The woman who was a sleeper agent for many years lived under the false name Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera. She lived in Italy for more than 10 years, and before that in Malta. She managed to have several romantic relationships with people associated with NATO headquarters in Naples. She also became friends with the wives of the generals and could have access to some secrets, Grozev said.
The journalist said that at some point she disappeared from Italy and, as it turned out, returned, and for a year he could not establish her real identity. Her pet helped do this. All her friends in Italy said that she really loved a cat named Louise. Investigators decided that she could have taken her from her “fake life” into real life. For months they tried to track the animal, because any pet crossing the border must be microchipped.
Investigators were able to find Louise's microchip number, and then began looking for this number in Russian data that was leaked. It turned out that a cat with the same number was registered in one of the Russian clinics. On the social network Vkontakte they found a woman named Olga Kolobova, who subscribed to the clinic’s page. Her profile included pictures of a cat. “The rest was easy,” Grozev said.
Context
In 2022, The Insider, together with Bellingcat, Der Spiegel and La Repubblica, published an investigation about a GRU employee who lived in Europe for almost 10 years. The investigation said that she posed as a native of Peru, and in Europe she launched her fashionable jewelry brand, became part of the social life of Naples and headed a branch of the Lion's Club charity organization, which was created by NATO officers.
Investigators turned their attention to the woman at the end of 2021. They discovered that the owner of a special series passport used by GRU officers was a man with a name that was not in any Russian database. It was later established that this woman had been issued at least three Russian passports – one internal and two foreign. All these documents fell within the range of document numbers used by GRU officers.
