Russian agent attempted to infiltrate Hague court under Brazilian alias

‘He was sent back to Brazil on the first flight out’

A RUSSIAN “sleeper agent” created an elaborate identity as a Brazilian intern to infiltrate the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Dutch authorities have said.

The Netherlands’ General Intelligence and Security Service exposed the 36-year-old man as an agent for the Russian military intelligence agency GRU, and denied him entry into the country as a “threat to national security”. “He was sent back to Brazil on the first flight out,” authorities said.

The Dutch intelligence agency said the man they identified as Sergey Chekasov had worked in Brazil as an “illegal” and underwent extensive training, spending years building a well-constructed cover identity. Russian intelligence agencies have not commented on the report.

The suspected agent had been meant to work at the ICC, which has handled several high-profile cases against war criminals and is looking to launch proceedings to investigate suspected Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Dutch authorities said the Russian agent would have been able to gather intelligence at the Hague and “look for, or recruit sources and arrange to have access to the ICC’S digital systems”.

They also published a four-page note which they say was penned by Mr Chekasov about a decade ago to memorise the details of his fake past. The man in the notes called himself Victor Muller Ferreira, born in Rio de Janeiro in 1989.