A Russian spy who posed as a jewelry maker and glitterati social climber among influencers in Naples, Italy, was able to wriggle her way into the inner circles of NATO commanders, according to a new investigative report.
The story of Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera—or whoever she really is—was untangled in a joint investigation by Bellingcat, Der Spiegel, The Insider and La Repubblica, which simultaneously published stories Friday.
Maria Adela’s journey from Russia to Naples starts in Peru in 2005, when she was denied a Peruvian passport after providing a 1978 baptism certificate from a church that was founded a decade later. A woman with the same cover identity, including the exact name and date of birth, was given a Russian passport a year later, and set to work at Moscow State University to create a traceable history that was likely never checked by her new friends in Italy. The Russian passport number was within the same group issued to other fake identities, including the man suspected of poisoning Bulgarian arms producer Emilian Gebrev and a Russian intelligence agent involved in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, the investigators say.
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It is not known just what Maria Adela’s mission was, but she found her way in Naples, where she made friends with journalists and diplomats who were all told the story of how she was abandoned in Russia by her Peruvian mother and raised by an abusive family. She told the same story that the experience left her yearning for a life in Europe—not Russia—which is how she found herself first in the Roman seaside suburb of Ostia, where she studied gemology to become a jeweler, and later in Naples, where her jewelry business thrived among the expats stationed in and around a NATO base.
In 2012, the investigative reporters say, she married an Italian who was not really Italian at all, but rather Ecuadoran and Russian. He died mysteriously—or at least his identity was issued a death certificate—at the age of 30 due to “double pneumonia and systemic lupus.” After his demise, she settled in Naples and marketed cheap made-in-China baubles as high-end jewelry to “the woman who is never excessive.”
It was there that her jewelry boutique by day and nightclub by evening lured a number of up-and-coming Neapolitans who tended to mix with NATO diplomats. She became the secretary of the Lions Club Napoli Monte Nuovo, which was founded by a NATO officer. Bellingcat reports the club had thought that by recruiting Maria Adela, they could lure a more lofty crowd. Instead, the reporters say, she worked her way close to a number of NATO officers, including a U.S. Navy employee who she said had “a little crush” on her.
But at least one military figure found the captivating jewelry maker’s story questionable. Bellingcat interviewed Col. Sheila Bryant, then inspector general of the U.S. Naval Forces in Europe and Africa. She says she urged others to “limit access” to highly confidential military information on a need-to-know basis around the woman. Bryant also told Bellingcat that Maria Adela befriended a number of NATO officers from Italy, Belgium, and Germany. She attended a number of NATO galas, including the annual ball and several fundraising dinners, which tend to cost many thousand dollars per plate.
Suddenly, in 2018, Maria Adela—or at least her passport—flew back to Moscow one last time. Her last social media post spoke of a cancer diagnosis, complete with her hair “growing now after chemo” which the reporting groups believe was a way to close her circles in Naples and beyond.
Bellingcat says the woman who sold herself as Maria Adela the jeweler and social climber was really a GRU agent named Olga Kolobova, as identified by photo-matching software, and that Maria Adela’s passport has not been activated since her return to Moscow.
Kolobova, on the other hand, is now affiliated with a “Friends of Putin” group and pushes pro-war propaganda.
