Released Russian spy worked for Dutch artist

Dutch artist Mariken Heijwegen unwittingly worked with a Russian spy who was released last week in the great prisoner exchange between Russia and Belarus on one side and several Western countries on the other. A total of 24 prisoners were released, including the Russian couple Artem Doeltsev and Anna Doeltseva, Nieuwsuur reports.

Years ago, Russia sent the couple to Slovenia to gather intelligence. They posed as an Argentinian couple with two children. Artem had an IT company. Anna, who called herself Maria Rosa Mayer Muños, had an art gallery through which she sold the paintings of various artists, including Dutch artist Mariken Heijwegen.

“I got in touch with her after I sent her a message on Instagram because she had a really nice gallery,” Heijwegen told Nieusuur. “She represented some foreign artists, and I thought it would be fun to do something in Slovenia as well. We clicked, and she asked me if I wanted to send her some paintings for an art fair in Zagreb in Croatia so that she could represent me there.”

After “Maria” sold two of her paintings, Heijwegen met with the woman in Slovenia. “She came across as a very sweet, honest little Latina who spoke Spanish and English very quickly. I didn’t know any better than that she was South American. She was even a bit timid. And because we clicked, I asked her if she wanted to be my art agent. She said she would come back to me, but in retrospect, I think she didn’t want to involve me in her sinister affairs.”

According to Ben de Jong, a researcher of intelligence services at Leiden University, Russia has two categories of intelligence personnel. The legal intelligence officers are stationed at an embassy. And illegal intelligence officers who have no visible ties to Moscow. The Doeltsev couple fell into the illegal category. “A very important difference between the two is that a legal intelligence officer cannot be brought to court. At most, he is expelled from the country,” De Jong told Nieuwsuur. “That is different for illegal ones. They do not have diplomatic immunity and can be convicted.”

The Russian couple got arrested in Slovenia after a tip from a foreign intelligence service shortly after Heijwegen met with “Maria.” The Slovenian authorities found large amounts of cash in their office, presumably used to pay their informants. They ended up in prison, and their two children were placed in foster care.

Heijwegen found out what happened later. “I got a phone call from a lawyer. He wanted my address so that he could return my paintings because Maria could no longer be my art agent. I was shocked and asked what happened. He told me that she was fine but that she could no longer work for me. She also stopped responding to my emails,” the artist said. A Slovenian journalist later told her the whole story. “It was quite a shock: you think you know someone, but then it all turns out to be a lie. She was not only my agent but also a secret agent.”

After their release, the Russian couple told the pro-Kremlin channel Russia-24 that they were so absorbed in their roles that they barely spoke their native language anymore. Their children only learned of their parents’ true identities on the plane back to Russia.