The spy scandals that shook the world

The energetic founder of an IT startup, Ludwig Gisch from Argentina, his art historian wife, Maria Mayer, and their two young children, created a whole community of influential Slovenes around them. The family's enchanting 'benevolence' disappeared when they were detained as part of one of the most secretive and well-coordinated intelligence operations in Slovenia's recent history. The "Argentines" turned out to be Russian spies.

More than 400 diplomats have been recently drummed out of European countries. Numerous "moles" have been found among service workers in government institutions, and even in restaurants where European opinion leaders and officials like to dine.

Cheap jewelry for the Sheikh

A stylish brunette smiles from the cover of an Italian glossy. In a few days, the socialite and jewelry designer will board a plane from Naples without a return ticket. It will become obvious that the employee of Russia's main intelligence agency, who has been spying on NATO officers for decades, has been exposed.

The joint investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider, Der Spiegel and La Repubblica has exposed a deep cover Russian spy. The It-girl’s lid was blown off when her passport number belonged to a range of at least six other GRU spies involved in the poisoning of Bulgarian arms manufacturer Emilian Gebrev and former spy Sergei Skripal.

“Meet Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera, widow, jeweller, and socialite. The love child of a German father and a Peruvian mother, born in Callao, Peru, and abandoned in Moscow by her mother during the 1980 Olympic Games,” an investigator Khristo Grozev posted on Twitter

According to The Insider, in 2005, a woman tried to get a Peruvian passport bearing the name Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera, but was denied. Later, 'Maria Adela' received the necessary document in Russia.

From then on, Maria Adela traveled extensively in Europe, befriending influential politicians and celebrities. The former editor of the British Cosmopolitan, Marcelle D'Argie Smith, considered Maria Adela to be her friend, who allegedly studied gemology in Rome and fashion design in the UK.

Maria Adela founded a boutique of designer jewelry in the suburbs of Naples, Italy. It is located close to the NATO Command Center and the Lion's Club charity organization created by Alliance officers. The "jewelry designer" managed to get a job as a secretary at the Lion's Club, and thus made close acquaintances with the command center staff. The woman actively attended events organized by NATO and the US Armed Forces, made friends with many officers, and in some cases, there were rumors of "clearly romantic relationships".

In 2018, once Bellingcat and The Insider published their investigation into the Salisbury poisoning, Russian spy "Maria Adela" flew to Moscow. Two months later, she published a post on social media where she talked about her "fight with cancer."

Since then, Russian citizen Olga Kolobova, a GRU officer born in 1982, resides in an elite apartment in Moscow.

It is noteworthy that the "author" jewelry, presented by "Maria Adela" to high-ranking officials, including Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the Prime Minister of Bahrain, turned out to be jewelry from AliExpress, Chinese website of cheap products.

A respected professor and industrial espionage 

A respected director of the Confucius Institute at VUB (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) - was denied to return to teaching Chinese culture in Brussels after the security service accused 65-year-old Xining Song of espionage and banned him from entering Belgium.

Professor Song has lived in Belgium for ten years. His work visa expired while he was traveling in China. He was denied a renewal. Song, a part-time professor at Renmin University of Beijing in China and a specialist in European studies, was accused of "supporting the activities of Chinese intelligence services, espionage and interference in the Belgian internal affairs. It was also alleged that intelligence officers recruited representatives of local business and the Belgian academic community.

Against the backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions, US and UK politicians have become concerned about the risks posed by Chinese soft power organizations to academic freedom and the potential theft of patented research on university campuses.

Confucius Institutes around the world are generously funded by the Chinese government and controlled by the Communist Party. Beijing censors teaching materials, discussions, bans events, and evaluates teachers, the Royal United Services Institute report says.

Children's soccer coach and double agent

Carsten Linke, the owner of a modest house in a small town framed by the Alps, is a father of two and coach of the local children's soccer team. Among his neighbors and friends, he is known to be a passionate sports fan and a skilled hunter. To the young members of the club aged 7-14, he is a fair, moderately strict leader.

No one in the Bavarian town of Weilheim in Oberbayern would have guessed that they knew only one of the many lives of the 52-year-old Linke.

For the German Federal Intelligence Service, he was an employee, while for the Russian special services he was a double agent leaking top secret information. 

Colonel of the German Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND)

Carsten Linke was the head of one of the largest BND units and provided classified intelligence to the Chancellor himself. A star of German intelligence, a potential candidate for one of the four most important positions in the BND, Linke was responsible for cybersecurity, surveillance of electronic communications, coordinated data exchange with foreign intelligence agencies, and had access to the personal files of agents.

By the end of 2022, the criminal police arrested BND Colonel Carsten Linke.

As it turned out, the children's soccer coach and intelligence officer received at least €400,000 from Russian accounts in exchange for the coordinates of the exact location of the American HIMARS MLRS and German IRIS-T air defense systems in Ukraine.

At the behest of the Russian FSB, Linke collected classified data from foreign intelligence agencies, such as the US National Security Agency and the UK Government Communications Headquarters, as well as intercepts from German reconnaissance ships in the Baltic Sea and mobile devices in southern Ukraine.

It was only with the help of the allied Western service that Germany discovered the mole. Suspicions arose when Carsten began to demand "atypical" reports on the Russian war from his colleagues.

The details of the case immediately became classified as a state secret. Linke could face a life sentence.

However, against the backdrop of the spy pandemic that has swept Europe, the case is gaining global significance, turning into the largest spy scandal of the last decade.

The exact number and role of spies in Europe remains unknown.