Russia’s intelligence services turned Brazil into an assembly line for deep-cover operatives. A team of federal agents from the South American country has been quietly dismantling it.

Artem Shmyrev had everyone fooled. The Russian intelligence officer seemed to have built the perfect cover identity. He ran a successful 3-D printing business and shared an upscale apartment in Rio de Janeiro with his Brazilian girlfriend and a fluffy orange-and-white Maine coon cat.

But most important, he had an authentic birth certificate and passport that cemented his alias as Gerhard Daniel Campos Wittich, a 34-year-old Brazilian citizen.

After six years lying low, he was impatient to begin real spy work.

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