Investigations by the NIS showed that the alleged “Maria Tsalla”, who was active as a photographer and shop owner in Athens, is finally the foreign national “Irina Alexandrovna Smireva”, who was acting in our country as a spy.
“Maria Tsalla” claimed to be Greek, with Greek citizenship and identity as of 2018. This name, it was found, belonged to a dead infant. The handicraft and knitting shop in Pagrati that she ran seems to have been the “showcase” for her activity after all.
The countdown to the disclosure began with the detection of an attempt by a third country to access the details of deceased Greek citizens. This is an internationally recognized practice of the Intelligence Services of a specific country to create a special category of spies with the nickname “illegals”.
The action of the “illegals”…
“Illegals” are recruited and trained by Secret Services with the aim of being placed in target countries, then undertaking espionage action in favor of their country. To protect their true identity, they use “deep cover”, which is created by falsifying individual documents and using certificates derived from details of stillborn babies and generally deceased people. From the moment of their placement abroad, the “illegals” live and behave according to the fabricated history that has been created for them in order to protect their mission.
According to the NIS, the profile and actions of “Maria Tsalla” directly refer to this special category of spies.
The case that has just been revealed is typical of the way of thinking and action of the specific Services. To build her identity and profile, they worked systematically for many years with appropriate exploitation of persons, procedures and agencies, so that finally the foreigner “Irina” lives from 2018 and is recognized as a Greek “Maria”.
According to the NIS, its action would not be limited only to the Greek territory, since as an EU citizen, it could travel and work in several European countries.
Since the beginning of January, the Russian spy has allegedly escaped to her country in time, before she was arrested by the Greek Counterintelligence.
The beginning of the end for her activity began two months ago, when the Slovenian authorities arrested one of her colleagues. The Russian secret services, fearing that other persons from the network of illegals will be revealed, recalled “Tsalla” in Moscow. She told her acquaintances that she would leave for some business and that she would return in a month, but she never showed up. She closed her social media profiles, took down her store’s website and disappeared from the face of the earth…
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