The Russian Spies Next Door
LJUBLJANA, SloveniaThe young Argentine couple in the pastel-colored house lived a seemingly ordinary suburban life, driving around this sleepy European capital in a white Kia Ceed sedan, always paying their taxes on time and never so much as getting a parking ticket.
Maria Rosa Mayer Muños ran an online art gallery, telling acquaintances shed left Argentina after being robbed in Buenos Aires by an armed gang at a red light. Her husband, Ludwig Gisch, ran an IT startup. Described by neighbors in their middle-class district of Črnuče as normal and quiet, the husband and wife appeared to be global citizens: switching from English and German with friends to accentless Spanish with their son and daughter, who attended the British International School.
Yet almost everything about the family from number 35 Primoičeva street was a carefully constructed lie, according to Slovenian and Western intelligence officials. Gischs real name is Artem Viktorovich Dultsev, born in the Russian autonomous republic of Bashkortostan and an elite officer in Russias foreign intelligence service, the SVR, according to the officials and court documents.
Mayer Muños is Anna Valerevna Dultseva, a more senior SVR officer than her partner, from Nizhny Novgorod. The couples computers contained hardware to communicate securely to handlers in Moscow that was so encrypted neither Slovenian nor U.S. technicians could crack it. In a secret compartment inside their refrigerator, they kept hundreds of thousands of euros in crisp bank notes.
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/the-russian-spies-next-door-bd7c7312?st=8gkkmmh4f7b4l40&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
mahatmakanejeeves
(59,816 posts)Im defrosting now.
flying_wahini
(7,717 posts)Me love you long time ..
flying_wahini
(7,717 posts)Lots of work to keep them hidden and under the radar; filtering money and traveling around the world, marrying teams to keep it going. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to infiltrate but didnt get what their purpose was.
Was it just to have people online to steal information? To provide what?
Did they have access to state secrets? To be online trolls?
BootinUp
(48,341 posts)wake up. He will not let you ignore him.
Hermit-The-Prog
(36,145 posts)eggplant
(3,964 posts)Literally!
Fla Dem
(25,195 posts)The difference may be they are American citizens trying their best to tear America apart. Either as demonstrators, or maybe even as US Politicians. It happened before during WWII and it's probably happening again.
llmart
(16,144 posts)Maybe her parents too. Didn't he fast track their citizenship?