William Acosta, CEO of Equalizer Investigations for FinGurú
Introduction
In mid-2025, the arrest of Gonzalo de Jesús Ramos Santos, a 22-year-old Colombian captured in Barranquilla for terrorism and espionage crimes, uncovered a sophisticated clandestine network designed by Russian secret services to execute acts of sabotage in Europe. This operation, conceived during the war in Ukraine, constitutes one of the clearest examples of modern hybrid warfare, where powers like Russia outsource espionage and destabilization operations using foreign citizens.
Ramos Santos, wanted by Lithuania under case No. LT-25-ORG-481/2024, is part of a transnational structure that employs Latin American recruits to penetrate the logistical and technological heart of Europe.
The findings not only involve his intelligence work on UAB TVC Solutions, a company supplying drones to Ukraine, but also a global plot that exposes the vulnerability of Western systems to new methods of manipulation and covert warfare (Infobae, 2025; El Heraldo, 2025; El Colombiano, 2025).
Although the objective of these missions was to inflict economic and symbolic damage, judicial reports confirm that there were no deaths or injuries in the attacks perpetrated or planned by the recruited Colombians (DW, 2025; Infobae, 2025; Noticias Caracol, 2025). Their operations aimed to provoke chaos, political propaganda, and industrial sabotage, without causing direct casualties — a hallmark of modern espionage that is fought more on psychological ground than military.
Recruitment: The Digital Hunt for New Saboteurs
The recruitment of Colombians was meticulous, digital, and transnational. Russian FSB and GRU agents contacted young people through encrypted apps like Telegram, offering payments between $3,000 and $10,000 for tasks that initially seemed harmless: photographing buildings, providing coordinates, or gathering technical data.
According to Euronews (2025) and the investigation by Noticias Caracol (2025), the initial contacts were made in cities such as Bogotá, Medellín, and Barranquilla, where intermediaries with Russian diplomatic connections operated under the guise of security companies or investment groups.
Many of those recruited had no criminal records and came from vulnerable backgrounds: ex-military, unemployed youth, or those with minimal technical experience.
Ramos Santos was one of them. Recruited in 2023 by a contact identified as “Adrián,” he traveled to Russia and later to Lithuania to carry out industrial espionage tasks. His payment confirmed by judicial authorities was $10,000, transferred through cryptocurrencies and digital intermediaries (Infobae, 2025).
Other cases, like that of Andrés Alfonso de la Hoz, convicted in the Czech Republic for sabotaging public facilities, and Luis Alfonso Murillo, prosecuted in Romania for attempting to set fire to energy plants, followed the same pattern. None of the attacks caused casualties, although investigations account for material losses exceeding 3 million euros (DW, 2025; Infobae, 2025).
Dual Nationality and Clandestine Operations
The case of Ramos Santos becomes even more delicate due to his dual Russian-Colombian nationality, recognized by the Russian embassy in Bogotá. Moscow issued formal letters claiming his status as a Russian citizen and demanding respect for his consular rights, which temporarily halted his extradition to Lithuania (El Heraldo, 2025).
The acquisition of Russian citizenship is believed to have occurred during his prolonged stay in Russian territory, between 2023 and 2024, allowing him to move without restrictions across Eastern Europe.
Other implicated Colombians, such as De la Hoz and Murillo, do not hold documented dual nationality, although European investigations warn that some Latin American recruits have already requested Russian passports for operational purposes (Noticias Caracol, 2025; Euronews, 2025).
This strategy reflects the Kremlin's new tactic: creating hybrid agents whose multinational identity serves as a legal and political shield, reducing the possibilities of extradition and complicating the attribution of state responsibility.
Geopolitical and Intelligence Implications
The cooperation between Interpol, the Colombian Prosecutor's Office, and European judicial services marks a positive precedent, but also reveals serious structural deficiencies in Latin American intelligence.
In the last three years, both the FSB and the GRU have increased their presence in Colombia without triggering institutional alerts (El Colombiano, 2025). This gap allowed the flow of recruits who participated in industrial sabotage and covert propaganda for Moscow.
The Global Implications of the Ramos Santos Case Point to a Redesign of Unconventional Warfare
• Europe must reinforce its counterintelligence systems against digital and human infiltration.
• Latin America faces the challenge of securing its youth recruitment networks against foreign offers.
• Colombia, in particular, faces the dilemma of strengthening international cooperation without eroding its foreign policy toward nuclear powers.
The capture demonstrated that even with limited resources, a country can become a target or an instrument in the ideological conflicts of global powers.
Conclusion
The Ramos Santos case marks a critical point in the recent history of espionage. It not only showcases the current institutional weakness of Latin America in the face of hybrid warfare but also redefines the boundaries between civil and military. Digital networks, the use of cryptocurrencies, and the manipulation of national identities have turned clandestine recruitment into a global phenomenon, where the traditional roles of espionage blur between misinformation and economic crime.
Europe watches cautiously as the shadow of sabotage expands. Colombia, for its part, faces a harsh lesson: vulnerability does not only stem from drug trafficking or internal terrorism but from the strategic use of its citizens by foreign powers. The story of Gonzalo Ramos Santos is ultimately a reflection of a new form of warfare — one that seeks not to conquer territories, but to conquer wills.
About the Author:
William L. Acosta is a graduate of PWU and Alliance University. He is a retired police officer from the New York Police Department, as well as founder and CEO of Equalizer Private Investigations & Security Services Inc., a licensed agency in New York and Florida, with international projection.
Since 1999, he has led investigations in narcotics, homicides, and missing persons cases, in addition to participating in criminal defense at both the state and federal levels. A specialist in international and multijurisdictional cases, he has coordinated operations in North America, Europe, and Latin America.
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