A rare armed attack on a Jordanian intelligence agency facility has left five people dead, including three intelligence officers. The attack took place on Monday at the General Intelligence Department (GID) building in the Baqa’a refugee camp, located just north of the capital Amman. Built in 1968, Baqa’a is the largest of Jordan’s 10 government-sanctioned…
Category: Espionage Files
Military Intelligence History: The Battle of Midway, The Complete Intelligence Story
The Battle of Midway in June of 1942 was one of the most important naval battles in world history and a turning point in the Second World War. Between June 4 and 7, aircraft from aircraft carriers Enterprise, Yorktown, and Hornet of the U.S. Navy’s Task Forces 16 and 17 ambushed and sank the Imperial…
Espionage Files: North Korea’s Shadow War, Part IV
South Korea’s Covert Operations in North Korea After Pyongyang attacked Seoul in the late 1960s, the South counterattacked This is the fourth story in a series. Read parts one, two and three. In the late 1960s, North Korea unleashed a guerrilla war on South Korea, sending spies and special operations troops across the Military Demarcation…
Espionage Files: Counterintelligence for U.S. Companies Operating Abroad
In January, the CEO of American Superconductor publicly detailed how traditional economic espionage methods carried out by a small Chinese firm resulted in over a billion dollars in loss to his company. Since at least 2011, much attention has been given to the rampant cyber espionage threat against U.S. firms, ultimately pushing U.S. businesses to…
Know Your Weapons: The CIA Probably Still Uses Some of the High Standard Spy Pistols It Bought During World War II
A suppressed .22-caliber “Wetwork” weapon that never needed replacing When the United States entered World War II, the Pentagon quickly bought up all the stocks it could find of .22LR target pistols — a .22-caliber handgun that fires a rifle-style cartridge—for training purposes. But the British Special Operations Executive was already using suppressed versions of similar weapons in combat….
Espionage Files: North Korea’s Shadow War, Part III
How South Korea Thwarted Kim Il-sung’s Shadow War North Korea’s late-1960s commando campaign came to a bloody halt This is the third story in a series. Read parts one and two. In the late spring of 1969, a 75-ton North Korean speed boat hurtled through the Yellow Sea off the western coast of South…
Espionage Files: The Man Who Seduced the US Navy’s 7th Fleet
He tempted his targets with the high life; whiskey, cigars, prostitutes and cash. His moles fed him bundles of military secrets and law enforcement files. All so he could rip off the Navy on an industrial scale for years and years. Now, the depth of the corruption is being exposed as the investigation reaches into the highest…
Espionage Files: North Korea’s Shadow War, Part II
This is the second story in a series. Read part one. Thirty-one shadows crept up to the fence in the cold winter night, cut it and slipped through, walking into the American side of the demilitarized zone that buffers North and South Korea. It was January 1968 and the North Korean special operations troops were…
Espionage Files: Russian Banker Sentenced to 2 1/2 Years for Spying
NEW YORK (AP) — A Russian banker who pleaded guilty to conspiracy in what the government portrayed as a Cold War-style spy ring was sentenced Wednesday to 2½ years in a U.S. prison. Evgeny Buryakov, 41, also was fined $10,000 by U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman, who said the sentence reflects the seriousness of…
Espionage Files: Portuguese Spy Caught Passing ‘NATO Secrets’ To Russian Handler In Rome
The Kremlin’s espionage offensive in Europe came to the surface on Tuesday after a Portuguese spy was arrested in Rome for allegedly passing NATO secrets to a Russian intelligence officer. The supposed double agent, identified by the local media as Frederico Carvalhão, is a member of the Potugal’s SIS intelligence service, the country’s equivalent of MI5, responsible for…