On Tuesday, U.S. prosecutors charged five men in an alleged Russian intelligence network accused of recruiting people for surveillance, sabotage and murder plots across Europe and the United States.
The defendants include two Russians, two Cubans and a Venezuelan.
Among them is Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, a Cuban national living in Russia whom prosecutors identified as a high-ranking member of the Russian intelligence network who coordinated operations abroad. One day before the charges were announced, a separate six-month European investigation identified Durruthy as the man behind “Dios,” an alleged recruiter of largely Spanish-speaking “disposable agents” used in sabotage operations across Europe.
Together, the investigations show how a Russian recruitment model already documented in Europe appears to have extended into the United States.
A Recruiter in Russia
Born in Cuba, Durruthy had lived in Russia for at least seven years and taught salsa, bachata and kizomba at a Latin dance studio in Petrozavodsk. According to the Deutsche Welle investigation, accounts linked to Durruthy were also searching Facebook and Telegram groups for potential recruits.
One advertisement sought people with experience in “monitoring, intelligence, logistics and tactical maneuvers,” offering $1,500 plus bonuses. Another appeared in a group used by Cuban expatriates. Durruthy allegedly approached Latin Americans looking for work in Europe as well as people seeking to join Ukraine’s military.
The resulting network included at least a dozen recruits and was linked by authorities to attacks or attempted attacks in Poland, Czechia, Romania and Lithuania. Targets included a Prague bus depot, construction businesses and equipment intended for Ukraine’s military.
Many of those recruited were neither Russians nor trained intelligence officers. They were foreigners approached online, remotely assigned tasks and offered relatively modest payments.
European security officials have described such recruits as “disposable agents.”
From Europe to Brooklyn
The new American charges indicate that the same model extended beyond Europe.
According to the Justice Department, Durruthy belonged to the same alleged Russian intelligence network as former intelligence colonel Yuri Khrameev and his son Kirill, an officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service.
Two other members, Cuban national Yaidel Delgado Suarez and Venezuelan national Angel Eduardo Castro, allegedly recruited a Venezuelan citizen living in Brooklyn to surveil a prominent Russian dissident believed to be living in Washington, D.C.
The recruit was given two locations and promised between $1,000 and $1,500 for surveillance. After he returned photographs and videos, prosecutors say Suarez and Castro offered him $40,000 to “eliminate” or “disappear” the target.
He refused.
According to prosecutors, Suarez then asked whether he knew someone else who could carry out the job and claimed to have “people in Mexico” who could do it but had been delayed.
The allegations describe a network stretching from Russia through Latin American intermediaries to New York and Washington, with one alleged member also claiming access to people in Mexico.
A Low-Cost Sabotage Model
The operation also appears to rely on relatively small payments.
Prosecutors say a separate U.S. citizen was offered $200 to photograph a target in Lithuania. That assignment later escalated into a $25,000 murder offer. When the individual refused, Yuri Khrameev proposed other assignments, including burning warehouses or attacking electrical substations.
The pattern reflects what Western researchers have documented in Europe. The Royal United Services Institute has identified financial incentives as a key factor in Russia’s recruitment of disposable agents. A CSIS study found that Russian sabotage and subversion attacks in Europe nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024.
The model reduces the need to send Russian intelligence officers directly into Western countries. Recruits can instead be found online, given limited tasks and paid through intermediaries, making the operation cheaper and more difficult to trace back to its organizers.
After Western countries expelled hundreds of Russian intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover following the invasion of Ukraine, researchers say Moscow increasingly turned to remote recruitment and disposable local agents.
The result is a model built around online recruitment, encrypted communications, relatively small payments and local intermediaries.
The September indictment suggests that this model is no longer only a European concern.
According to prosecutors, a network associated with Russian intelligence was able to recruit a resident of Brooklyn for surveillance inside the United States and then offer him $40,000 to kill a dissident.
The defendants remain at large, and the charges are allegations. But the case provides a rare look at how a recruitment system previously documented across Europe reached American soil.