She was known as Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera, but her real name was Olga Kolobova, and she was a spy working for Russia’s GRU foreign intelligence agency, according to research site Bellingcat, which used photo-matching software to take her down. Rivera settled in Rome, Malta and Paris before making Naples, Italy, her home. She owned a jewelry boutique and spoke on the city’s international party scene, including soirées and balls attended by NATO officers, the report said. Olga Kolombova often painted herself as a lonely woman who came from a bad family, according to her [email protected] Olga Kolombova was an agent working for Russia’s GRU foreign intelligence [email protected] Olga Kolombova often flirted with NATO officers from a command base in Bagnoli, Italy.Napoli/ROPI via ZUMA Press She was fluent in English and Italian, and an unidentified officer told Bellingcat that the two had a brief romance. A US Navy officer said she was “slightly crushed”. She told European friends that she had been abandoned in Russia by her Peruvian mother and raised by an abusive family. In 2012, Maria Adela, who was actually the daughter of a Russian army colonel, married an alleged Italian. But he was actually Ecuadorian and Russian and died mysteriously at the age of 30 due to “double pneumonia and systemic lupus.” After his death, she settled in Naples and began befriending NATO diplomats. Marcelle D’Argy Smith, the former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, was one of her unwitting friends. “She was like a godfather or a niece. It was upsetting to find out,” Smith said. “She was very beautiful, very reserved. She had many male friends, but they never seemed worthy. She was so attractive and the men seemed ordinary and I never understood it.’ Marcelle D’Argy Smith claimed that Olga Kolobova was too attractive to date so many ordinary men.courtesy/Bellingcat A NATO officer admitted to dating alleged Russian spy Olga [email protected] Olga Kolobova owned a jewelry boutique in Naples, Italy. Col. Sheila Bryant, then inspector general of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa, was suspicious of Maria Adela’s story, Bellingcutt said. She told colleagues to “restrict access” to highly confidential military information around her. Suddenly, in 2018, Maria Adela left for Moscow — and her friends in Europe haven’t seen her since. Bellingcat claimed that its cover was somehow blown by outside intelligence agencies.