As federal police agents unraveled a Kremlin spying operation in Brazil, they confronted a mystery: How had so many deep-cover Russian spies managed to obtain seemingly authentic Brazilian birth certificates?
The police expected to find that the Russians had forged the documents or bribed municipal officials to create them and slip them into the registry as if they were from the 1980s and ’90s.
But when the forensic report came back in April, according to a senior Brazilian official, the analysis suggested something else entirely. The documents did not appear forged. And, most surprising, they weren’t even new.
Brazilian counterintelligence officers are now considering a more audacious possibility, one with echoes of the Cold War. Investigators suspect that K.G.B. officers, working undercover in Brazil during the last years of the Soviet Union, may have filed birth certificates in the names of fictitious newborns — hoping that a future generation of spies would someday claim them and continue the fight against the West.
If true, it would represent an extraordinary level of foresight and mission commitment by intelligence officers during a time of great upheaval and unpredictability in the world. By the late 1980s, the Communist bloc had begun to crumble, along with the ideological divisions that had defined global politics — and the mission of Moscow’s spies — for decades.
Almost overnight, the K.G.B., once an unparalleled force in global affairs, was deprived of its central purpose, conflict with the West, and would soon be disbanded entirely.
But such forward thinking would align with the culture of Russian espionage, which, unlike in the West, often prizes creative long-term planning over immediate expediency. And in a country that is uniquely committed to placing officers in deep-cover assignments, obtaining birth certificates has long been a priority.
“It’s just the sort of thing that they would do,” said Edward Lucas, a British author and expert on the Russian intelligence services. “It fits with the meticulous and generational attention that they devote to creating these identities.”
Nonetheless, in interviews, intelligence experts and officials with several Western intelligence services could point to no other similar example in the history of Russian espionage. Some expressed skepticism about the hypothesis. Even the Brazilian investigators themselves are still unsure what to make of the findings of their forensic analysis. The investigation continues.
Brazilian courts have ordered that the birth certificates of the Russians suspected of operating as deep-cover operatives be kept secret, so The Times could not independently analyze them.
Creating a convincing cover identity is perhaps a spy’s most important job. For Russia’s elite deep-cover operatives, known as illegals, an airtight back story can mean be the difference between a heroic career and total failure. Unlike in the West, where intelligence officers may adopt fake identities for particular missions or tours of duty, these spies are meant to live their covers, often for decades.
Through their investigation, the Brazilian authorities disrupted what was essentially an assembly line for creating fake identities. For years, and perhaps decades, Russia’s operatives had been traveling to Brazil, not to spy, but to become Brazilian. They obtained passports, created businesses, made friendships and fell in love. Then, when their covers were virtually unassailable, they were to set off for other countries to conduct espionage.
But the first crucial step was to obtain an authentic birth certificate. Historically, Moscow’s spy services have devoted a great deal of energy to this task. In his memoir, Oleg Gordievsky, a former K.G.B. officer turned British agent, described his incessant search for birth records suitable for use by illegal operatives. He recounted how, while based in Denmark in the 1970s, he tried to recruit a priest who had access to a church ledger, in which births and deaths were inscribed.
“If we could gain access to the ledgers,” he wrote, “we would be able to create any number of Danish identities.”
Whoever planted the birth certificates in Brazil paid great attention to detail.
“The ink is normal, the page is OK,” the senior Brazilian investigator said. “There is no tampering of the books at all.” Like other officials, he requested anonymity because of the continuing investigation.
While the documents seemed legitimate, the information on them was bogus. The authorities found that the parents listed on the birth certificates either did not exist or had never had children whose names matched those on the documents.
One birth certificate, investigators discovered, contained a rare slip-up — or perhaps a sly wink from one generation of spies to the next. According to a Western intelligence official, one of the fathers listed on the document was the Brazilian alias of another Russian deep-cover operative who had worked in South America and Europe a generation earlier.
Andrei Soldatov, an author who is one of Russia’s foremost experts on the intelligence services, said he had never heard of officers planting birth certificates so far in advance. But he said that would have been rewarded.
“If you can contribute to the illegals program, you put yourself in a really good spot in the eyes of your superiors,” he said. “It would be really good for your career.”
Jane Bradley is an investigative reporter on the international desk. She is based in London, where she focuses on abuses of power, national security and crime, and social injustices.
Michael Schwirtz is an investigative reporter with the International desk. With The Times since 2006, he previously covered the countries of the former Soviet Union from Moscow and was a lead reporter on a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for articles about Russian intelligence operations.
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