Norway’s domestic security agency has arrested a man claiming to be a Brazilian academic whom it suspects of being a Russian spy.
“We have requested that a Brazilian researcher at the University of Tromsø be expelled from Norway because we believe he represents a threat to fundamental national interests,” the police security service (PST) deputy chief, Hedvig Moe, told the public broadcaster NRK.
The security agency was concerned he “may have acquired a network and information about Norway’s policy in the north”, Moe said. “Even if this … is not a threat to the security of the kingdom, we are worried it could be misused by Russia.”
Norway said last week it had arrested a seventh Russian national suspected of illegally flying drones or taking photographs in restricted areas, mainly in the strategically sensitive far north of Norway.
Investigators believe the supposed researcher, who was detained on Monday in the Arctic city, was in Norway under a false name and identity working for one of Russia’s intelligence services, NRK said. A local court ordered him to be held for four weeks.
Two staff members at the University of Tromsø who closely worked with the suspect said police had identified the man in question as José Assis Giammaria.
“I received a message late last night that police had detained Giammaria and searched his office,” said Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv, a professor in security studies at the university.
Gjørv said Giammaria had arrived at the university in December 2021 after contacting her with the request to conduct research at her department, which focuses on Arctic security.
“Giammaria emailed me, saying he was interested in learning more about security in the Arctic,” Gjørv told the Guardian in a phone interview.
“He was recommended by a professor that I knew in Canada where he studied. We did the standard background check and called the references he listed,” she said.
According to Gjørv as well as publicly available information, Giammaria graduated from the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary in 2018.
Gjørv said Giammaria was not officially employed at the University of Tromsø but helped organise lectures and seminars while working on his “self-funded” research.
Gjørv believes Giammaria did not have access to classified information at the university.
“But he did get an understanding and insights into the sort of discussions and debates that we are having about security. He was at the place where important research was happening,” she said, adding that “ironically” much of her department’s research was focused on hybrid threats.
“What is interesting, if not ironic, is that we research how the civilian domain is targeted by hybrid threats. I did not expect I would be part of exactly what we research.”
“It says something about what Russia thinks about our research.”
A second colleague who has closely worked with Giammaria described him as “friendly” although they added that he was extremely protective of his privacy.
“He said he was against social media, and didn’t even want to use WhatsApp, he only wanted to talk on Telegram,” said the colleague, who asked for anonymity. “At the same time, he asked a lot of questions, including questions of personal nature as well.”
The colleague said Giammaria had a “funny accent” that reminded him of Russian, but he could not “exactly place it”.
Giammaria’s behaviour had raised suspicion among colleagues at the university, the source said, and he once made a joke to Giammaria, asking him whether he was a spy.
Both Gjørv and the second colleague did not know Giammaria’s exact age but said he looked to be in his “late 30s or early 40s.”
The suspect’s lawyer, Thomas Hansen, told VG newspaper he denied any wrongdoing.
“He does not understand the accusations,” Hansen said of his client. “That is why he also asked to be released in court today.”
According to the court detention order, the Norwegian justice ministry notified the man last week that it believed he was “in Norway on assignment for the Russian authorities and may be a Russian citizen with false Brazilian papers”.
The court order added: “Nothing has subsequently emerged to indicate that the ministry’s assessment is not correct.”
Several Russian citizens have been held in Norway in recent weeks, including three men and a woman allegedly taking photos, who have since been released. Three others – one with four terabytes of photos and videos – were arrested with drones.
Norway, now western Europe’s largest gas supplier, is on high security alert after last month’s suspected sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines off Sweden and Denmark.
In June, Dutch intelligence revealed that a Russian spy had tried and failed to secure an internship at the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague using the false identity of a Brazilian citizen that he had built up over more than a decade.
Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, 36, who is accused of being an agent of Russia’s GRU military intelligence, was arrested at Schiphol airport after flying to the Netherlands under the false identity of Viktor Muller Ferreira, 33.
In August, investigators unmasked another GRU spy by the name of Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera, who allegedly spent a decade posing as a Peruvian jewellery designer and partied with Nato staff based in Naples.
