An accused Russian spy boasted that infiltrating the US was easy. He’s now in prison after getting caught with files that blew his cover.

• Secret messages from court documents provide a glimpse into the wild life of an accused Russian spy.

• The DOJ accuses Sergey Cherkasov of operating undercover in the US, and obtained a cache of his messages.

• He was proud of his mistaken identity, writing “We fucking did it!!! AAAAAAA.” Then his luck ran out.

Court documents containing secret messages purportedly between a Russian spy and his handler provide a wild look at a decades-long cover story that was eventually dramatically undermined.

The messages are contained in the billing documents made public by the Department of Justicewhich brings espionage charges against Sergey Cherkasov.

The DOJ alleges that Cherkasov spent years developing a false identity as a Brazilian called Viktor Muller Ferreira, which he used to smuggle into the US.

One message in the complaint shows Cherkasov’s joy after being accepted to a prestigious US university, where he hoped an international relations course would give him access to privileged information on US foreign policy.

“Let’s drink now!!!” he wrote, later adding “We fucking did it!!!”

Another message published by the Department of Justice celebrated that he will enter the US “with the status of a fucking top-dude with amazing job prospects, citizenship prospects.”

However, despite his confidence in the cover story, in the following years, Cherkasov’s luck ran out, the documents say.

After completing his course in the US – CNN reported it was at Johns Hopkins University — the DOJ said Cherkasov tried to get jobs in the US government, think tanks, and the media.

Ultimately, it said, he was accepted for an internship at the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands — but was turned down by Dutch security in April 2022 when he tried to take it.

Soon after, he was arrested in Brazil, where he was charged with identity theft and fraud, the DOJ said.

From there, Brazilian agents found a large cache of evidence that they shared with the FBI to build its case. Later, he was convicted in Brazil and given 15 years in prison.

The story continues

According to the complaint, the Cherkasov’s were arrested with several hard drives and a phone, filled with information detailing a cover story spanning more than a decade.

His hard drives also held a map to a hideout in Sao Paulo, according to the documents.

According to the complaint, the phone led agents to Cherkasov’s real name, his mother, and photos of him in a Russian military uniform, which would be consistent with work as a spy.

The complaint also includes messages from Cherkasov’s prison, in which he texted someone described as a love interest bragging that he was about to be extradited to Russia — a fact that never materialized.

“Good news is that in 2 weeks my case will be over (like no revision of it, no appeal, like boom over),” he wrote.

“I dream a lot about our New Year – you and me in St. Petersburg while walking in the snow to the Winter Palace. Everything will be fine [happy face image] [signed] Prisoner of War,” he wrote.

The complaint said the Russian government told Brazil that Cherkasov was wanted for drug-trafficking, a claim the complaint describes as “dubious” and which the investigative outlet Bellingcat said it was a pretense to win him back.

The DOJ accuses Cherkasov of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, using false documents, and lying to officials. It is unclear how or when he may stand trial because of his imprisonment in Brazil.

Read the original article at Business Insider