How I fell in love with a Russian spy

Russia used Brazil's lax birth-certificate system to manufacture deep-cover identities for spies until a 2022 arrest exposed the network.

• Deep-cover identity: Eric Lopez, a supposed Rio-born gemologist dating Stephanie Arcanjo since 2019, was actually Alexander Utasian, a Russian intelligence officer using a fabricated Brazilian identity.
• Brazil as laundering hub: Russia shifted its spy-identity 'washing' operations to Brazil after Canada became compromised, exploiting loose birth-certificate rules and Brazil's ethnic diversity to build cover.

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