Iosif Grigulevich

Iosif Romualdovich Grigulevich was a Soviet secret police (NKVD) operative active between 1937 and 1953, when he played a role in assassination plots against Communist and Bolshevik individuals who were not loyal to Joseph Stalin. This included the murders of claimed and actual Trotskyists during the Spanish Civil War, most notably Andreu Nin, and an initial, unsuccessful assassination attempt against Leon Trotsky in Mexico City. Under an assumed identity as Teodoro B. Castro, a wealthy Costa Rican expatriate living in Rome, Grigulevich served as the ambassador of the Republic of Costa Rica to both Italy and Yugoslavia (1952–1954). He was tasked by the NKVD with the assassination of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, but the mission was aborted following Stalin's death in 1953.