STF will hand over Russian suspected of spying in Brazil after investigation

Minister Edson Fachin, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), authorized last month the delivery to Russia of a Russian citizen who, according to foreign intelligence agencies, is a spy who used Brazil as a base for his operations. At a hearing with a Brazilian judge, he aroused suspicion for pleading guilty too quickly and failing to memorize details of his Brazilian disguise.

The case takes place at a time when the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) is getting closer and closer to Russia. In his statements, Lula has been repeating false information originating from Russian propaganda aimed at blaming Ukraine (invaded country) for the war started by Moscow on February 24, 2022.

Investigations by the Federal Police point out that the spy arrived in the country in 2010, managed to issue a false passport as a Brazilian, through which he presented himself as Victor Muller Ferreira.

For this crime, he has already been sentenced to approximately 15 years in prison by the Federal Court of São Paulo, but is still being investigated by the PF for corruption, money laundering and espionage. Despite having authorized his delivery, Fachin decided that he will only be able to leave the country when this investigation is closed. Until then, he will remain imprisoned at the Federal Penitentiary in Brasilia. His real name is Serguei Vladimirovich Cherkasov, born in 1985 and, according to the Dutch secret service, belongs to the GRU, a military intelligence unit of the Defense of Russia descended from the Soviet KGB.

He was discovered in April last year, when he landed in Holland presenting himself as a Brazilian born in Niterói (RJ) in 1989 and with a tragic family history. He carried with him a letter of introduction, written in Portuguese and full of grammatical errors, in which he said that he had a father who abandoned him and a Brazilian mother, who would have died of pneumonia. He would thus have been raised by an aunt, with whom he would have lived abroad for years.

The Dutch security service says he is a Kremlin intelligence officer who has received “long and extensive training”. His objective, when trying to enter the Netherlands, was to work as an intern at the International Criminal Court, the ICC, also known as the Hague Court, which judges war crimes and genocide. At the agency, Cherkasov would have access to information on ongoing investigations into the atrocities committed by Russia in the invasion of Ukraine. Last month, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of, among other war crimes, illegally deporting Ukrainian children to Russia.

“If the intelligence officer had gained access as a trainee to the ICC, he could collect information there and seek out (or recruit) sources and gain access to the ICC’s digital systems. In this way he would have been able to make a significant contribution to the intelligence that the GRU seeks. He might also have been able to influence ICC criminal proceedings,” warned Dutch authorities in June.

Still according to Dutch intelligence, this type of spy, known as “illegal”, is difficult to discover because he uses pseudonyms, using identities forged abroad, and who tells his story mixing false and true elements.

“Russian intelligence services spend years building ‘legends’ for illegals. To do this, they collect information, for example, about how other countries register and store personal data, but also illegally obtaining or falsifying identity documents. The information can, therefore, be traceable to one or more real people, living or dead, as well as individuals who exist only on paper (in the records of local authorities)”, said Dutch intelligence in June last year, when reporting on the case.

Cherkasov was deported to Brazil in April and has since been imprisoned, initially in a PF jail in São Paulo, being transferred in December to Brasília. In July, the month following the announcement that he had been discovered in the Netherlands, Russia asked the Brazilian Ministry of Justice for his extradition, claiming that, in June, a court in Moscow would have convicted him of allegedly belonging to a criminal organization of drug trafficking. drugs.

The extradition request was processed in secrecy until October last year at the STF, when Fachin decreed a new preventive detention of Cherkasov, to guarantee his extradition to Russia – at the time, he was already detained, because of the conviction for using a false document. The minister found that the extradition request met formal requirements, such as the existence of a similar crime in Brazil and Russia’s declaration that Cherkasov would not be pursued there, subjected to a sentence of more than 30 years, nor sought for political or military reasons. .

However, following a recommendation from the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), the minister asked the Federal Court of São Paulo for more information about his conviction and also about the PF investigations into the case.

The information that reached the Supreme Court shows that, in addition to being sentenced to 15 years in prison for using a false document nine times, Serguei Cherkasov was investigated for espionage, money laundering and corruption. At the request of the PF, the Justice authorized the breaking of its bank, telephone and telematic secrecy, in addition to the blocking of its assets.

“During the aforementioned investigation, several media were seized, which are still under analysis, indicating that the circumstances of such falsehoods are related to acts of espionage practiced in Brazil, the USA and Ireland, at least, beyond the possibility of the practice of corruption against a notary public in Brazil and money laundering, with the purchase of property registered under the false name of Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov. It should also be mentioned that evidence of other people was identified”, says an excerpt from the PF investigation.

In the United States, introducing himself as Victor Muller, Cherkasov managed to enroll at the renowned Johns Hopkins University, in Washington, for a postgraduate degree in international relations, from 2018 to 2020. Before, between 2014 and 2018, also with false documents from Brazilian, studied political science at Trinity College, in Dublin, Ireland. In Brazil, according to investigations, he would have obtained a driver’s license by bribing a notary clerk with a Swarovski necklace worth US$ 400 (R$ 2,000 at current exchange rates).

When analyzing the case, Fachin made it clear that the extradition to Russia could be postponed. This is because the Migration Law, in force in Brazil, determines that “when the person being extradited is being prosecuted or has been convicted, in Brazil, of a crime punishable with deprivation of liberty, the extradition will only be carried out after the conclusion of the process or the fulfillment of the sentence, except for cases of early release by the Judiciary and determination of the transfer of the convicted person”.

In practice, Cherkasov may have to remain in Brazil to serve time for the crimes committed here. His defense has already appealed against the conviction for the crime of falsifying documents, but the second instance has not yet ruled on the appeal.

In November, he was heard by an auxiliary judge of Fachin at the STF (see the video above). The testimony drew the attention of federal police officers because of the fact that he had agreed to the extradition and also because of the evasive and uncertain answers about the facts that would have motivated his conviction. The judge wanted to know if he was aware of the reason for his extradition.

Serguei Cherkasov first confesses that he used the name Victor. Asked why he used a document with that name, he promptly replied: “No, Your Excellency. I would like to remain silent on this question. I would just like to reiterate that I want to be extradited to Russia, I agree with the accusations that [a] Russia did and I intend to respond to the facts of my crimes that are alleged by Russia, in my State, as soon as possible.”

He later said he was aware of what he was being accused of and asked about what facts, he replied that it was about drug trafficking and criminal organization. When the judge asks about when this organization was started, he replies that it would have started around 2012 or 2011. At that moment, the public defender called to assist him interrupts and says that Cherkasov would clarify the facts for Russia. The judge even asked him about information that he would have exercised espionage, but the Russian replied that he would remain silent.

Called to speak, the public defender reinforced that Cherkasov wants to surrender voluntarily and thus speed up the extradition process. In these cases, the understanding of the STF allows a minister to decide monocratically on the delivery to the country that asks for extradition, as Fachin did in March of this year. The minister, however, conditioned the delivery to the end of the investigations or the fulfillment of the sentence. In practice, the spy may spend much longer in prison within Brazil.

Cherkasov’s case worries the PF because it reinforces the perception that Brazil has become a base for Russian spies. In recent years, it has been discovered, with the help of foreign agencies, that there are at least two other Russians who have settled in the country posing as Brazilians.

The ease of obtaining false documents and the fact that the Brazilian passport is well received in other countries, where they travel in search of sensitive information, are attractive factors. In addition, behind the scenes, there is an assessment that the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) has lost the ability to monitor the performance of these spies, focusing more on internal issues. More valuable information, such as the real identity of “Victor Muller Ferreira”, usually comes from the intelligence of other countries.