Two Brazilians used social media to convince their fellow countrymen to sign up for service in the Russian military. When their victims ended up at the front in Ukraine, the fraudulent recruiters pocketed the payments owed to them. Exploiting their targets’ ignorance of Russian, the two con men convinced more than ten Brazilians to sign up. Some went missing or were killed at the front. After the Russian military prosecutor's office opened a criminal case, the recruiters vanished. However, their accomplice — a Brazilian-born “Donbas veteran” — remains free and is working to defraud the relatives of missing soldiers.
A notary posing as a psychologist
In August 2025, CNN Brasil reported on the disappearance of 25-year-old São Paulo resident Anderson de Oliveira Ferreira. That February, he had traveled to Russia, telling his mother, Helade de Oliveira Medeiros, that he was going to work in private security. By summer, she had learned that her son had in fact gone to fight in Ukraine — on the Russian side. His fellow soldier told Medeiros that Anderson had not returned from a combat mission. He left behind a five-year-old daughter.
Anderson Ferreira was a victim of fraudsters who recruited Brazilians into the Russian army, then misappropriated the payments owed to them. Brazilian nationals Arthur Michel Kreff Avalone and Antonio Vicente de Aguiar Neto offered assistance to Brazilians interested in signing military contracts. Then, upon their arrival in Russia, volunteers were taken to a notary under the pretext of visiting a “military psychologist.” There they were forced to sign a document in Russian: a power of attorney form granting the recruiters access to their bank accounts. As The Insider established, more than ten Brazilians fell for the scheme run by Avalone and Neto.
Helade Medeiros sent The Insider photographs of her son’s military identification tag, along with copies of his passport, military ID, contract with the Russian army, and documents proving that in February 2025 her son had signed a power of attorney in favor of a person named Arthur Michel Kreff Avalone, registered in Moscow at 2 Bolshaya Tulskaya Street, room 95.
The address matches the Shelterz Hostel, which accommodated arriving military volunteers, according to one of the victims of the fraud. The Insider also has screenshots from a banking app proving that Avalone withdrew approximately 2 million rubles ($27,600) from Anderson Ferreira’s account.
Alfredo, another Brazilian who signed a contract with the Russian army through the mediation of Avalone and Neto, said that the fraudsters had stolen $34,500 from him. He provided screenshots from his banking app showing withdrawals made in the name of Avalone, as well as a card registered to his account under the name A DE AGUIAR NETO. Money was also stolen from six more of Alfredo’s fellow soldiers — two of whom, including Anderson Ferreira, were killed in combat.
Another victim of Avalone and Neto was 44-year-old historian Fabio Santos. According to his sister, Terezinha Sedei, Santos went to war “because he always had a great interest in issues of war and geopolitics.” Before his departure, Santos also corresponded with Avalone and Neto. In May 2025 he posted photos from Russia on Instagram, including pictures of him together with Neto. “While cowards flee, the noble seek glory! Mother Russia,” Santos wrote. The recruiter commented: “We’re together, brother!”
Santos last contacted his family on July 11, 2025. According to his relatives, his phone has been in someone else’s possession ever since. Attempts to get a response from the recruiters were similarly unsuccessful.
“The war will be over before you complete training!”
According to Alfredo, he contacted the recruiters through a private Telegram chat that foreigners looking to join the Russian army used in order to exchange information among themselves. The chat was set up in early December 2024.
Alfredo forwarded The Insider voice messages from Avalone in which the recruiter claimed that he and Neto planned to enlist before Dec. 20 of that year, suggesting that all foreigners who could make it to Russia before that date go to the recruitment center together. He also offered to take care of those who arrived later, promising that those who had already enlisted would ask their battalion commander to help the newcomers.
Avalone assured everyone that the war was about to end and that those who came now might not even have to fight: “All you need to do is come to Russia, sign the contract, and the money will come — 100,000 reais [$19,700]. Training starts right away. It's quite possible that while we’re in training, a peace agreement will already have been signed. So let's take advantage of the situation, guys.”
Neto, for his part, spoke about the prospects of obtaining Russian citizenship. “For those willing, there is an opportunity to get citizenship right away. Russia is, in my opinion, the most protected country. One of the best places in the world to live. Russia has a significant advantage in the number of soldiers and artillery. We will be well protected,” he assured everyone.
Visa problems held up Alfredo until February 2025, when he finally reached Russia along with several other Brazilians. Upon arrival, Avalone and Neto immediately took the group to a bank, where Alfredo was issued two bank cards. As it later turned out, a third card had also been linked to his account — and remained with the fraudsters. After the bank, the recruits were taken to the fake “military psychologist,” where their phones were taken away before they were pressured to sign powers of attorney in favor of the recruiters.
“Once we signed the contracts, Avalone and Neto told us we had to pay a million rubles each [$13,800] to be sent to a good location at the front,” Alfredo recalls. “We agreed so as not to quarrel: in a few hours we were supposed to leave for the training center.”
“We were told to pay a million rubles each to be sent to a good location at the front”
Already at the training center, the recruits figured out they had been deceived: “We realized we’d signed powers of attorney in a language we didn’t understand. We looked up the place where they’d taken us. One of my fellow soldiers had a Russian girlfriend. She confirmed that it was a notary’s office.”
Alfredo could not block the bank card that remained with the fraudsters, let alone cancel the power of attorney. “We don’t know if they are continuing to drain our accounts; the army could do nothing to help us,” he said. The Brazilian later filed a complaint with the military prosecutor's office and managed to have a criminal case opened.
Assistance with the contract “in cooperation with the government”
In January 2025, Avalone and Neto created a Telegram channel to recruit volunteers from Portuguese-speaking countries — Brazil, but also Angola — into the Russian army. By the end of March, Avalone reported having recruited more than 50 foreigners into the Russian army. The very first message in the channel emphasized that assistance with military contracts was provided “on a non-profit basis” and in cooperation “directly with the Russian government.”
For people purportedly acting on behalf of the authorities in Moscow, the Brazilian recruiters were remarkably uninformed about Russian specifics. Their public Telegram channel was presented as if it were a secret: “We have no other channels, especially not WhatsApp, which can easily be tracked by the enemy. For those who don't know, Telegram is a Russian app (spies will be in despair). So we only share information here.”
The recruiters presented their public Telegram channel as being secret
The first group of recruits arrived in Moscow in the midst of the New Year holidays, and the military recruitment offices were closed. Avalone and Neto announced in the channel that “due to the Christmas holidays in Russia, the army instructed them to begin recruitment on January 9.”
The fraudsters may indeed have been working in tandem with military recruitment office staff. Starting from Jan. 1, 2025, Russia tightened the rules for purchasing SIM cards for foreigners: suddenly, a personal visit to a mobile phone store and biometric data submission were required. However, Avalone wrote in the channel that “the guys from the recruitment office” had several “trusted contacts” willing to register a SIM card in a recruit’s name remotely.
A Brazilian from Donbas
In addition to Avalone and Neto, the lineup of foreign recruits’ also featured Brazilian mercenary Rodolfo Cunha Cordeiro (call sign ‘MacGyver’), who had been participating in combat operations in Donbas since 2014. Avalone posted interviews with MacGyver on his Instagram page, calling him a “war hero and officer of the Russian army.”
MacGyver is indeed a veteran of the Donbas war and the recipient of numerous “combat merit” awards from the army of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic.” The Insider, however, found no confirmation of his officer status in the Russian army. According to the Ukrainian project InformNapalm, in 2016 Cordeiro served as a sniper-reconnaissance soldier in the Slavyanskaya 1st Separate Motor Rifle Brigade.
One of The Insider’s sources claims that MacGyver was in on the fraudulent scheme organized by Avalone and Neto from the very beginning: “He was streaming on TikTok, talking about this war and encouraging people to join the Russian army. Since he himself was a soldier and assured everyone that everything was fine, many people fell for it.”
When asked by The Insider whether Cordeiro is currently fighting, he replied: “He says so, but we don’t believe it, since his Instagram stories show him living an ordinary life."
From reality show to military recruiter
At the very start of the war in Ukraine, Antonio Neto condemned Russian aggression. On Feb. 25, 2022, the popular Brazilian website Globo published an article titled “After nine years in Russia, a doctor from Rio Grande do Norte decides to return to Brazil following the start of the war in Ukraine.”
The article told the story of Antonio Neto, who had come to Russia to study medicine, lived in a city near the border with Ukraine, and feared shelling. “There are cold wars that are fought through sanctions. We thought this war would be something similar. But no. This is bombardment,” he said. The Brazilian complained that due to bureaucratic delays he could not leave Russia immediately, but he wanted to do so as soon as possible in order “to be in my mother's arms.”
By the beginning of the full-scale war, Neto had already earned a degree from Maykop State Technological University and was completing a residency in plastic surgery at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. An administrative ruling by the Labinsk court of Krasnodar Krai, issued against Neto in February 2019 after he was cited for drunk driving, stated that Neto was a student at MSTU and, “given his difficult financial circumstances,” requested that the payment of his 30,000-ruble [$413] fine be spread over three months.
By the summer of 2021 the Brazilian’s financial situation had improved: Neto became a participant on the reality show Dom-2, where he announced that he was launching a business with a planned monthly income of at least 500,000 rubles [$6,900]. He showed off a diamond-studded watch.
Arthur Avalone also studied at Maykop University. In a 2017 article — “How to Study in Russia?” — Avalone recounts how he found “a Brazilian student who could help him get into a university for free.” Judging by a photo in the article, this student was Antonio Neto.
In 2024, Avalone began actively posting complimentary videos on social media about Vladimir Putin’s policies, life in Russia, and the benefits of serving in the Russian army. Neto also appears in one of the videos. “Are you going to go serve in the army?” one commenter asks. “Yes, brother. He [Neto] will be a military medic, and I’ll go as a soldier,” Avalone replies, inviting anyone interested to check out his Telegram channel for more information.
Avalone apparently never went to war, continuing to post videos from Moscow parties. Neto, on the other hand, began posting videos in military uniform and carrying weapons starting from February 2025. However, being at the “front” did not prevent him from working as a cosmetologist in Moscow, as evidenced by numerous reviews on the Profi.ru portal. The Insider’s sources note that Neto’s uniform in the videos resembles an airsoft outfit.
“They don't even talk to us”
Neto and Avalone appear to be banking heavily on their “business.” In September 2025, Avalone even registered the local equivalent of a sole proprietorship in São Paulo, with “travel agency” listed as the type of activity. However, by October the fraudsters had vanished without a trace. Their social media accounts have not been updated, their Telegram accounts show a “last seen a long time ago” status, and there have been no reviews of Neto as a doctor on Profi.ru since October 2025.
However, in January 2026, Avalone”s girlfriend, Alina Rybakova, left a comment on her Instagram suggesting that the Brazilian is still in the picture. He had previously given her a dog, and in a reply to a follower who commented on a video she posted featuring the pet, Rybakova wrote: “My boyfriend and I are also like yin and yang, it was he who gave it to me, so it turns out to be a copy of himself :)”
Still, a source for The Insider said that the fraudsters had left Russia and may be in Brazil, making it very difficult to hold them accountable.
After the recruiters disappeared, Rodolfo ‘MacGyver’ attempted to convince the mothers of the missing soldiers they had recruited to sign powers of attorney in his favor — purportedly in order to find out what had happened to their children and to collect insurance payments. The editorial office has voice messages in which one of the women recommends his services to others: “Only if you talk to Rodolfo and sign a power of attorney for him will he find out where your son is.”
According to one mother, the families have indeed failed to obtain any information from Russian officials on their own: “We are being sent from one office to another. They don't even talk to us. Everything is very complicated there. We hired an interpreter, but they didn’t have the information we needed. And now Rodolfo is going to help us.”
The Insider contacted the woman who recorded these messages, but she refused to speak with the publication. The editorial office is aware that several mothers refused to sign a power of attorney for MacGyver and sought qualified legal assistance instead.
“Russian propaganda is at work”
The Insider first made contact with Alfredo in early April 2026. At that time, the serviceman wrote that he would be leaving the combat zone by the middle of the month. He planned to go to Moscow and from there to Brazil “to rest.” On May 15, the Brazilian sent The Insider a photo taken in front of the Cathedral of the Armed Forces in the Moscow region and confirmed that he would soon be flying home.
A source for The Insider in Brazil said that after Avalone and Neto disappeared, recruitment did not stop. He told the story of a mother whose son also went to Russia and has not been in contact. According to the source, this man had been recruited through an agency registered in São Paulo that charged a 50% commission off the recruit’s signing bonus from the Russian Ministry of Defense. In exchange, the agency promised that recruits who signed a contract with its mediation would not be sent to the front lines.
The Insider spoke with Natalia Sekretareva, head of the legal department at the Memorial Human Rights Center, who lives in Brazil. “Beyond the historical love for the Soviet Union, Russian propaganda is at work here,” the lawyer noted. “No one has banned Russia Today, and as far as I know, they produce quality content for South America — not the tabloid propaganda of [Russian domestic television]. You can watch an RT documentary on YouTube and not even realize it was produced by RT. And this propaganda works, to a great extent, even on intelligent, thoughtful people.”
