ON JUNE 16, THE Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) announced that it prevented a Russian military intelligence officer from gaining access as an intern to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
ON JUNE 16, THE Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD)
announced
that it prevented a Russian military intelligence officer from gaining
access as an intern to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The
Hague. The ICC is of interest to the GRU because it investigates
possible war crimes committed by Russia in the Russo-Georgian War of
2008 and more recently in Ukraine.
The GRU officer reportedly traveled from
Brazil to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam in April 2022, using a Brazilian
cover identity, making him a so-called “illegal”. This means the
intelligence operative was not formally associated with a Russian
diplomatic facility. He allegedly planned to start an internship with
the ICC, which would have given him access to the ICC’s building and
systems. This could have enabled the GRU to collect intelligence, spot
and recruit sources, and possibly influence criminal proceedings inside
the ICC.
On his arrival at Schiphol, the AIVD
informed the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND), after
which the officer was refused entry to the Netherlands and put on the
first plane back to Brazil as persona non grata. The AIVD assessed the
officer as a “potentially very serious” threat to both national security
and the security of the ICC and Holland’s international allies, due to
his access to the organization.
In a first-ever for the AIVD, the agency also released
the contents of a partially redacted 4-page document that describes the
“extensive and complex” cover identity of the officer. It was
originally written in Portuguese, “probably created around mid-2010” and
“likely written” by the officer himself. According to the AIVD, the
information provides valuable insight into his modus operandi. The cover
identity hid any and all links between him and Russia. According to the
AIVD, the construction of this kind of cover identity “generally takes
years to complete”.
In the note accompanying the document,
the AIVD says that Russian intelligence services “spend years” on the
construction of cover identities for illegals, using “information on how
other countries register and store personal data”. Alternatively, they
illegally procure or forge identity documents. Information in the cover
identity “can therefore be traceable to one or more actual persons,
living or dead” as well as to forged identities of individuals “who only
exist on paper or in registries of local authorities”.
