The National Intelligence Service (EYP) of Greece has exposed a woman, known as ‘Maria T’, as actually being a Russian spy who took on the identity of a deceased Greek woman.
EYP’s full statement follows:
“Maria T.”: A case of espionage uncovered by EYP
“Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP) has made an important disclosure of the modus operandi and infiltration techniques used by foreign intelligence services in Greece.
“More specifically, systematic investigations conducted by EYP, further to information it has collected, demonstrated that a female person under the name ‘Maria T.’ who in the past few years pretended to be Greek and worked as a photographer and owner of a craft and knitting supplies shop in Athens, with Greek citizenship and identity card since 2018, is in reality the foreign national ‘Irina A. S.’ who has been operating in our country under ‘deep cover’.
“The countdown towards her exposure started after the detection of a third country attempt to gain access to personal data of deceased Greek citizens, an internationally known and established practice the intelligence services of a specific foreign country use for the creation of a special category of spies called “ illegals”.
“The aforementioned intelligence services recruit and train ‘Illegals’ aiming at placing them in target countries, in order to carry out spying activity on behalf of their country.
“To protect their real identity they operate under a ‘deep cover’, they created a falsifying personal documents and used stillbirth certificates or death certificates. From the moment of their settlement abroad the ‘illegals’ lived and acted on the basis of the fabricated story created for them so as to shield their mission.
“‘Maria T’s profile and activity is a direct reference to the special category of ‘illegals’.
“The case that has been just disclosed by EYP is a telling example of the way of thinking and acting of the specific foreign Services, since in order to engineer the identity and the profile of ‘T’ they have methodically worked for many years, skillfully exploiting people, procedures and institutions so that the third country citizen ‘Irina’ eventually lived and identified as the Greek citizen ‘Maria’, thus deceiving even her closest persons in Greece who were obviously unaware of her real identity.
“It is clear that ‘T’s’ activity would not have been limited to Greek territory. Being an EU citizen she would have been able to travel and work in many European countries. That is why EYP’s success bears a dimension that goes beyond the national borders and touches the western countries overall.”
For their part, Greek media outlet Proto Thema reported the spy as being Russian.
The Greek revelation comes after Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Thursday that an espionage network operating in the country had been broken up.
The spies had hidden cameras on important railway routes, mainly in the southern Podkarpackie region.
“I would like to emphasise the great success achieved by the officers of the Internal Security Agency because the whole spy network has been unraveled,” Blaszczak told state broadcaster Polskie Radio 1.
“It was an espionage group, a group of people who were collecting information for those who attacked Ukraine,” he added without providing further details.
Blaszczak suggested that the group had entered from neighboring Belarus, a Russian ally that borders NATO member Poland. “The threat was real,” Blaszczak said on state radio.
Later on Thursday, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said the Internal Security Agency had arrested nine people suspected of spying for Russia in the case. Three were detained on Wednesday.
He said at a news conference in Warsaw that the suspects were preparing “sabotage actions aimed at paralyzing the supply of equipment, weapons and aid to Ukraine.”
According to Kaminski, the security agents also seized cameras, electronic equipment and GPS transmitters, which the suspects planned to place on transports carrying aid to Ukraine.
He added the operation against the alleged espionage ring was still ongoing, and that more details would be revealed at a later time.
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