December 3, 2019 • 29 mins
Sure, love at first sight may be a real thing -- but, occasionally, there's an ulterior motive involved. Join the guys as they explore the bizarre practice known as the Honey Trap, and why spies throughout history have used this technique to extract secrets, kidnap and even assassinate targets.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
tuning in. My name is Ben, my name is Noel Um.
And you've had spicy honey, Ben? Yes, it's pretty good.
I can put you in a kind of coffee. It
makes it like a spicy coffee, or you put it
on some some chicken, like a hot chicken kind of situation.
It's it's good stuff. You know who else is pretty good? Noel.
That's our super producer, Casey Pegrom and spicy and spicy indeed. Now,
(00:53):
have you ever been in a situation where a stranger
approaches you and there seems to be this instant chemistry,
this instant connection you just as they say? Click? Have
already asked me if I've ever been propositioned? I'm asking, well,
maybe it was a proposition. How'd your story turned out?
It was an indecent proposal, Ben, That's what it was.
You were in an indecent proposal situation. It was indecently
(01:16):
proposed to yes, and I accepted. How do it work out?
It was very indecent. I can't go into it. Here's
the family show. It's weird. Because hopefully in this situation
that was not a proposal, was indecent for for hopefully
some family friendly reasons. You know, maybe you guys just
liked each other. You just sat around and told a
(01:36):
lot of really blue jokes. Okay, that makes sense. Sometimes
when people get hit upon or propositioned out of the blue,
there is an ulterior motive involved. Wait a minute, people
aren't always as they seem. Then that's true and all
today's episode is about spycraft, but maybe not in the
(01:57):
way you think. It turns out that one of the
most famous espionage strategies in history is seducing someone. There's
you know, have you ever seen the show Americans The Americans?
I haven't, but I've been told that it's quite good
and that I should watch it. Well, I don't like
tell people what they should do, but I enjoyed the show.
I should get me to a television um situation right now, Casey,
(02:20):
have you seen The Americans? I have not. No, I
didn't really watch TV shows much. Do you know. It
takes a lot for me to check out a TV series.
So um, nothing against the Americans? What about Law and Order?
You ever seen that a few times? Yeah? Casey on
the case. So the trade name for this kind of
spycraft via seduction is the honey trap. Yep. And spies
(02:44):
use their sexual prowess, their charisma and you know that
thrill of living life on the edge as baitd This
is like, you know how there have been rumors bouncing
around for months, if not years, about the concept of compromat. Yes, right,
well what what is that? Also known as compromand I
(03:05):
think they're the same thing, and it's just the idea.
I mean, it's basically just blackmail material, right, It's like
when someone is compromised, um, whether you know something about
a crime they've committed, or you have, let's say, a
tape of them getting pete on um or some such
other nefarious behavior that would be considered compromat or compromont.
Are they just different tenses? Why are there two different words?
(03:26):
That's an interesting question. I know comproima is the Russian
phrase which has been picked up by the US media
even has been making the rounds much more these days
than I've ever heard it in the past in terms
of like in the parlance of our times, to quote
the Big Lebowski. But there's a really I haven't seen
the film, but it's got a Jennifer Lawrence in and
I believe it's called Red Sparrow if I'm not mistaken,
(03:47):
and she plays a Russian spy that is like trained
in these sexual wiles. It's literally a school for young
women that are trained to do this very thing. It's
a huge plot point in the Americans without spoiling it,
The Americans is about sleeper agents living in the US,
And in both Red Sparrow and The Americans, there's this
(04:13):
method of spycraft via seduction employed called honey traps, or
you may have heard it referred to as honey pots.
These tactics have been around for a long, long long time.
In fact, as our pal Gabe pointed out off air,
the earliest honey trap on record. Maybe this is how
(04:34):
old it is, it's biblical. One of the oldest ones
that we know of is the anecdotal betrayal of Sampson
by Delilah. Yeah, that's a classic story, um, And then
what is it She like sneaks in and cuts his
hair wherein all of his magical strongman powers lie in
exchange for eleven hundred pieces of silver. That's right, And
(04:57):
then I think he gets his head lopped off at
some point. That may be in a different story, though
Solomn is the one who has Sampson's head cut off,
and so whether or not there was a real Sampson
and a real Delilah and real superpower hair, we know
that this practice has continued and continues even in the
(05:17):
present day. Every single intelligence agency across the planet did
something like this, but it was an especially common practice
in China and in Russia. For all our US listeners,
The Central Intelligence Agency does not officially comment on whether
it's agents use sexuality to get info, but off the record,
(05:43):
some retired CIA folks say it could happen. Today. We'd
like to just present a few cases of honey traps.
This is really a situation in which the truth is
stranger than fiction. We we talked about Sampson, but let's
dive into mada Ha and really quickly. It was not
Solomon them to do with Sampson. That was John the
(06:04):
Baptist who she had beheaded. And in the opera Ptolemy,
she sings a really creepy aria to his severed head. Um.
So sorry, excuse me for mixing all my stories there.
Please continue, But so Mata Hari you may have heard
the phrase before. M A t a h a r I.
Mata Harry was Dutch woman who had a pretty pretty
(06:25):
wild life. She had spent a few years as a
dancer in Java in Indonesia. During World War One, she
was arrested because the French forces had discovered that a
German military official in Spain was sending her money. They
caught the telegrams intercepted. She was accused of passing uh
(06:48):
secrets to the Germans, French secrets to the Germans, um
and uh, you know, secrets that she had potentially gotten
by um, you know, working her mojo on certain French
political officials and military officials as well. So she went
on trial and um Mada Harri defended herself quite quite vocally,
(07:12):
quite robustly. It was an interesting defense too, it really was.
She said that she was this attache is which is
like a staffer for a diplomat or an ambassador, that
she was his mistress and that he was just sending
her like you know, sugar daddy type gifts exactly. She said,
(07:34):
no spycraft, just a little bit of slee's baggery. Her
arguments did not win over the judges. She was executed
on October fifteenth, nineteen seventeen, by firing squad and a
nice little detail here, she refused to be blindfolded. She
wanted to see it coming. After the close of the war,
(07:55):
the French forces admitted that they didn't really have any
evidence against her. Most modern historians have concluded that she
wasn't shot because she was running a honey trap, but
she was instead executed to send a message to anyone
who might follow her example. So the lesson here is
(08:16):
that looking as the one is participating in a honey
trap is as dangerous as actually being in one. And
we have so many examples of these. A lot of
them occurred during wartime. Actually, a lot of the ones
we know about occurred during wartime. Because again, this stuff
(08:37):
is maybe still happening today. I mean, I have no
doubt that it's I mean, it's it's tales old as time.
It works, right, Like, why why would it not be happening.
I'm pretty pretty confident that our government is doing this
all the time. But who am I to say that's
not what we're here for today. Well, let's talk about
the story of Nora Estoga, who was able to seduce
a Nicaraguan general and then assassinate him. That's a part
(09:01):
of it too. We haven't even talked about the the
ability to lure people into compromising situations, not just to
you know, steal secrets from them or to get comprom
mot on them, but to actually kill them. And there's
another example here and Israeli technician Mordechai Venunu, who is
most famous or infamous for whistle blowing about Israel's nuclear capabilities.
(09:26):
When he spilled the atomic beans in he ran away,
left the country and went to London, and there he
was seduced by a woman who led him to Israeli
intelligence assets in Rome. This is under massad, correct. Massad
is the intelligence agencies, and they they caught him. I mean,
(09:46):
we know honey pots can occur with a number of
ultimate goals. One to assassinate people, to uh to to
kidnap them or or you know, gain custody of them.
The third and perhaps one of the most insidious, is
to control people over time. We're talking about blackmail, like
(10:08):
long term, long game like that's that. Can you imagine
being that beholden to somebody else where You just couldn't
live your normal life, you had to like literally live
for another person or another organization at some point when
you just have to get in front of it, just
tell your spouse, Look, I messed up, But I don't
want to ruin the country think that you would think
that maybe you know, there's there are there are worse
(10:30):
things than being told you're cheating on your spouse, though,
and I imagine some of those triggers might be pulled
as well, like you know, threatening to kill family members.
And yeah, that's outside of what we're talking about today.
My favorite honey pot story of all time, and I
know we had talked about this off air. So there
was this Indonesian president, Ahmed Sukarno. He was the victim,
(10:53):
the quote unquote victim of a honey pot blackmail attempt
by the kgb U SSR. They made a videotape of
him being intimate with several Russian women disguised as flight attendants.
So this is very not safe for work in s
(11:15):
f W. Here's the thing though, when they came to
him and they said, you know, didn't I don't know,
we have video of you. He he was like, all right, well,
let me let me see the video. Like we do
not think it would be pleased if this gets out.
And then he watched the video and he was over
the moon. He was like, oh, awesome, you guys filmed it.
(11:37):
I look great. He was like, I look great. Can
I have copies of this because I want to show
it to the crew. And then so basically he just
needn't care. He didn't care at all, but he was
proud and he was like, oh, ahead, distribute, It'll make
me look like a real ball ar. Yeah, he had
a weird set of priorities. That's the most famous case
of it backfiring. So we've been talking a lot about
(12:01):
bedrooms today and now let's talk about them in a
little more of a of a wholesome way, a platonic way.
If you will, yes, yes, if you will. Do you
have a relationship with your bed, Ben, I have a
deep and abiding relationship with my bed because I've finally
met the mattress for me. It's a Casper mattress, which
I've had for a number of years now, and I
(12:24):
love it. And I think you have one too. I
do have one, and I'll tell you I slept on
a non Casper mattress last night. My friend and I
woke up with all kinds of cricks and cracks and aches.
It was not fun, and it really made me realize
why Casper is such a big deal, Because it's a
sleep brand that makes expertly designed products to help you
and me get the best rest of your life one
(12:45):
night at a time. That's right, you know. Think about it, folks.
We spend one third of our lives sleeping, so shouldn't
we at least try to be comfortable for that thirty
three point three three three three percent of our lives? Yeah,
it's true. Casper knows this, and that's why They're products
are cleverly designed to mimic human curves, providing supportive comfort
for all kinds of bodies. That's right. The original Casper
(13:08):
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it's one thing I love, it's multiple foams. Let's talk turkey.
They have affordable prices, but why That's because Casper cuts
out the middleman and sells directly to you, not to
mention the hassle free returns. If you're not completely satisfied,
(13:31):
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(13:53):
the code ridiculous at checkout. While we're on Russian uh noll?
Is it true that the Russian government perfected a trap?
They certainly made it into a bit of an art form.
There's a really interesting quote from a former KGB agent
saying that the Soviet intelligence agencies didn't ask Russian women
(14:17):
to stand up for their country, but asked them to
lay down. Yeah. And again, like we're talking about that
movie read Sparrow. Uh. The idea of the Sparrow School.
It trained these young, very intelligent women to use their
bodies in their intellect kind of like as like a
super weapon, you know. Um So it absolutely was a
(14:38):
part of of their their tactics. And and a particularly
famous Cold War spy case UH involves Clayton Loan Tree,
who was a Marine Corps guard security guard who was
taken in by a female Soviet officer and then um
was forced to share classified documents through a honeypot type scheme.
(15:01):
Uh and in nine seven he was convicted of espionage,
the first Marine convicted of espionage. Yep, gosh, can you
imagine the shame I mean, you know what I mean
like and to be exposed like that, and to be literally,
you know, put on trial by your own country who
you like, you know, believed in enough to join the
(15:23):
Marine Corps to serve I feel like I'm I'm already
immune to any kind of honey pot or compromat because
you know, anytime someone hits on me, I feel like
we're both just very disappointed. In general, don't sell yourself Shore.
You could be compromised, thanks man, thank you. You could
be indecently proposed to Well, technically it's possible, because you
(15:46):
know this. This tactic on the Russian side did not
disappear with the fall of the Soviet Union. Recently, a
political satirist in Russia, a guy named Viktor Schindarrovich and
I'm butchering the Russian there he was filmed cheating on
his spouse with a young woman whose name was Katya,
(16:07):
and weirdly enough, the same young woman, the same Katya
had also seduced like six other critics of the government.
And then there was another series of traps. One appeared
to catch an American diplomat in two thousand and nine.
The State Department says that that episode was fabricated, that
(16:29):
nothing actually happened, but the government of Russia made it
up for some reason. And Russia is not the only, uh,
not the only game in town here. It's true. UM.
China was recently discovered UM to be using this technique
as well. Though you got to imagine that, you know,
again Taylor, as old as time, I could imagine it
(16:50):
going back to much much farther in the past than this.
But in two thousand nine it was discovered that Deputy
Mayor of London, Ian Clement, was actually drugged UM and
deuce the old one to punch in a hotel room
in Beijing. Um. When he awakened, he found that his
BlackBerry was gone um. And then he admitted that he
(17:11):
quote fell for the oldest trick in the book, Which
is why I find it hard to believe that that
we're just now saying oh, yeah, China does this too. Um,
that seems like a little bit uh like, um duh.
Just gonna go out on a limb and say, if
you are an important diplomat, if you are a government
military official, or a corporate tycoon, and you're hanging out
(17:33):
at a hotel bar, just be skeptical, use critical thinking
when someone sidles up to you. Now, I know it
sounds like we're you know, being a bit restrictive because
so far stories have all been about dudes being seduced. However,
make no mistake, women have also been the targets of
(17:53):
honey trap operations. Are you talking about spymaster Devolf? Yes, yes, indeed, yeah,
it's true. During the Cold War, East German intelligence chief
Marcus Wolff sent uh agents of Stazi, which is a
lot of these intelligence agency names are new to me.
Stazi would have been the East German intelligence agencies that
correct sent agents of Stazi um called Romeo spies love
(18:17):
that uh into West Germany to work their masculine wiles
on powerful women and uh and and get at those
uh those secrets. Yep. And this was a smaller part
of his larger operation. You see this spymaster Marcus Wolf
ran the largest honey trap operation that we know of
(18:42):
in human history. In the nineteen fifties. Wolf had this thought,
he said, huh, there are a lot of dead german Men.
He said, a lot of the German Men who would
be of marrying age have died during World War Two.
And more and more German women are becoming professionals, are
(19:04):
pursuing higher echelons of government and industry. And he said,
you know what, that it's lonely at the top. Maybe
we could, maybe we could work something out. Maybe we
could send a few, you know, interesting young men of
charm and intrigue to talk to these lonely folks at
(19:26):
the height of industry. So he set up this special
department of the Stazi, and he staffed it with his
most intelligent officers, but also the most handsome. Those are
the ones you're talking about, right, and all the Romeo spies.
It is, indeed, and there's a really a great history
account of this on Foreign policy dot com, The History
(19:47):
of the honey Trap that I highly recommend checking out.
And um, I think they might be using a little
body dub duble entendre here when they say that thanks
to the Romeo spies and their honey traps, the Stasi
penetrated most levels of the West German government and industry.
Or maybe that's just my filthy, filthy mind. I don't know, man,
(20:07):
maybe you're getting honey trapped with that article. Don't let
them get in your head, you know what's true. At
one point, the East Germans even um sent spies to
infiltrate NATO and was able to extract some very crucial
information on the Western deployment of of nukes. Well you
know how they got caught right this, this scheme was
(20:28):
going gangbusters until it became useless. And pretty quickly, West
German counterintelligence authorities figured out that you could tell a
Romeo spy by the haircut. No lie, it sounds so simple,
but the spies had these practical short back insides haircuts
(20:49):
similar not quite a high and type, but you know,
a clean cut haircut. And in West Germany the hairstyles
tended to be more elaborate and more complete aided, so
like pompadours, it was a whole thing West German haircuts.
So counter intelligence officers would get the would get the
heads up from a guard at a train, at a
(21:11):
train station or on the train and then they would fall.
They'd be like follow that haircut, and the intelligence agencies
would follow the spy and they would arrest them as
soon as they did something wrong, because they had to
wait for them to do something wrong. Yes, and three
of these women were rooted out and uh, and they
went on trial, but they didn't really get the book
(21:35):
thrown at them so much as just a little slap
on the wrist. I think. Um, one of them who
got into West German intelligence got six and a half years.
It's not not really slept on the wrist, but it's
certainly better than death, I guess um. And that was
largely because of public um kind of sympathy towards her.
In West Germany. Um, they kind of identified with these women. Volf,
(21:59):
the spy master in question, was on trial twice and
this is after the collapse of communism, but he only
got a two year sentence that had been suspended. And yeah,
that's that's really interesting to me. The guy that kind
of like mastermind this whole thing got maybe the most
lenient sentence of all. And he's a complicated character. He
(22:20):
went on to pursue a second career as an author.
He is anomalous amidst the players in the intelligence game
Spy Masters, because he published an autobiography called Man Without
a Face, great title, and in this he attempts to
(22:40):
set the record straight more or less, or at least
rationalize his actions. He said he never put pressure on
any officers to use honeypot tactics in the course of
their work. He said it was up to their discretion.
He said, quote, they were sharp operators who realized that
a lot can be with sex. This is true in
(23:02):
business and espionage because it opens up channels of communication
more quickly than other approaches. And of course, he said,
as long as there is espionage, there will be Romeos
seducing unsuspecting targets with access to secrets. And here's where
I think he's kind of trying to redeem himself a little.
(23:22):
He says, Look, look, look, I was running an intelligence service,
not a lonely hearts club. So he's like, look, I'm
not a matchmaker. I'm not telling people to date each other. Yeah.
It was something of a of an espionage pimp type figure,
though in a way Honey, yeah, I don't think you
can distance yourself in that way now, what do you
(23:48):
think Ben was? James Bond a Romeo spy. He used
seduction quite often on powerful women. James Bond was a
terrible spy. He was a bad He says his name
every time he meets people. That's true, and I you've
mentioned them before. But but he's double O seven. Maybe
(24:09):
his name really is I don't know, Like I wonder
you know, there's a new Bond film coming up. Is
it still with Daniel Craig. I think there's I think
there's a new Bond who is going out. The rumor
I heard is there's a female Bond. That's right. I
think it's Daniel Craig and this kind of new person.
So he's gonna pass the torch. Yeah, something like that.
I think that's the idea. Anyway, Casey on the case, yea, indeed,
(24:32):
we've got to check it out. Yeah, I don't know.
The new ones with Craig are okay. They're kind of fun.
I like James Bond, I like I like seeing a
terrible spy. But the action sequences are great and I
love some intrigue. Remember that Guy Mad's Michelson playing right
is one of Casey Pegram's French associates. It's la bouche
(24:54):
And what does the chef mean? Does that mean like
c h I F F R E. Yeah, he chief,
which in French means like digits. It's literally kind of
the numeral the zero to nine that that you would
right to represent a number, but it can also mean
like figures, statistics, you know, quarterly results, something like that
(25:16):
would be less chief. Um. Yeah, it's it's surprisingly nuanced
in French. There's like the namba, which is like the number,
new mail hole which is also kind of like number,
but would be more like for addresses and that kind
of thing. Uh. And then les Chief which again digits
and uh, figures and that kind of thing. And he's
like a big gambler in the casino reale, So that
(25:38):
makes sense. Casey on the case, big time, double triple case.
So this episode is a little weird for us because
we usually like to examine things that happened before some
time around the nineties. However, this is still occurring today.
And a question that was on a lot of our
fellow listeners minds here was almost certainly, were there any
(26:01):
real red Sparrows. Was there any sands to this movie,
any real life stuff? Not just single agents, but was
there some sort of school. Well, according to Jason Matthews,
who is a CIA veteran with more than thirty years
in the game, Red Sparrow is somewhat real, or at
(26:23):
least inspired by true events, the Soviet Union really did
once run a school to train young women in being
professional seducers of diplomats. Oh good, So I don't seem
like a complete moron for referencing that movie several times.
No No is prescient. And this is this is strange
(26:43):
because it has a lot in common with what we
see in the art of the con You know, when
we see scam artists, they prey on people's baser desires
and their human failings. So if you get anything from
today's episode, first off, if a stranger comes up to
you and is really trying to put the moves on you,
(27:06):
just be aware that they might have an ulterior motive,
you know what I mean? Not saying that love at
first sight doesn't happen. It's just a thing you should
think critically about. According to the Beatles, it happens all
the time. I love at first sight. They believe it anyway,
I I like to believe it. I would like to
play I love the Beatles. Ben, Can I ask you
(27:27):
a question, a personal question? Sure? Can you tell what
my shirt is? Uh? It's a it's a painting. It
looks almost like kind of like a mutant Simpson's on
the couch situation. That's correct, it's cool. I really did it. Thanks, Casey,
you're close to Ben Is. It is a painting, but
like you can see Marge's hair there and like a
weird blobby Bart and Lisa. I ordered this sight unseen
(27:48):
off of an Instagram ad. I didn't even think it
was gonna come, but it came. That's all I got.
It's the power of shipping, power of shipping indeed, and
the power of belief that good things will happen. Um.
But you're right, Ben, it's important to keep your wits
about you in these situations. You just you just can't
take everything at face value. You don't want to like
be suspicious of everyone that you meet and think that
(28:10):
everyone that's showing any interest you is some kind of
secret superspy. But you know, take care of yourselves out there, people,
And let us know if you have ever witnessed a
honey trap in operation. We totally understand if you would
rather not disclose your full name, etcetera, etcetera. There are
(28:30):
so many ways to get in touch with us. You
can find us on Instagram, you can find us on Facebook.
You can find us on Twitter as Ridiculous History, Ridiculous
History Show, or some derivation thereof. You can also follow
us on our personal adventures. I'm on Instagram as at
Ben Bolan and Twitter as at Ben Bowland hs W,
and you can find me on Instagram exclusively at how
(28:52):
Now Noel Brown Big thanks to Alex Williams, who composed
our theme. Super producer Casey Pegram on the case left
and right. Christopher Hasciot is here in spirit. Gabe Lozier
Research Associate, We love you Eve's Jeff Cote. Of course,
check out her history shows as well on our network.
And where would we be without Young Quizzles a k a.
(29:13):
The Quister a k a. Jonathan Strickling a k a.
Quizzlers makes mouths happy? Remember that tagline for Twizzlers makes
mouths happy. It's kind of clunky and it feels problem
about it. Yeah, We'll see you next time, folks. For
(29:35):
more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit The I Heart radio, app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
tuning in. My name is Ben, my name is Noel Um.
And you've had spicy honey, Ben? Yes, it's pretty good.
I can put you in a kind of coffee. It
makes it like a spicy coffee, or you put it
on some some chicken, like a hot chicken kind of situation.
It's it's good stuff. You know who else is pretty good? Noel.
That's our super producer, Casey Pegrom and spicy and spicy indeed. Now,
(00:53):
have you ever been in a situation where a stranger
approaches you and there seems to be this instant chemistry,
this instant connection you just as they say? Click? Have
already asked me if I've ever been propositioned? I'm asking, well,
maybe it was a proposition. How'd your story turned out?
It was an indecent proposal, Ben, That's what it was.
You were in an indecent proposal situation. It was indecently
(01:16):
proposed to yes, and I accepted. How do it work out?
It was very indecent. I can't go into it. Here's
the family show. It's weird. Because hopefully in this situation
that was not a proposal, was indecent for for hopefully
some family friendly reasons. You know, maybe you guys just
liked each other. You just sat around and told a
(01:36):
lot of really blue jokes. Okay, that makes sense. Sometimes
when people get hit upon or propositioned out of the blue,
there is an ulterior motive involved. Wait a minute, people
aren't always as they seem. Then that's true and all
today's episode is about spycraft, but maybe not in the
(01:57):
way you think. It turns out that one of the
most famous espionage strategies in history is seducing someone. There's
you know, have you ever seen the show Americans The Americans?
I haven't, but I've been told that it's quite good
and that I should watch it. Well, I don't like
tell people what they should do, but I enjoyed the show.
I should get me to a television um situation right now, Casey,
(02:20):
have you seen The Americans? I have not. No, I
didn't really watch TV shows much. Do you know. It
takes a lot for me to check out a TV series.
So um, nothing against the Americans? What about Law and Order?
You ever seen that a few times? Yeah? Casey on
the case. So the trade name for this kind of
spycraft via seduction is the honey trap. Yep. And spies
(02:44):
use their sexual prowess, their charisma and you know that
thrill of living life on the edge as baitd This
is like, you know how there have been rumors bouncing
around for months, if not years, about the concept of compromat. Yes, right,
well what what is that? Also known as compromand I
(03:05):
think they're the same thing, and it's just the idea.
I mean, it's basically just blackmail material, right, It's like
when someone is compromised, um, whether you know something about
a crime they've committed, or you have, let's say, a
tape of them getting pete on um or some such
other nefarious behavior that would be considered compromat or compromont.
Are they just different tenses? Why are there two different words?
(03:26):
That's an interesting question. I know comproima is the Russian
phrase which has been picked up by the US media
even has been making the rounds much more these days
than I've ever heard it in the past in terms
of like in the parlance of our times, to quote
the Big Lebowski. But there's a really I haven't seen
the film, but it's got a Jennifer Lawrence in and
I believe it's called Red Sparrow if I'm not mistaken,
(03:47):
and she plays a Russian spy that is like trained
in these sexual wiles. It's literally a school for young
women that are trained to do this very thing. It's
a huge plot point in the Americans without spoiling it,
The Americans is about sleeper agents living in the US,
And in both Red Sparrow and The Americans, there's this
(04:13):
method of spycraft via seduction employed called honey traps, or
you may have heard it referred to as honey pots.
These tactics have been around for a long, long long time.
In fact, as our pal Gabe pointed out off air,
the earliest honey trap on record. Maybe this is how
(04:34):
old it is, it's biblical. One of the oldest ones
that we know of is the anecdotal betrayal of Sampson
by Delilah. Yeah, that's a classic story, um, And then
what is it She like sneaks in and cuts his
hair wherein all of his magical strongman powers lie in
exchange for eleven hundred pieces of silver. That's right, And
(04:57):
then I think he gets his head lopped off at
some point. That may be in a different story, though
Solomn is the one who has Sampson's head cut off,
and so whether or not there was a real Sampson
and a real Delilah and real superpower hair, we know
that this practice has continued and continues even in the
(05:17):
present day. Every single intelligence agency across the planet did
something like this, but it was an especially common practice
in China and in Russia. For all our US listeners,
The Central Intelligence Agency does not officially comment on whether
it's agents use sexuality to get info, but off the record,
(05:43):
some retired CIA folks say it could happen. Today. We'd
like to just present a few cases of honey traps.
This is really a situation in which the truth is
stranger than fiction. We we talked about Sampson, but let's
dive into mada Ha and really quickly. It was not
Solomon them to do with Sampson. That was John the
(06:04):
Baptist who she had beheaded. And in the opera Ptolemy,
she sings a really creepy aria to his severed head. Um.
So sorry, excuse me for mixing all my stories there.
Please continue, But so Mata Hari you may have heard
the phrase before. M A t a h a r I.
Mata Harry was Dutch woman who had a pretty pretty
(06:25):
wild life. She had spent a few years as a
dancer in Java in Indonesia. During World War One, she
was arrested because the French forces had discovered that a
German military official in Spain was sending her money. They
caught the telegrams intercepted. She was accused of passing uh
(06:48):
secrets to the Germans, French secrets to the Germans, um
and uh, you know, secrets that she had potentially gotten
by um, you know, working her mojo on certain French
political officials and military officials as well. So she went
on trial and um Mada Harri defended herself quite quite vocally,
(07:12):
quite robustly. It was an interesting defense too, it really was.
She said that she was this attache is which is
like a staffer for a diplomat or an ambassador, that
she was his mistress and that he was just sending
her like you know, sugar daddy type gifts exactly. She said,
(07:34):
no spycraft, just a little bit of slee's baggery. Her
arguments did not win over the judges. She was executed
on October fifteenth, nineteen seventeen, by firing squad and a
nice little detail here, she refused to be blindfolded. She
wanted to see it coming. After the close of the war,
(07:55):
the French forces admitted that they didn't really have any
evidence against her. Most modern historians have concluded that she
wasn't shot because she was running a honey trap, but
she was instead executed to send a message to anyone
who might follow her example. So the lesson here is
(08:16):
that looking as the one is participating in a honey
trap is as dangerous as actually being in one. And
we have so many examples of these. A lot of
them occurred during wartime. Actually, a lot of the ones
we know about occurred during wartime. Because again, this stuff
(08:37):
is maybe still happening today. I mean, I have no
doubt that it's I mean, it's it's tales old as time.
It works, right, Like, why why would it not be happening.
I'm pretty pretty confident that our government is doing this
all the time. But who am I to say that's
not what we're here for today. Well, let's talk about
the story of Nora Estoga, who was able to seduce
a Nicaraguan general and then assassinate him. That's a part
(09:01):
of it too. We haven't even talked about the the
ability to lure people into compromising situations, not just to
you know, steal secrets from them or to get comprom
mot on them, but to actually kill them. And there's
another example here and Israeli technician Mordechai Venunu, who is
most famous or infamous for whistle blowing about Israel's nuclear capabilities.
(09:26):
When he spilled the atomic beans in he ran away,
left the country and went to London, and there he
was seduced by a woman who led him to Israeli
intelligence assets in Rome. This is under massad, correct. Massad
is the intelligence agencies, and they they caught him. I mean,
(09:46):
we know honey pots can occur with a number of
ultimate goals. One to assassinate people, to uh to to
kidnap them or or you know, gain custody of them.
The third and perhaps one of the most insidious, is
to control people over time. We're talking about blackmail, like
(10:08):
long term, long game like that's that. Can you imagine
being that beholden to somebody else where You just couldn't
live your normal life, you had to like literally live
for another person or another organization at some point when
you just have to get in front of it, just
tell your spouse, Look, I messed up, But I don't
want to ruin the country think that you would think
that maybe you know, there's there are there are worse
(10:30):
things than being told you're cheating on your spouse, though,
and I imagine some of those triggers might be pulled
as well, like you know, threatening to kill family members.
And yeah, that's outside of what we're talking about today.
My favorite honey pot story of all time, and I
know we had talked about this off air. So there
was this Indonesian president, Ahmed Sukarno. He was the victim,
(10:53):
the quote unquote victim of a honey pot blackmail attempt
by the kgb U SSR. They made a videotape of
him being intimate with several Russian women disguised as flight attendants.
So this is very not safe for work in s
(11:15):
f W. Here's the thing though, when they came to
him and they said, you know, didn't I don't know,
we have video of you. He he was like, all right, well,
let me let me see the video. Like we do
not think it would be pleased if this gets out.
And then he watched the video and he was over
the moon. He was like, oh, awesome, you guys filmed it.
(11:37):
I look great. He was like, I look great. Can
I have copies of this because I want to show
it to the crew. And then so basically he just
needn't care. He didn't care at all, but he was
proud and he was like, oh, ahead, distribute, It'll make
me look like a real ball ar. Yeah, he had
a weird set of priorities. That's the most famous case
of it backfiring. So we've been talking a lot about
(12:01):
bedrooms today and now let's talk about them in a
little more of a of a wholesome way, a platonic way.
If you will, yes, yes, if you will. Do you
have a relationship with your bed, Ben, I have a
deep and abiding relationship with my bed because I've finally
met the mattress for me. It's a Casper mattress, which
I've had for a number of years now, and I
(12:24):
love it. And I think you have one too. I
do have one, and I'll tell you I slept on
a non Casper mattress last night. My friend and I
woke up with all kinds of cricks and cracks and aches.
It was not fun, and it really made me realize
why Casper is such a big deal, Because it's a
sleep brand that makes expertly designed products to help you
and me get the best rest of your life one
(12:45):
night at a time. That's right, you know. Think about it, folks.
We spend one third of our lives sleeping, so shouldn't
we at least try to be comfortable for that thirty
three point three three three three percent of our lives? Yeah,
it's true. Casper knows this, and that's why They're products
are cleverly designed to mimic human curves, providing supportive comfort
for all kinds of bodies. That's right. The original Casper
(13:08):
mattress combines multiple supportive memory foams for quality sleep surface
with the right amounts of both sink and bounce. If
it's one thing I love, it's multiple foams. Let's talk turkey.
They have affordable prices, but why That's because Casper cuts
out the middleman and sells directly to you, not to
mention the hassle free returns. If you're not completely satisfied,
(13:31):
and you can be sure of your purchase with Casper's
one night risk free sleep on It trial. That's right,
get one hundred dollars towards select mattresses by visiting Casper
dot com slash ridiculous and using ridiculous at checkout. Terms
and conditions apply. That's one hundred dollars towards select mattresses
when you visit Casper dot com slash ridiculous and use
(13:53):
the code ridiculous at checkout. While we're on Russian uh noll?
Is it true that the Russian government perfected a trap?
They certainly made it into a bit of an art form.
There's a really interesting quote from a former KGB agent
saying that the Soviet intelligence agencies didn't ask Russian women
(14:17):
to stand up for their country, but asked them to
lay down. Yeah. And again, like we're talking about that
movie read Sparrow. Uh. The idea of the Sparrow School.
It trained these young, very intelligent women to use their
bodies in their intellect kind of like as like a
super weapon, you know. Um So it absolutely was a
(14:38):
part of of their their tactics. And and a particularly
famous Cold War spy case UH involves Clayton Loan Tree,
who was a Marine Corps guard security guard who was
taken in by a female Soviet officer and then um
was forced to share classified documents through a honeypot type scheme.
(15:01):
Uh and in nine seven he was convicted of espionage,
the first Marine convicted of espionage. Yep, gosh, can you
imagine the shame I mean, you know what I mean
like and to be exposed like that, and to be literally,
you know, put on trial by your own country who
you like, you know, believed in enough to join the
(15:23):
Marine Corps to serve I feel like I'm I'm already
immune to any kind of honey pot or compromat because
you know, anytime someone hits on me, I feel like
we're both just very disappointed. In general, don't sell yourself Shore.
You could be compromised, thanks man, thank you. You could
be indecently proposed to Well, technically it's possible, because you
(15:46):
know this. This tactic on the Russian side did not
disappear with the fall of the Soviet Union. Recently, a
political satirist in Russia, a guy named Viktor Schindarrovich and
I'm butchering the Russian there he was filmed cheating on
his spouse with a young woman whose name was Katya,
(16:07):
and weirdly enough, the same young woman, the same Katya
had also seduced like six other critics of the government.
And then there was another series of traps. One appeared
to catch an American diplomat in two thousand and nine.
The State Department says that that episode was fabricated, that
(16:29):
nothing actually happened, but the government of Russia made it
up for some reason. And Russia is not the only, uh,
not the only game in town here. It's true. UM.
China was recently discovered UM to be using this technique
as well. Though you got to imagine that, you know,
again Taylor, as old as time, I could imagine it
(16:50):
going back to much much farther in the past than this.
But in two thousand nine it was discovered that Deputy
Mayor of London, Ian Clement, was actually drugged UM and
deuce the old one to punch in a hotel room
in Beijing. Um. When he awakened, he found that his
BlackBerry was gone um. And then he admitted that he
(17:11):
quote fell for the oldest trick in the book, Which
is why I find it hard to believe that that
we're just now saying oh, yeah, China does this too. Um,
that seems like a little bit uh like, um duh.
Just gonna go out on a limb and say, if
you are an important diplomat, if you are a government
military official, or a corporate tycoon, and you're hanging out
(17:33):
at a hotel bar, just be skeptical, use critical thinking
when someone sidles up to you. Now, I know it
sounds like we're you know, being a bit restrictive because
so far stories have all been about dudes being seduced. However,
make no mistake, women have also been the targets of
(17:53):
honey trap operations. Are you talking about spymaster Devolf? Yes, yes, indeed, yeah,
it's true. During the Cold War, East German intelligence chief
Marcus Wolff sent uh agents of Stazi, which is a
lot of these intelligence agency names are new to me.
Stazi would have been the East German intelligence agencies that
correct sent agents of Stazi um called Romeo spies love
(18:17):
that uh into West Germany to work their masculine wiles
on powerful women and uh and and get at those
uh those secrets. Yep. And this was a smaller part
of his larger operation. You see this spymaster Marcus Wolf
ran the largest honey trap operation that we know of
(18:42):
in human history. In the nineteen fifties. Wolf had this thought,
he said, huh, there are a lot of dead german Men.
He said, a lot of the German Men who would
be of marrying age have died during World War Two.
And more and more German women are becoming professionals, are
(19:04):
pursuing higher echelons of government and industry. And he said,
you know what, that it's lonely at the top. Maybe
we could, maybe we could work something out. Maybe we
could send a few, you know, interesting young men of
charm and intrigue to talk to these lonely folks at
(19:26):
the height of industry. So he set up this special
department of the Stazi, and he staffed it with his
most intelligent officers, but also the most handsome. Those are
the ones you're talking about, right, and all the Romeo spies.
It is, indeed, and there's a really a great history
account of this on Foreign policy dot com, The History
(19:47):
of the honey Trap that I highly recommend checking out.
And um, I think they might be using a little
body dub duble entendre here when they say that thanks
to the Romeo spies and their honey traps, the Stasi
penetrated most levels of the West German government and industry.
Or maybe that's just my filthy, filthy mind. I don't know, man,
(20:07):
maybe you're getting honey trapped with that article. Don't let
them get in your head, you know what's true. At
one point, the East Germans even um sent spies to
infiltrate NATO and was able to extract some very crucial
information on the Western deployment of of nukes. Well you
know how they got caught right this, this scheme was
(20:28):
going gangbusters until it became useless. And pretty quickly, West
German counterintelligence authorities figured out that you could tell a
Romeo spy by the haircut. No lie, it sounds so simple,
but the spies had these practical short back insides haircuts
(20:49):
similar not quite a high and type, but you know,
a clean cut haircut. And in West Germany the hairstyles
tended to be more elaborate and more complete aided, so
like pompadours, it was a whole thing West German haircuts.
So counter intelligence officers would get the would get the
heads up from a guard at a train, at a
(21:11):
train station or on the train and then they would fall.
They'd be like follow that haircut, and the intelligence agencies
would follow the spy and they would arrest them as
soon as they did something wrong, because they had to
wait for them to do something wrong. Yes, and three
of these women were rooted out and uh, and they
went on trial, but they didn't really get the book
(21:35):
thrown at them so much as just a little slap
on the wrist. I think. Um, one of them who
got into West German intelligence got six and a half years.
It's not not really slept on the wrist, but it's
certainly better than death, I guess um. And that was
largely because of public um kind of sympathy towards her.
In West Germany. Um, they kind of identified with these women. Volf,
(21:59):
the spy master in question, was on trial twice and
this is after the collapse of communism, but he only
got a two year sentence that had been suspended. And yeah,
that's that's really interesting to me. The guy that kind
of like mastermind this whole thing got maybe the most
lenient sentence of all. And he's a complicated character. He
(22:20):
went on to pursue a second career as an author.
He is anomalous amidst the players in the intelligence game
Spy Masters, because he published an autobiography called Man Without
a Face, great title, and in this he attempts to
(22:40):
set the record straight more or less, or at least
rationalize his actions. He said he never put pressure on
any officers to use honeypot tactics in the course of
their work. He said it was up to their discretion.
He said, quote, they were sharp operators who realized that
a lot can be with sex. This is true in
(23:02):
business and espionage because it opens up channels of communication
more quickly than other approaches. And of course, he said,
as long as there is espionage, there will be Romeos
seducing unsuspecting targets with access to secrets. And here's where
I think he's kind of trying to redeem himself a little.
(23:22):
He says, Look, look, look, I was running an intelligence service,
not a lonely hearts club. So he's like, look, I'm
not a matchmaker. I'm not telling people to date each other. Yeah.
It was something of a of an espionage pimp type figure,
though in a way Honey, yeah, I don't think you
can distance yourself in that way now, what do you
(23:48):
think Ben was? James Bond a Romeo spy. He used
seduction quite often on powerful women. James Bond was a
terrible spy. He was a bad He says his name
every time he meets people. That's true, and I you've
mentioned them before. But but he's double O seven. Maybe
(24:09):
his name really is I don't know, Like I wonder
you know, there's a new Bond film coming up. Is
it still with Daniel Craig. I think there's I think
there's a new Bond who is going out. The rumor
I heard is there's a female Bond. That's right. I
think it's Daniel Craig and this kind of new person.
So he's gonna pass the torch. Yeah, something like that.
I think that's the idea. Anyway, Casey on the case, yea, indeed,
(24:32):
we've got to check it out. Yeah, I don't know.
The new ones with Craig are okay. They're kind of fun.
I like James Bond, I like I like seeing a
terrible spy. But the action sequences are great and I
love some intrigue. Remember that Guy Mad's Michelson playing right
is one of Casey Pegram's French associates. It's la bouche
(24:54):
And what does the chef mean? Does that mean like
c h I F F R E. Yeah, he chief,
which in French means like digits. It's literally kind of
the numeral the zero to nine that that you would
right to represent a number, but it can also mean
like figures, statistics, you know, quarterly results, something like that
(25:16):
would be less chief. Um. Yeah, it's it's surprisingly nuanced
in French. There's like the namba, which is like the number,
new mail hole which is also kind of like number,
but would be more like for addresses and that kind
of thing. Uh. And then les Chief which again digits
and uh, figures and that kind of thing. And he's
like a big gambler in the casino reale, So that
(25:38):
makes sense. Casey on the case, big time, double triple case.
So this episode is a little weird for us because
we usually like to examine things that happened before some
time around the nineties. However, this is still occurring today.
And a question that was on a lot of our
fellow listeners minds here was almost certainly, were there any
(26:01):
real red Sparrows. Was there any sands to this movie,
any real life stuff? Not just single agents, but was
there some sort of school. Well, according to Jason Matthews,
who is a CIA veteran with more than thirty years
in the game, Red Sparrow is somewhat real, or at
(26:23):
least inspired by true events, the Soviet Union really did
once run a school to train young women in being
professional seducers of diplomats. Oh good, So I don't seem
like a complete moron for referencing that movie several times.
No No is prescient. And this is this is strange
(26:43):
because it has a lot in common with what we
see in the art of the con You know, when
we see scam artists, they prey on people's baser desires
and their human failings. So if you get anything from
today's episode, first off, if a stranger comes up to
you and is really trying to put the moves on you,
(27:06):
just be aware that they might have an ulterior motive,
you know what I mean? Not saying that love at
first sight doesn't happen. It's just a thing you should
think critically about. According to the Beatles, it happens all
the time. I love at first sight. They believe it anyway,
I I like to believe it. I would like to
play I love the Beatles. Ben, Can I ask you
(27:27):
a question, a personal question? Sure? Can you tell what
my shirt is? Uh? It's a it's a painting. It
looks almost like kind of like a mutant Simpson's on
the couch situation. That's correct, it's cool. I really did it. Thanks, Casey,
you're close to Ben Is. It is a painting, but
like you can see Marge's hair there and like a
weird blobby Bart and Lisa. I ordered this sight unseen
(27:48):
off of an Instagram ad. I didn't even think it
was gonna come, but it came. That's all I got.
It's the power of shipping, power of shipping indeed, and
the power of belief that good things will happen. Um.
But you're right, Ben, it's important to keep your wits
about you in these situations. You just you just can't
take everything at face value. You don't want to like
be suspicious of everyone that you meet and think that
(28:10):
everyone that's showing any interest you is some kind of
secret superspy. But you know, take care of yourselves out there, people,
And let us know if you have ever witnessed a
honey trap in operation. We totally understand if you would
rather not disclose your full name, etcetera, etcetera. There are
(28:30):
so many ways to get in touch with us. You
can find us on Instagram, you can find us on Facebook.
You can find us on Twitter as Ridiculous History, Ridiculous
History Show, or some derivation thereof. You can also follow
us on our personal adventures. I'm on Instagram as at
Ben Bolan and Twitter as at Ben Bowland hs W,
and you can find me on Instagram exclusively at how
(28:52):
Now Noel Brown Big thanks to Alex Williams, who composed
our theme. Super producer Casey Pegram on the case left
and right. Christopher Hasciot is here in spirit. Gabe Lozier
Research Associate, We love you Eve's Jeff Cote. Of course,
check out her history shows as well on our network.
And where would we be without Young Quizzles a k a.
(29:13):
The Quister a k a. Jonathan Strickling a k a.
Quizzlers makes mouths happy? Remember that tagline for Twizzlers makes
mouths happy. It's kind of clunky and it feels problem
about it. Yeah, We'll see you next time, folks. For
(29:35):
more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit The I Heart radio, app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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