe, Africa, East Asia, and other parts of South America. The investigation relied on intelligence contributions from at least eight countries—including Israel, with Mossad playing a key role.
Brazil has become an attractive base for Russian spies due to its passport's wide visa-free access, similar to that of the U.S. This revelation marks another blow to Russian intelligence, reminiscent of the major 2010 collapse of its spy ring in the U.S., after years of investing in agents and elaborate cover stories that ultimately failed.