April 23, 2025 • 59 mins
What if you had the perfect spy? Not some glitzy James Bond-type, but instead a person -- or an entire family -- spending decades in a hostile country, slowly acquiring information and status, while waiting for the right signal from command. It's one of the most fascinating stories in all of tradecraft: the "sleeper spy," a concept made famous in works of fiction like The Americans. As Ben and Noel discover in tonight's episode, it turns out the conspiracy is real - welcome to Operation Ghost Stories.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Our colleague Matt is on adventures and will be returning soon.
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Facan. Most importantly, you
are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want
you to know. Noel, you and Dylan and I were
talking a little bit off air before we started rolling
(00:52):
about a seminal spy show called The Americans, and I
think you said you've been meaning to watch it.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
It's on my list.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
There's been such a glut of really great spy shows
and movies as of late, and it brought that one
back up for me. But like you know, I just
saw a black bag in the theater. It's is very
Tinker Taylor Soldier spy kind of vibe. And The Americans,
I believe it's an FX series from gosh, it's probably
ten years.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I always have spoken on very very highly.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, yeah, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed
The Americans, and I've got to check out Black Bag
that's on my list as well. But you're you're absolutely
correct there has been this uptick in espionage story spy
thrillers because they're great, you know, they're they're candy for
the mind. Even now as we realize a lot of
(01:44):
spy stuff that you read in fiction or you see
in film, it's entertaining, but it's not real mostly well, and.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I think we positive, maybe even on our recent episode
on why so many spies are getting caught, that may
will be a crossover between the zeitgeist of the spy
thriller and all of this kind of you know, spies
in the news of late Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I think you're absolutely onto something there, because maybe the
real world events are informing what we see in fiction.
And as a result, we got together, you and Matt
and I were talking about providing at least one example
of a genuine blockbuster spy conspiracy, the type of thing
(02:29):
that should ordinarily only exist in the world of fiction.
But we're going to dive into the true events that
inspired the hit TV show The Americans. This is the
tale of Operation Ghost Stories.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
What a cool name right, so, but spooky, let's take
a quick worry from our sponsor and will jump right in.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Here are the facts. Would you ever be a sleeper agent?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I would be a sleepy agent?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Me too, man, he too especially great?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
It seems like a lot of trouble, a lot of effort,
you know, for potentially just getting killed and then disavowed exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah, it's a high risk and we don't know whether
there are high rewards. To understand the depth of this
bizarre story, we have to talk about what it means
to actually be a sleeper agent. James Bond is not
this kind of person.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
James Bond was in it for the babes man like
almost entirely. He wasn't even a very good spot like
in the movies anyway, right.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, he was terrible. He was going around. First off,
he was dat he was drinking constantly, if you've ever
seen the studies of how often he drinks in film.
And then he was telling everybody his real name all
the time.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
And maybe he thought maybe he could confuse the movie
said the last name first, and then the Bond James Bond.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Wait a minute, who is this person?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
To your point, He was also very sloppy in his
personal behavior, hitting on anything with a pulse, which.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Guy had mad STDs, just saying he was spreading them around.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah, it's really hopefully was using protection, but that's a
great point he hit.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Protection for him would be his sweet little nine millimeters.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, and this we're bringing up this, you know, most
famous of fictional spies, because we want to contrast it
with actual sleeper agents. These folks put so much effort
into appearing really boring, like super if Beije was a person.
(04:46):
They want to be a beige.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
All right, for sure.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
It's the whole ability to blend in and really quickly
lest some James bond heads in the crowd yell at me.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
James didn't use a nine millimeter.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
He used a Walter PP that really cool little compact
gun that he was always posing, you know he was using.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, out of all his gadgets, he loved that little gun.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Really. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
These these sleeper agents, they infiltrate communities and workplaces. They
go about a day to day list of routines and
activities just the same way anybody else would. And because
they're here's the thing, they're usually not doing any spy
stuff for years or decades.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, that's right. They are playing the long game very slowly.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
As we mentioned in our recent Spy episode or Spies
Getting Caught episode. They move their way through the ranks
of society, whether it be socially or you know, flitting
around between different government or industrial circles and just trying
to you know, win friends and influence people.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, and then years or decades down the road, once
they've established all these relationships and associations and connections, they
might get a signal and should the need arise, they
can be activated by their handler.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
And this isn't Mansheurian candidate type activation though, who knows,
maybe that is a thing. But this is literally some
sort of covert message that has transmitted to this individual
that causes them to leap into the endgame portion of
their plan, whether it be acquiring some sort of device
you know, photographs, compromant, whatever.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Right, Yeah, it could be as simple as actively surveilling
a target, or like you said, getting maybe the new
plans for a jet or some other needo gadget. May
nuclear technology for sure, Yeah, that's a great example. Or
(06:53):
internal records from a government agency at the more extreme
end of the spectrum. They might be assigned to terminate
an individual, or to even commit acts of terrorism.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, terrorism, they wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Call it that though, with no no, I don't know
what they would call it. Any number of euphemisms, right,
So exactly everything escalates at that point. Now, in the
ideal situation for these folks, you want the agent to
be able to maintain their cover after whatever task they're
activated for. But sometimes you are past a point of
(07:31):
no return, so the act you commit may burn your identity,
and that means you either get caught, like we're saying
at the top, or you have to be rescued exfiltrated
back to your home organization. It sounds so insane, but
it's important to note this really can happen. And one
knock on consequence of this is it leads to an
(07:52):
enormous amount of paranoia for the people in power.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well as it should.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I mean, they know what they're up to, you know.
I only imagine that the enemy, or at least the
folks on the other side, are up to the same thing,
and god forbid, they're better at it than us.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Right right, And this I like that point because maybe
it's a fear of inadequacy. On some level, there's a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Of insecurity and an international intelligence.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yeah, there's a lot of For all that bravado and swagger,
they're all just you know, like worrying that the other
guys have better toys than they do.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, there's a lot of insecurity in the world of
security and true on many levels. Actually, yes, yeah, I
agree with you. This is this leads us to some
historical precedence. When the paranoia goes too far, you end
up with mass hysteria outbreaks like the infamous Red scares.
(08:48):
This is where the authority is carry Yeah, they go
completely overboard. Anybody can be a spy, just like during
the Inquisition. Anyone could be a witch.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Totally. Yeah, And once anyone can your enemy, everyone is
your enemy. You're right, You see or at least you
see your.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Enemy in everything or in everyone, And it can really
lead to some serious spiraling when you can start mixing
in propaganda, misinformation and just hatred and othering. It really
can be a pretty nasty situation pretty quickly, oh yeah,
very quickly. The US has had more than one Red Scare.
(09:27):
Red Scare is an era marked by a groundswell of
public fear and anxiety, in this case over the supposed
rise of communist or socialist forces. I'm picturing like an
eighties you know, Schwarzenegger action movie or something around, like,
you know, fighting the Russians or something, and somebody using
(09:48):
the catchphrase you just got red scared.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I love it. Let's yeah, let's put that on the books. Actually,
let's make that a thing.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Why not?
Speaker 4 (09:56):
To your point, Ben, that's right, the multiple red scares
of very I guess there were different shades of red
and its Britannican notes the first one of these red
scares of varying shades, I guess the first occurred from
nineteen seventeen to nineteen twenty, and this is amid an
increase in the organizing of labor forces, labor unions, immigration, urbanization,
(10:18):
and industrialization. The second period Britannican notes, also called McCarthyism.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
You know about that one. That one was real red
scary after.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
US Senator Joseph McCarthy, took place from roughly nineteen forty
seven to nineteen fifty four. And that's the classic example
of where we were seeing our enemies in even among
our friends.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Oh yeah, this is bonkers. So in each of these
cases they just mentioned, we see a clear pattern of overreach.
During the first Red Scare, the Attorney General at the time,
a guy named a Mitchell Palmer, led a brutal series
of raids that were probably unconstitutional against individuals who were
(11:00):
usually going to be foreign born immigrants and for one
reason or another they were suspected of being anarchist or
communist or a radical leftist.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Sorry, dude, the headshake used to do. Just in the clock.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
I mean, we're kind of living through another one of
these eras right now. Second, just you know, different flavor,
I guess of enemy. But yeah, we are seeing some
serious overreach from this administration of targeting individuals for just
something as simple as maybe having a different opinion, you know,
some someone is outspoken against the administration, and then using
(11:36):
some of these dog whistle kind of tactics of like,
you know, illegal immigrants who are violent criminals to just
get rid of someone that you don't like.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Right, and it will eventually, at least historical precedent shows
us that kind of overreach will eventually start touching US citizens.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
As well, touching you touching people.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So sweet, Caroline about it toughly.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
And not to be alarmist or anything.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I'm certainly not trying not to loose sleep over this
kind of stuff, but it's really hard to not see
the parallels when you look at these kinds of stories,
to not see the parah I did not see that coming, jokesters.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So it is likely in the Red Scares that some
of these folks were genuine assets, or they genuinely did
want to commit crimes, right, they were a danger to
national security. But even if that's likely, it is certain
that many more of the individuals targeted were just random,
(12:42):
innocent folks. They happened to be from the wrong country, right,
they went to the wrong meetings, or they knew the
wrong people, even if it was just like their neighbor.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
During the second Red Scare, which is just after the
Second World War, at the beginning of the Cold One,
the Cold War, America is terrified the Soviet Union might
turn the entire world communists. That was kind of that,
I hope I'm using this term correct. The fade to
complete kind of of the whole situation. It was the lynchpin,
you know, Communism was the ultimate fear, and it was
(13:13):
used in a way to maybe accomplish some other things,
and to get rid of some inconvenient individuals by classifying
them potentially as communists. That's what McCarthy was all about
with his blacklisting Hollywood writers and trying to get rid
of people who might speak ill of him and his party.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, it was very much a thing where just like
the days of the Inquisition, That's why we call it
a witch hunt, people had already taken it as a
given that the halls of power were riddled with reds.
And Joseph McCarthy, who was if whether or not he
(13:52):
genuinely believed his claims, he was definitely an opportunist leveraging
that public fear and anxiety. So our buddy Heavy Joe
starts claiming that their communist sleeper agents everywhere in the government.
He went nuts. He said, I have a list of
known Soviet assets in the Department of State, and we
(14:12):
have to investigate the CIA and a baker's dozen of
other agencies. This got him crazy headlines. He got a
lot of attention for it, and that probably pushed him
to make increasingly extravagant claims, Like if you heard him
tell it, it sounds like every third or fourth government
employee is just a deep cover spy waiting for the
(14:36):
signal to blow up the White House or something.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Yeah, and we got to root him out, Ben, We
got to root him out out and expose them for
their treasonous actions. And we know looking back on all
of this that this was massive overreach. That sure, there
might have been some bad actors embedded. There might have
been a few Communists trying to spoil the Buncher, ruin
him in the America Party, but it wasn't like he described,
(15:03):
and it was used in such a way, as weaponized,
as darisay, in such a way where a lot of
innocent people got had their lives ruined.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Yeah, because you can't really, you can't really recover from
these kinds of accusations, even if they're disproven, Right, it's
still a blemish on your career. So tons of innocent
people like you said no, they lost their jobs. There
were very few actual convictions and peak behind the curtain, Yeah, right,
(15:36):
who saw that come in? For a long time, we
have been we'll spoil it too much, But we've been
speculating with some of our colleagues on doing an episode
entirely focused on the House on American Activities Committee or you.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Know, we should do we should get the huak to
a girl to come talk to us about.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I'm sorry, I had to do it. I had to
do it. Do you think we can leeve God can
judge me. I don't know we can do. I think
she might be available.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
I think you know what though, I actually heard that
she got cast as herself in a movie.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Well that's great, man, Yeah it was.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
It was a big Hollywood job too, So you know,
I hope she's okay. That whole meme coin thing really
threw her career into a tizzy. She was doing so well,
just coasting on that hawk Tua good will, and then.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Had to get into crypto, never get into crypto.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, I feel like she was misled, oh no question.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
But she allowed herself to be the face of this
thing that was a genuine, you know, helping dump pump
what do they call it a rug pull? Yes, pump
and dump scam and then just sort of vanished. So
it just I don't know, it was just it just
wasn't great. But anyway, we will, we will welcome you
with open arms. Who Walktua girl, come talk to us
about the house un American Activities Committee, and maybe another
(16:52):
one of our colleagues will come to Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Yeah, And today, with the benefit of retrospect, we can
look back and take the red scares for the valuable
lesson that they are. They're moral panics, They're cases of
mass hysteria. This shows us the danger of sliding into paranoia.
And when you let I kind of stop quoting Incubus,
when you let fear take the wheel and steer, it
(17:17):
can lead quickly to the erosion of the rule of law.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
You know what I say, Ben, And I say, let
Jesus take the wheel. Yeah, that's what I say.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
The world's best uber driver.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
He really is. He's so kind, good guy.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Ben.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
I got a question, though, what a moral panic is
a not a term of abuse, but it is a
term used maybe after the fact or in retrospect. You
wouldn't call something when you're in it or you're participating
in it, a moral panic, would you, because that implies
that you're overreacting, doesn't right.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah, it's often so people in say the nineties, with
the Satanic panic stuff, they would they wouldn't even call
satanic a moral paniciing.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Know exactly what we're doing we're doing the right thing.
We're getting rid of these demonic, satanic devil.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Worshipers, right.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah. It's kind of like how no group wants to
be called a cult other than that banned the cult.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Do you think that history will show or will refer
to some of what we're living through in this era
politically as a moral panic?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah. I just want to you know, again, I'm not
here to criticize anybody's political believes whatever. You know, do
you but I just.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
I think there are some certain uh historical aspects of
what's going on right now that are not going to
be looked on favorable.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And also, you know, regardless of which administration is in power,
factions of politicians will always engage in moral panics because
they're great to re election.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
It's a way of working people up into a froth,
you know, and getting them to kind of a line
behind a common enemy. And what better enemy than an
amorphous concept that can't exist anywhere?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, we love those in the US. As a matter
of fact, the only one we had that wasn't super
popular was the War on poverty. That one got sidelined, Yeah,
war on drugs, war on terror, all the other.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Ones war, they give you power to do other stuff
and accomplish other like kind of off the book's aims
and the idea of the war. A war on anything
just means that we're always at war.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yes, yeah, very Orwellian. And so the Red Scare teaches us,
or the Red scares teach us these lessons. But unfortunately,
then as now, these are lessons the US seems to
continually forget, and that is something that we all need
to think about in the coming years.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Do you think they're forgetting it or do you think
they just think they're smarter than the people of the past.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Properly at the top the ladder, but for the public,
I think we all forget how easily people can be pushed.
That's a good point, you know, that's a good point.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
And it's easy to forget the historical precedence, especially when
you have someone speaking with such authority and such confidence,
who you maybe personally have some skin in the game with,
and you've tied part of your personality to this person
being correct or this person representing the moral authority.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Do you know what we should do? No, what do
you think? Let's play just a brief clip of Joe McCarthy,
so we can get the vibe as.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
One communist on the faculty of one universality is one
communist who many One communist am the American advisors at
y'all top was one Communist too many. And even if
(20:59):
they were all one Communist in the state department, even
if there are only one Communist in the state department,
that will still be one Communist.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I'd be behind this guy. He sounds like he knows
what he's talking about.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
As you said, little authoritative confident, there's a ticking time, Bob,
you know, high stakes.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Yeah, And I think this is an interesting point that the
idea of a moral panic only being seen as such
in retrospect, mass hysteria, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
But paranoia and prejudice aside. There are absolutely genuine conspiracies
and sleeper agents at play, no question about it. And
I think we've already alluded to that throughout.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yeah, we'll pause for a word from our sponsors, and
then we're diving into Operation Ghost Stories. Here's where it
gets crazy. All right. It's the year two thousand. Everything
(21:59):
is different. You can just go and hang out at
the airport, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Man, that was so cool, you could smoke on the airplane.
I think we're I think we're cool with that.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Isn't it weird?
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Though there were still they're using airplanes that still have
little flippy ashtrays like on the seats. I'm only just
now starting to see those go away. Have you noticed
that a starting to finally, Yeah, but as recently as
a few years ago, that was definitely still a thing.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I always feel a little bit I wouldn't say diseased,
but I feel I always clock it when I see
an airplane that's old enough to still have those ash trays. Yep,
And I just keep thinking, what else. I hope they
have a maintenance program exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
No, that's okay. I hadn't thought about it in a while.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
But I'm realizing now that I'm not seeing those as
much anymore.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
So I think they finally passed a point where they
have Okay, guys, we got to get rid of the
ash trays. But it was a golden time.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
It was a halcyon era around this time, and the
store is a bit murky. We'll see why. FBI agents
learned that there are real sleeper spies from Russia in
the United States. They're posing as Americans and they are
you know, this is not Red Scare level stuff. They're
(23:15):
not people who just happen to be from Moldova or
Belarus or something. They are Russian intelligence officers. They have
high level training, and they have ghosted into the general population.
As the FBI supervisor Alan Kohler put it, they're posing
as Americans to get access like Americans. They had children, friends, colleagues,
(23:40):
even their next door neighbors. We're just like, what, Michael, No,
he's the most boring guy I've met.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
What a sweetheart.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
And you know, Ben, I just wanted to take this
moment to point out how what a badass and am
Operation ghost Story is because it works on so many levels,
Like it evokes fear and kind of spooky vibes. But
so it's about a backstory. It's about being ghosting your
way into this country and then having a convincing and
(24:07):
plausible story that you are telling everybody that is forward facing,
and that is believable.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Yeah, And the FBI's operation, this was their name, Operation
ghost Stories, was the FBI investigation of finding these folks today.
I agree with I love what you're pointing out about
the levels of the name because as we know, the
FEDS don't always knock out a home run when it
comes to naming things, but they.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Did pretty well one.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Yeah, honestly, it would have been even cooler if it
was the Russian name for the operation, but.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
I'll take it.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
However, it would have been cooler if it was the
Russian name. Yeah, that would have had some bravado, all right.
So they found that of these people, there are ten
that they identify in the US, and a lot of
them are using stolen identities of other Americans with forged documents.
They enroll at US universities, they join uh, you know,
(25:07):
trade groups like Young Americans for blah blah blah, et cetera.
And they were all they were all being ordered by
So Russia has two intelligence agencies that can conflict at times,
sort of like how the FBI and the CIA don't
always get along. These folks are directly working for SVR,
which is a Russian intelligence agency. They are tasked with
(25:32):
getting information on, as you pointed out, nuclear weaponry. They
want to figure out what the US is, what stance
it has toward Iran, who's going to be the next
leader of the CIA, what's really happening in Congress. You
know what I mean? Like what teenagers? Is Matt Gates
scoring that weekend? He wasn't in play at this point.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
These are important questions, Ben, and then the answer is
all of them, right.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
This is the weirdest thing to mean. No, the FBI,
we still don't know how they came across this. It's
not public knowledge yet. But the FBI did not move immediately. Instead,
starting around somewhere around ten two thousand, they investigated and
built out the network until like twenty ten, So for
(26:24):
a decade before arresting anybody, they investigated this and when
they made their move on June twenty seventh, they got
ten people in the US and then they got another
let's call them honorable mentions kill.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
We just say that the idea of child sleeper agents
is particularly interesting and troubling.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
And I don't think we do that. Do we do that?
Speaker 4 (26:54):
I don't think we have children spies in the United States.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Not to my knowledge, in recent history. I think, well,
I think one thing we should we do have to
point out is I'm sure a kid could be this
ethically fraud, but I'm sure a kid could be used
as an informant device. Yes, yeah, And I know, well,
from what we understand with deep cover sleeper agents from
(27:21):
regardless of where they're from, if they have children, they're
usually not letting the children in on the game. The
kids are innocent bystanders.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Okay, maybe all right, I'd have a hard time believing
that that's true every time, but anyway.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
I'm sure. I mean, in the show The Americans is
a light spoiler. The spies in question do have children,
and a large part of the family drama piece of
this is.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Children finding out and they have to say, I believe
I've watched the first episode or I watched no of
a different thing in a movie or something where all
of a sudden, it's like we've been made. We have
to fly the coop. And now only now do the
children know something weird.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Has been going on? Right, like the Black Widow movie.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
That was it? Thank you Ben, that was what it was.
That was exactly what it was.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
I mean, can you imagine just all right, It's as
any parent knows, it's already tremendously stressful to shepherd your
kid through adolescence and those awkward teen years. So what
if on top of that, on top of all the
hormones and the you know, the the challenges a young
kid faces growing up. On top of all that, at
(28:39):
some point you're probably gonna have to tell them that
you're a spy to right.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Yeah, And I think I was baby barking up their
own tree with my initial line of questioning, because perhaps
the Russians also do not do child spies. So I
was not trying to be like, we have some sort
of moral high ground here, but if it's being done anywhere,
it's likely being done here as well.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
We don't know about it.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
So yeah, no's that's a good point, and I think
it's important that you make it. But also I don't
want to sound too cold war hawkish, but I do think, well,
we know for a fact much deployed Russia has a
different set of rules, They have a very different philosophy.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
I think it's entirely.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Possible, and there we say plausible that there haven't been
knowing uses of children for spying purposes.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Uh huh, as unclean as it is the US during
this multi year investigation, they started internally referring to the
suspected sleeper agents as the illegals program now all at all.
In twenty ten, they made eleven arrest ten we're in
the US, and one was all the way out in Cyprus.
(29:53):
That guy's really interesting. The eleventh dude, Christopher Metzos, he
was sort of their money guy. He flew to the
U with literal bags of money. When he got apprehended
in Cyprus, he made bail, he skipped bail, he hit
the wind, he totally disappeared, which is kind of hard
to do in this day and age, for sure.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
And Ben, can I just say, I just googled child
spies and there are a lot of agencies or organizations
that are out there trying to prevent the use of
child spies.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Oh wow, so it's a known issue.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Why using child's as children as spies?
Speaker 4 (30:29):
It's such a bad IDEA High Court rules against just
for Kids law and challenge to use of children as spies.
The judge ruled, despite the self evident dangers to children,
the current guidance is not unlawful.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
This isn't America, y'all.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
This reminds me of a child soldier, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
That's not that different.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
They're absolutely in danger in a similar way, even if
they're not like on the front lines, like you know,
killing people.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
They are, you know, playing a dangerous game.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
It's a good way to move communications too, write to
use a kid as a.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Courier always has been. Yeah, I mean, you know, in
like old school like conflicts.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
And we know Afghanistan in particular has an issue with this.
These folks, some of them do have kids. But the
folks in the Illegals program that are the target of
Operation Ghost Stories, they're all adults. Will will give you
their names, and just to be clear, a lot of
these names are fake. The suspects are Juan Lazarro real name,
(31:35):
Mikhail Antoleyevich Vasenkov I butchered that one, Vicky Pelez, Donald Heathfield,
real name Andre Bezlkov, Tracy Lee and Foley, very American
sounding name. Her real name is Yolina Vavilova.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Oh it's beautiful. I love Russian names.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
This child spy thing has got me going down a
rabbit all then, I'm actually realizing that a lot of
this is in the UK, and the language of the
laws in the UK are conducive to allowing child spies,
and that's what was shot down by the High courts.
But if they're doing it in the UK, you know,
the they're doing it here, you know it.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Well, it's like assassination. If a tactic works, then everybody
who can deploy that tactic is going to give it
a go.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
You were you were listing off some names, Ben and
I got I was distracted down the child spy Rabbital,
but I believe you left off with Yelina Vavlova a
ka Lee Ann Foley, which is your right then it
sounds like aunt LeeAnne from from Durham. You know. We
got Richard Murphy also very just quintessentially American name aka
(32:49):
Vladimir Guriev Cynthia Murphy, his his wife aka Lydia Guriev.
And we've got Michael Zatoli A k al Kutzik.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
And then Patricia Mills real name Natalia Para Verzeva. That's
close to that.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Well, that's easy to want to insert another ev er
kind of combo in there.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Para vera Zerra.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah, that's fun to say.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
And then there's Mikhail Simenko and most famously Anna Chapman.
We mentioned that the eleventh man out there in Cyprus
who escaped around the same time, there was a Russian
national who was working for Microsoft in the US. He
was apprehended, and he was deported on July thirteenth, twenty ten,
(33:42):
so a little bit before the big arrest. We got
to be honest with you folks, Even just based on
publicly available knowledge, this does not seem to be a
red scare. It does not seem to be a witch hunt.
Investigators found tons of concrete evidence that indicated motive tactics,
and and they found, as we mentioned, that some of
(34:03):
the agents functioning in his couples even had children. Maybe
not because they always wanted to start a family.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
It's a cover, unto itself, the ultimate cover, because you like,
like I think maybe the fact that we spent so
much time talking about the idea of child spies and
how abhorrent that would be is the whole point, because
no one would suspect, you know, a lovely, loving couple
with their small children, because who would do that to children?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Who you know?
Speaker 3 (34:31):
We would? Uh we neat America? Yeah not Nolan and
Dylan and myself or I don't know, Dylan. Where are
you at?
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Which I mean you get in situations, Ben, I'm going
to quote you back at.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
You you do get in situations. Dylan is not going
on record, he's not taking the bait. Well played, mister Fagin.
So okay, man, this is this is true right even
we had to take pains to point out the danger
as a paranoia because it can go wrong so quickly.
(35:04):
But it looks like if you go to the DOJ
and the criminal complaints, you'll see that they they nail
down not just intent and targets, but they nail down
the way folks communicated with each other, which I gotta
tell you is just it's so cool, man, just objectively,
you know, like dead drops. Haven't you ever wanted to be,
(35:26):
you know, to like sit on opposite sides of a
park bench And I do it.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
I do it sometimes just for funsies, just by myself
and just sit there waiting for you know, my contact
who never arrives. And then I go home and cry
into my pillow.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
And what language do you cry it?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I just say, yeah, yet that's Russian for now?
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yes, yes, So they found that these Russian agents would
communicate with their handlers or with the SVR proper using
messages hidden in digital photographs or things written in actual
disappearing inc Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Yeah, which is a thing we talked about the Spy
Museum that we all went to and hung out at
in DC.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Is that where we went, Ben?
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Yeah, Wait there was another one though, Wait it was
We haven't been to DC together, have we?
Speaker 3 (36:22):
No? But I think we went to that same museum,
just at different times.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
I think it was a different time. But then there
was the Mafia Museum. That was another one. But gosh,
I swear we've been together, but it doesn't matter. There
is an incredible spy museum where you can see a
lot of the kind of tradecraft stuff that we're talking
about here, like how invisible ink is made and deployed
and listening devices and things like that. So if you're
into this stuff and you want to see some irl,
(36:46):
highly recommend checking that out.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
And these guys are using real old school stuff we
talked about dead drops. They're also doing the thing, oh man,
this is what are those pranks that we just have
to do one day. They're doing the thing where you
get two identical bags or like a valise or a
suitcase and then you switch them when you meet and
(37:10):
I love that stuff. They were also we also learned
that they were gathering information to report back to Moscow
about what the US planned to do in Central America,
what they were internally thinking about Russian foreign policy, if
there were any internal problems with the US military they
(37:30):
can be leveraged. And then how the US handles terrorists
on the internet, Like what kind of tools and toys
do they apply to this? And it just gets even weirder.
I don't know, should we take an ad break?
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Oh we must, we got we gotta meet our dead drop.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
We've returned.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
All right.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
The next thing is as we mentioned previously. The next
thing is proving that these assets are functioning under their
own free will and that they know what they're doing, right,
or they're aware of their position, because it's not impossible
that someone could be accidentally working for a spy group
(38:22):
and they don't know it, you know what I mean?
They just know some guy named Jeremy has blackmail on them.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
You know Jeremy.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, you know Jeremy.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
What's he got on you?
Speaker 3 (38:31):
He's got nothing on me, man, We're just old friends.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
That's called Jeremy's a bit of a rap scallion. He's
a bit incorrigible.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Yeah, he's a sort of a Maverick character. So all right,
So the FBI has to prove their case in public too,
because you know, we know that the FBI in the
past has run into serious controversies and accusations about so
called witch hunts. So a year, about a year after
(39:01):
these arrests in twenty eleven, the FBI says, okay, everybody,
here's a ton of evidence that these are actual spies.
They've got documents, photos, videos backing up these allegations. And
then the FBI also said, I've always said this that
these agents didn't get their job done, they did not
(39:24):
get classified info, they not you know, attain their goals,
whatever those goals may be.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
This is the line being fed to the public. Or Okay, yeah,
so don't worry about it. Everything's cool. We might have
missed this for like a really really long time, but
now we're on the case.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Then nothing bad happened.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Exactly exactly. So they said, yes, these guys did get
some info, they did talk back to Russia, but mainly
what they were doing is the is something we call
and assessing. This is where spying turns into like a
multi level marketing scheme.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Okay, explain, I don't think I understand.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
So spotting and assessing this is where you identify a
colleague like a coworker or someone you know through social circles,
et cetera. And you ask yourself, could these people be
vulnerable targets for baby a honeypot operation, distortion threats.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
Yes, blackmail, whether it be extorting you know, money or
influence or whatever it might be. I guess it wouldn't
be money though exclusively. It would always be some greater
you know, puppet string kind of maneuver from Moscow, right.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, like access information right. And and then the the
real golden goose is determining whether you can co opt
someone to knowingly become a spy. As that's the multi
level marketing.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Then you got to you've made a new asset. Yeah,
I understand what you know.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
It's weird. I hate how accurate the MLM comparison is.
But no, this is where the FBI and their statement
references a precedent we talked about in previous episode, the
Cambridge five.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Ah, yes, the Cambridge five.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Perhaps the most famous example of this tactic can be
found in the Cambridge five.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
This took place in Great Britain.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
Soviet intelligence talent spotters like you're referring to Ben. This
is from the FBI themselves, by the way verbatim with
you know, styling on it a little bit. These talent
spotters were able to recruit Cambridge University students in the
nineteen thirties, including futures by Kim Philby, who would later
rise to power in the British government and becomes Soviet
operatives during World War II and into the nineteen fifties.
(41:46):
So this, yeah, this group of Cambridge students collectively would
go on to become Soviet assets.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
And they functioned to your point for so long successfully
and we still I remember we were talking about this
earlier and you started calling it the Cambridge plus or
minus five.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Well that's because, like I think there were more.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Five was just referring to the concept of it. But
there were some that are like undocumented or rather have
not been publicly named.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Yeah, what do we say? They started as the Cambridge four.
They found like a.
Speaker 4 (42:20):
Ska band, doesn't it, Like wearing rude boy shoes and
like skanking, you know, to saxophone music.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
I you know, I oh my sky years, your sky years?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Ben Bowl in the sky years? Did you have checkerboard pants?
Dance that you don't have dance?
Speaker 4 (42:41):
I want to sometimes though in the public if anybody
isn't old like us and doesn't know what that is.
It's a dance move associated with ska music where you
kind of scissor your arms and legs sort of back
and forth in different directions, with kind of a cool
swagger to it, right, Like it's I always thought it
was cool, but now, looking back kind.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Of looks ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Did you did you have a scoff face?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Not really.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
I was in a punk band for a while, and
I did wear I remember going to a thrift store
with my older than me punk friends and getting my
first pair of thrifted like punk type outfit, you know,
And it was like the pants were old man golf
pants kind of, but they were absolutely like I had
a tartan kind of pattern on them. And then I
(43:24):
had some Doc Martins and I think I wore a
dog collar for a hot minute.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
There bn not gonna lie time.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Nice And you know, it's a good memory to have, right.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
I think these photos floating around out there somewhere, maybe
I'll try to find a few and show you, guys.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
And that will take careful planning. The Feds were also
all about careful planning. They didn't that.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Was a stretch band.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
But I stretch I get that.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
I appreciate this.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Yes, they're they were intensely planned. It seems counterintuitive to say, Okay,
we know these folks, right, we know their intent. We
know that they are actively doing stuff or they're sleeper
agents and they may be activated at some point. So
why did they hold off on arresting them?
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Oh, but you need to answered your own question.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
And I think it's like, you know, we we buy
it our time, We watched and see what they know
and what they find out, who they have access to,
and in doing that, you know, we could learn a
lot about maybe our flaws and maybe find some folks
on our side.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Who are you know, need to be rooted out. Because again,
the whole.
Speaker 4 (44:29):
Red Scare McCarthy ism thing, I think that's what most
people think about when they think about this era. But
to your point, Ben, I mean, the folks that aren't
just out gabbing to the public and making a big
witch hunt like McCarthy, They were having to deal with
actual effects, you know, sleeper agents and folks that were
you know, intending to do harm or to compromise the
(44:50):
integrity of you know, the sovereignty of the United States.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
And we don't know how long the FBI investigation would
have lasted, like how long they would stretch it out
searching for more agents, more evidence. Because they had to
move quickly, they intercepted we believe they intercepted a phone
call on June twenty sixth from Anna Chapman to her father,
(45:15):
veteran KGB agent working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
And as soon as she confided to her dad that
she was concerned her cover might get blown, and this
led the Obama administration to move their timeline up quickly,
so the next day they arrested everybody. There were a
(45:35):
couple other members who of the group who were going
to travel outside of the US, and they didn't want
them to slip through their clutches.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
And this also reminds me of a plot line and
another quite excellent in my opinion, at least the first
season spy show. It's a Taylor Sheridan series called Liones
with Zoe Saldana, and it really shows the military side
of this kind of stuf and these kinds of operations.
And I'm sure there's some hyperboleon there and it's overblown,
(46:04):
but I very much enjoyed it and found it to
be an interesting kind of peek behind the curtain about
the various levels of who knows what when and who
authorizes what operation and collateral damage and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
So do recommend Lioness.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Feels like a very tense job.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Nicole Kidman is in it, and it was one of
the high level of folks in the US government. And
I think she's really really great in the show. She's
a handler, like a high level handler of some of
these basically folks on our side who are turning people
close to political targets, whether it be girlfriends or wives,
(46:43):
specifically women in this case that's the Lions program into
assets in order to gain access to their spouses or
fathers or what have you.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
And it's very interesting.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
Yeah, I can't wait to check it out. We know
that this raid, these arrest when they happened, they happened suddenly,
and the FEDS come down hard. There are raids all
on the same day in Boston, Yonkers, New Jersey, and
Northern Virginia. And there was no evidence that these suspected
(47:14):
agents all knew of each other. The only ones who
definitely knew of each other were folks who were spouses exactly,
although that'd be funny if they were both Russian spies
and they didn't know the other one.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Was holy crap. That's the plot of mister and Missus Smith.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Yeah, they're assassins, right, yeah, and they.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
Don't yeah, and they don't know, and they're both sleeper
agents essentially who are turned against each other. And the
Donald Glover Mister and Missus Smith TV series excellent.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Really, really good. A lot of people slept on that.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
Sorry so as The Guardian would later go on to
describe it as the FBI's biggest known breach of Russian
intelligence communications. The Feds, uh, this is the Guardian speaking.
Read there decrypted their intel, read the embedded coded text
on images posted on the net.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
I love what they're calling it, the net bug.
Speaker 4 (48:07):
Their mobile phones videotaped the passing of bags of cash
and messages and invisible ink from one agent to another,
and hacked into their bogus expense claims.
Speaker 5 (48:18):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
This is a very two thousand uh sentence.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
They just love the net. Uh huh yeah. Yeah, it's
like that movie Hackersrite Tensions.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Yeah. Twenty ten.
Speaker 4 (48:30):
This was written this opinion piece on Russian inspiring Russian
Spies Bungle was epic by.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
David Hurst from The Guardian.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Yeah, I think we got to shout this one out
because I in particular love some classic British snark as
well as it's got directed at us.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
For I couldn't handle it. I would crumble.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Yeah, like I I can't watch Peep Show without pacey uh,
just because of the snark.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
For some reason, that one does it for me. That
one's a comfort show for me. But there are certain
British shows that are just so uncomfortable and awkward that
it just makes you kind of tense up and like, yeah,
need to I cover my eyes at cringe like I
would a horror movie sometimes.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
I don't know if you felt that.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Yes, yeah, And I've seen horrible, horrific things in real
life and dealt with those as they came. But for
some reason, watching David Mitchell yet again sabotage a romantic
relationship is just horrific to me. It's horrid.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
I'm with you, I get I get where you're coming from.
Speaker 5 (49:34):
That.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
Yeah, Britain. Well yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
In the review of the Spy Group's methods, they refer
to the tactics as being amateurish refer to one skin
as in the title is bungling on a massive scale.
You know when I say, I say bring back the
word bungled, bungling, nobody says bungling anymore.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
I like it. It has a certain new mommy to it.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
Let's make it a noun. I think that's quite a bungle.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
What a bungle?
Speaker 4 (49:58):
Yeah, one of my favorite bands is mister Bungle, so
I'm with you. They go on to have a spiring
uncovered before they could actually do any serious spying is
doubly embarrassing.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Ooh, the snark that's cold. That's cold, So.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
It's both cold and it burns.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Yes, yeah, icy hot.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
This is.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
Again, as we'll see, it is in step with the
FBI's official line. Right, we caught them before something terrible
would have happened. So what happens to these folks now?
The one guy in Cyprus, he escapes. The other ten
are in US custody. They're busted, and Reuter's reports on
(50:41):
July seventh, twenty ten, just a few days after the arrest,
Russia and the US hatch a prisoner swap deal, the
biggest of its kind since nineteen eighty six, we're trading
our people back and forth.
Speaker 4 (50:57):
So the ten individuals are arrested as part of the
illegals program at age as well would be deported to
Russia in exchange for individuals whom Russia convicted of espionage
on behalf of the US and the UK. And like
you said, man, this is something that has often done,
these prisoner exchanges. It is a bargaining chip type situation
in the world of tradecraft. It's it's yeah, and it works,
(51:20):
but it is also interesting because it's sort of it's
sort of like a no harm, no foul kind of
thing almost, But it's weird. I don't know how I'm
not describing it right, but yeah, you're right, it's super
it's super weird, and it can make it feel as
though all the all the work to bust these folks has.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Come to nothing exactly.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
That's what I was butting up against. Thanks man.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
Yeah, yeah, it's it can feel that way. But we
have to remember, you know, by the time these ten
spies get back to Russia, they've been thoroughly interrogated. They're
squeezed dry like a lemon. You know. If the US
thought there was more to be gained from them the
deal would not have occurred. And another another little pro
(52:05):
tip folks, especially during the War on Terror, it's interesting
to go back and read through stories of prison escapes
in Pakistan and parts of the stands, because not every time,
but more often than you might think, those prison escapes
(52:29):
were manufactured so that we didn't have to tell the
American public that we were letting some bad guys go
as part of a larger deal.
Speaker 4 (52:38):
You need a lie, a deception, a prevarication.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Now it's Joe, sir. I don't mean to be jaded
about it.
Speaker 4 (52:49):
It's just kind of like, this is why we do
this show, y'all. I think it's really hard to believe
at face.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Value what any government says.
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Ever, whatever the administration, whatever the political climate, it's just
it's it's a game that's built on a mountain of
bullet Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
Yeah, and that is a broad brush that we are
more than comfortable painting with because it has never not
been true broad brush of bullet. Right. So there are
happy endings for some of these spies. Anna Chapman in
particular becomes a sort of celebrity. She heads a youth council,
(53:31):
She becomes a model at fashion shows. She even runs
her own TV series. Things worked out well for Chapping.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Did they go to like the premiere of the Americans?
Speaker 3 (53:40):
That'd be amazing, But I don't think they're I don't
think they're traveling back to the States.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Okay, fair enough, Yeah, that would have been cool.
Speaker 4 (53:48):
Though you don't make a special dispensation for an appearance.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
So it's a close call, and you know, the FBI
considers it a success story. They busted the conspiracy. There
are some great in depth reports about this fantastic documentary.
In this case, it seems that the good guys won,
but that's not quite the end because the discovery of
a group like this, even if they were a bungle,
(54:15):
it leads us to some disturbing implications. I mean, no,
we only caught these folks because they screwed up.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
And again, we just did an episode about this kind
of rash of spies getting caught and spies screwing up
our spy, our spies getting works.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
What's going on?
Speaker 4 (54:36):
To your point, band, the implications there can be pretty disturbing.
This means there's a non zero chance, as you put it,
ben of a more competent network out there potentially the
one that didn't get caught, and that's part of why
the FBI isn't exactly being entirely forthright about how they
went about identifying this ring, which totally makes sense.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Yeah, because you don't want the other if there is
another gang out there, you don't want them to know
how you catch your rabbits.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
You call this a cell, right all the cell.
Speaker 3 (55:09):
Yeah, they they definitely were grouped under the same umbrella
in Moscow, but they did not you know, they didn't
have group meetings with all times.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Isn't that the point?
Speaker 4 (55:21):
Like a cell, they're they're siloed by nature, they don't
know about each other, but they're kind of doing the
same thing and it's sort of a numbers game, right.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, they're decentralized, which is a really smart
thing to do. And second, this might disturb our international listeners.
These tactics and these groups are not limited to the US.
I know Russia has done this in the UK. They're
messing around in Australia. People are trying to get in
where they fit in. They're likely occurring around the world
(55:52):
right now, and some just haven't been caught because in
a very real way, to our Russian friends. The Cold
War never ended.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
No, it didn't.
Speaker 4 (56:01):
And can I just say Ben that your name on
our video chat today is Ben exclamation mark, which you
would say just as Ben, And.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
You're making me feel that way today.
Speaker 4 (56:10):
Very exclamatory and excited to be talking about this topic
with you, as dark as it may be, and the
implications being what they are, and you know, as rough
as things might feel out there for some of us,
many of us in the United States, it's good to
know that you're in a good mood and you have
my back.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Well.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
Who knew that a small piece of punctuation could make
such a positive difference. Yeah, you and I have had
candidly pretty rough weeks and we're both very happy for Friday,
and folks, we're so happy that you took the time
to join us. We will be returning in the future
with episodes on things like diplomatic immunity or shock doctrine,
(56:54):
and then we'll have some paranormal mixed in there too.
Or takeaway here though to your earlier question, is our
spies getting worse technology getting better? These conspiracies are real,
but the same technology that makes it easier to track
sleeper spies can also make it easier for them to
hide and communicate. There's a new world order in the
(57:17):
realm of tradecraft. So tell us if you're a child spy,
tell us what kind of sleeper agent you would be, Like,
what would your cover job be?
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Or a sleepy agent?
Speaker 3 (57:28):
You know, a sleepy agent.
Speaker 2 (57:29):
Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
Speaker 3 (57:31):
I do.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
I'm not gonna lie. I love a stuffed animal. My
house is full of them.
Speaker 4 (57:35):
I had a house cleaner come over once and ask
me if I had lots of small children.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
I don't. They're mine.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Good, draw the line in the sand there, no, and
let them know what's what. In the meantime, we want
you to let us know what's what. We love your
input on this. We'd love to hear your stories and
you know, build out your sleeper agent or sleepy agent persona.
Tell us all about it online via email or on
the phone.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
It's all right.
Speaker 4 (58:02):
You can find us at the handle conspiracy Stuff, where
we exist on all the social media platforms of note,
I suppose that is conspiracy Stuff on x FKA, Twitter,
on YouTube where we have video content color for your
perusing enjoyment, and on Facebook, where we have our Facebook group.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (58:18):
Start your own sleeper cell with your fellow Here's where
it gets crazies on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
However, we're conspiracy stuff show and.
Speaker 3 (58:26):
Should you engage with telephonic devices, why not give us
a call? We are one eight three three std WYTK.
What do you call? You will hear a hopefully familiar voice,
and then you'll hear a beep like so beep that
means you're off to the races three minutes. Those minutes
are yours? Go nuts, get weird with it. You can
(58:47):
give us your real name or cool nickname. Most importantly,
just let us know if we can use your name
and or message on the air. If you prefer to
communicate via email, we have some good news for you.
We're available twenty four hours a night, seven evenings a
week at our good old fashioned email address.
Speaker 4 (59:06):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Our colleague Matt is on adventures and will be returning soon.
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Facan. Most importantly, you
are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want
you to know. Noel, you and Dylan and I were
talking a little bit off air before we started rolling
(00:52):
about a seminal spy show called The Americans, and I
think you said you've been meaning to watch it.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
It's on my list.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
There's been such a glut of really great spy shows
and movies as of late, and it brought that one
back up for me. But like you know, I just
saw a black bag in the theater. It's is very
Tinker Taylor Soldier spy kind of vibe. And The Americans,
I believe it's an FX series from gosh, it's probably
ten years.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I always have spoken on very very highly.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, yeah, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed
The Americans, and I've got to check out Black Bag
that's on my list as well. But you're you're absolutely
correct there has been this uptick in espionage story spy
thrillers because they're great, you know, they're they're candy for
the mind. Even now as we realize a lot of
(01:44):
spy stuff that you read in fiction or you see
in film, it's entertaining, but it's not real mostly well, and.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I think we positive, maybe even on our recent episode
on why so many spies are getting caught, that may
will be a crossover between the zeitgeist of the spy
thriller and all of this kind of you know, spies
in the news of late Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I think you're absolutely onto something there, because maybe the
real world events are informing what we see in fiction.
And as a result, we got together, you and Matt
and I were talking about providing at least one example
of a genuine blockbuster spy conspiracy, the type of thing
(02:29):
that should ordinarily only exist in the world of fiction.
But we're going to dive into the true events that
inspired the hit TV show The Americans. This is the
tale of Operation Ghost Stories.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
What a cool name right, so, but spooky, let's take
a quick worry from our sponsor and will jump right in.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Here are the facts. Would you ever be a sleeper agent?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I would be a sleepy agent?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Me too, man, he too especially great?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
It seems like a lot of trouble, a lot of effort,
you know, for potentially just getting killed and then disavowed exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah, it's a high risk and we don't know whether
there are high rewards. To understand the depth of this
bizarre story, we have to talk about what it means
to actually be a sleeper agent. James Bond is not
this kind of person.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
James Bond was in it for the babes man like
almost entirely. He wasn't even a very good spot like
in the movies anyway, right.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, he was terrible. He was going around. First off,
he was dat he was drinking constantly, if you've ever
seen the studies of how often he drinks in film.
And then he was telling everybody his real name all
the time.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
And maybe he thought maybe he could confuse the movie
said the last name first, and then the Bond James Bond.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Wait a minute, who is this person?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
To your point, He was also very sloppy in his
personal behavior, hitting on anything with a pulse, which.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Guy had mad STDs, just saying he was spreading them around.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah, it's really hopefully was using protection, but that's a
great point he hit.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Protection for him would be his sweet little nine millimeters.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, and this we're bringing up this, you know, most
famous of fictional spies, because we want to contrast it
with actual sleeper agents. These folks put so much effort
into appearing really boring, like super if Beije was a person.
(04:46):
They want to be a beige.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
All right, for sure.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
It's the whole ability to blend in and really quickly
lest some James bond heads in the crowd yell at me.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
James didn't use a nine millimeter.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
He used a Walter PP that really cool little compact
gun that he was always posing, you know he was using.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, out of all his gadgets, he loved that little gun.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Really. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
These these sleeper agents, they infiltrate communities and workplaces. They
go about a day to day list of routines and
activities just the same way anybody else would. And because
they're here's the thing, they're usually not doing any spy
stuff for years or decades.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, that's right. They are playing the long game very slowly.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
As we mentioned in our recent Spy episode or Spies
Getting Caught episode. They move their way through the ranks
of society, whether it be socially or you know, flitting
around between different government or industrial circles and just trying
to you know, win friends and influence people.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, and then years or decades down the road, once
they've established all these relationships and associations and connections, they
might get a signal and should the need arise, they
can be activated by their handler.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
And this isn't Mansheurian candidate type activation though, who knows,
maybe that is a thing. But this is literally some
sort of covert message that has transmitted to this individual
that causes them to leap into the endgame portion of
their plan, whether it be acquiring some sort of device
you know, photographs, compromant, whatever.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Right, Yeah, it could be as simple as actively surveilling
a target, or like you said, getting maybe the new
plans for a jet or some other needo gadget. May
nuclear technology for sure, Yeah, that's a great example. Or
(06:53):
internal records from a government agency at the more extreme
end of the spectrum. They might be assigned to terminate
an individual, or to even commit acts of terrorism.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, terrorism, they wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Call it that though, with no no, I don't know
what they would call it. Any number of euphemisms, right,
So exactly everything escalates at that point. Now, in the
ideal situation for these folks, you want the agent to
be able to maintain their cover after whatever task they're
activated for. But sometimes you are past a point of
(07:31):
no return, so the act you commit may burn your identity,
and that means you either get caught, like we're saying
at the top, or you have to be rescued exfiltrated
back to your home organization. It sounds so insane, but
it's important to note this really can happen. And one
knock on consequence of this is it leads to an
(07:52):
enormous amount of paranoia for the people in power.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well as it should.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I mean, they know what they're up to, you know.
I only imagine that the enemy, or at least the
folks on the other side, are up to the same thing,
and god forbid, they're better at it than us.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Right right, And this I like that point because maybe
it's a fear of inadequacy. On some level, there's a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Of insecurity and an international intelligence.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yeah, there's a lot of For all that bravado and swagger,
they're all just you know, like worrying that the other
guys have better toys than they do.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, there's a lot of insecurity in the world of
security and true on many levels. Actually, yes, yeah, I
agree with you. This is this leads us to some
historical precedence. When the paranoia goes too far, you end
up with mass hysteria outbreaks like the infamous Red scares.
(08:48):
This is where the authority is carry Yeah, they go
completely overboard. Anybody can be a spy, just like during
the Inquisition. Anyone could be a witch.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Totally. Yeah, And once anyone can your enemy, everyone is
your enemy. You're right, You see or at least you
see your.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Enemy in everything or in everyone, And it can really
lead to some serious spiraling when you can start mixing
in propaganda, misinformation and just hatred and othering. It really
can be a pretty nasty situation pretty quickly, oh yeah,
very quickly. The US has had more than one Red Scare.
(09:27):
Red Scare is an era marked by a groundswell of
public fear and anxiety, in this case over the supposed
rise of communist or socialist forces. I'm picturing like an
eighties you know, Schwarzenegger action movie or something around, like,
you know, fighting the Russians or something, and somebody using
(09:48):
the catchphrase you just got red scared.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I love it. Let's yeah, let's put that on the books. Actually,
let's make that a thing.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Why not?
Speaker 4 (09:56):
To your point, Ben, that's right, the multiple red scares
of very I guess there were different shades of red
and its Britannican notes the first one of these red
scares of varying shades, I guess the first occurred from
nineteen seventeen to nineteen twenty, and this is amid an
increase in the organizing of labor forces, labor unions, immigration, urbanization,
(10:18):
and industrialization. The second period Britannican notes, also called McCarthyism.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
You know about that one. That one was real red
scary after.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
US Senator Joseph McCarthy, took place from roughly nineteen forty
seven to nineteen fifty four. And that's the classic example
of where we were seeing our enemies in even among
our friends.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Oh yeah, this is bonkers. So in each of these
cases they just mentioned, we see a clear pattern of overreach.
During the first Red Scare, the Attorney General at the time,
a guy named a Mitchell Palmer, led a brutal series
of raids that were probably unconstitutional against individuals who were
(11:00):
usually going to be foreign born immigrants and for one
reason or another they were suspected of being anarchist or
communist or a radical leftist.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Sorry, dude, the headshake used to do. Just in the clock.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
I mean, we're kind of living through another one of
these eras right now. Second, just you know, different flavor,
I guess of enemy. But yeah, we are seeing some
serious overreach from this administration of targeting individuals for just
something as simple as maybe having a different opinion, you know,
some someone is outspoken against the administration, and then using
(11:36):
some of these dog whistle kind of tactics of like,
you know, illegal immigrants who are violent criminals to just
get rid of someone that you don't like.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Right, and it will eventually, at least historical precedent shows
us that kind of overreach will eventually start touching US citizens.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
As well, touching you touching people.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So sweet, Caroline about it toughly.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
And not to be alarmist or anything.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I'm certainly not trying not to loose sleep over this
kind of stuff, but it's really hard to not see
the parallels when you look at these kinds of stories,
to not see the parah I did not see that coming, jokesters.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So it is likely in the Red Scares that some
of these folks were genuine assets, or they genuinely did
want to commit crimes, right, they were a danger to
national security. But even if that's likely, it is certain
that many more of the individuals targeted were just random,
(12:42):
innocent folks. They happened to be from the wrong country, right,
they went to the wrong meetings, or they knew the
wrong people, even if it was just like their neighbor.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
During the second Red Scare, which is just after the
Second World War, at the beginning of the Cold One,
the Cold War, America is terrified the Soviet Union might
turn the entire world communists. That was kind of that,
I hope I'm using this term correct. The fade to
complete kind of of the whole situation. It was the lynchpin,
you know, Communism was the ultimate fear, and it was
(13:13):
used in a way to maybe accomplish some other things,
and to get rid of some inconvenient individuals by classifying
them potentially as communists. That's what McCarthy was all about
with his blacklisting Hollywood writers and trying to get rid
of people who might speak ill of him and his party.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, it was very much a thing where just like
the days of the Inquisition, That's why we call it
a witch hunt, people had already taken it as a
given that the halls of power were riddled with reds.
And Joseph McCarthy, who was if whether or not he
(13:52):
genuinely believed his claims, he was definitely an opportunist leveraging
that public fear and anxiety. So our buddy Heavy Joe
starts claiming that their communist sleeper agents everywhere in the government.
He went nuts. He said, I have a list of
known Soviet assets in the Department of State, and we
(14:12):
have to investigate the CIA and a baker's dozen of
other agencies. This got him crazy headlines. He got a
lot of attention for it, and that probably pushed him
to make increasingly extravagant claims, Like if you heard him
tell it, it sounds like every third or fourth government
employee is just a deep cover spy waiting for the
(14:36):
signal to blow up the White House or something.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Yeah, and we got to root him out, Ben, We
got to root him out out and expose them for
their treasonous actions. And we know looking back on all
of this that this was massive overreach. That sure, there
might have been some bad actors embedded. There might have
been a few Communists trying to spoil the Buncher, ruin
him in the America Party, but it wasn't like he described,
(15:03):
and it was used in such a way, as weaponized,
as darisay, in such a way where a lot of
innocent people got had their lives ruined.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Yeah, because you can't really, you can't really recover from
these kinds of accusations, even if they're disproven, Right, it's
still a blemish on your career. So tons of innocent
people like you said no, they lost their jobs. There
were very few actual convictions and peak behind the curtain, Yeah, right,
(15:36):
who saw that come in? For a long time, we
have been we'll spoil it too much, But we've been
speculating with some of our colleagues on doing an episode
entirely focused on the House on American Activities Committee or you.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Know, we should do we should get the huak to
a girl to come talk to us about.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I'm sorry, I had to do it. I had to
do it. Do you think we can leeve God can
judge me. I don't know we can do. I think
she might be available.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
I think you know what though, I actually heard that
she got cast as herself in a movie.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Well that's great, man, Yeah it was.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
It was a big Hollywood job too, So you know,
I hope she's okay. That whole meme coin thing really
threw her career into a tizzy. She was doing so well,
just coasting on that hawk Tua good will, and then.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Had to get into crypto, never get into crypto.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, I feel like she was misled, oh no question.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
But she allowed herself to be the face of this
thing that was a genuine, you know, helping dump pump
what do they call it a rug pull? Yes, pump
and dump scam and then just sort of vanished. So
it just I don't know, it was just it just
wasn't great. But anyway, we will, we will welcome you
with open arms. Who Walktua girl, come talk to us
about the house un American Activities Committee, and maybe another
(16:52):
one of our colleagues will come to Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Yeah, And today, with the benefit of retrospect, we can
look back and take the red scares for the valuable
lesson that they are. They're moral panics, They're cases of
mass hysteria. This shows us the danger of sliding into paranoia.
And when you let I kind of stop quoting Incubus,
when you let fear take the wheel and steer, it
(17:17):
can lead quickly to the erosion of the rule of law.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
You know what I say, Ben, And I say, let
Jesus take the wheel. Yeah, that's what I say.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
The world's best uber driver.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
He really is. He's so kind, good guy.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Ben.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
I got a question, though, what a moral panic is
a not a term of abuse, but it is a
term used maybe after the fact or in retrospect. You
wouldn't call something when you're in it or you're participating
in it, a moral panic, would you, because that implies
that you're overreacting, doesn't right.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah, it's often so people in say the nineties, with
the Satanic panic stuff, they would they wouldn't even call
satanic a moral paniciing.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Know exactly what we're doing we're doing the right thing.
We're getting rid of these demonic, satanic devil.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Worshipers, right.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah. It's kind of like how no group wants to
be called a cult other than that banned the cult.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Do you think that history will show or will refer
to some of what we're living through in this era
politically as a moral panic?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah. I just want to you know, again, I'm not
here to criticize anybody's political believes whatever. You know, do
you but I just.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
I think there are some certain uh historical aspects of
what's going on right now that are not going to
be looked on favorable.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And also, you know, regardless of which administration is in power,
factions of politicians will always engage in moral panics because
they're great to re election.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
It's a way of working people up into a froth,
you know, and getting them to kind of a line
behind a common enemy. And what better enemy than an
amorphous concept that can't exist anywhere?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, we love those in the US. As a matter
of fact, the only one we had that wasn't super
popular was the War on poverty. That one got sidelined, Yeah,
war on drugs, war on terror, all the other.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Ones war, they give you power to do other stuff
and accomplish other like kind of off the book's aims
and the idea of the war. A war on anything
just means that we're always at war.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yes, yeah, very Orwellian. And so the Red Scare teaches us,
or the Red scares teach us these lessons. But unfortunately,
then as now, these are lessons the US seems to
continually forget, and that is something that we all need
to think about in the coming years.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Do you think they're forgetting it or do you think
they just think they're smarter than the people of the past.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Properly at the top the ladder, but for the public,
I think we all forget how easily people can be pushed.
That's a good point, you know, that's a good point.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
And it's easy to forget the historical precedence, especially when
you have someone speaking with such authority and such confidence,
who you maybe personally have some skin in the game with,
and you've tied part of your personality to this person
being correct or this person representing the moral authority.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Do you know what we should do? No, what do
you think? Let's play just a brief clip of Joe McCarthy,
so we can get the vibe as.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
One communist on the faculty of one universality is one
communist who many One communist am the American advisors at
y'all top was one Communist too many. And even if
(20:59):
they were all one Communist in the state department, even
if there are only one Communist in the state department,
that will still be one Communist.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I'd be behind this guy. He sounds like he knows
what he's talking about.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
As you said, little authoritative confident, there's a ticking time, Bob,
you know, high stakes.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Yeah, And I think this is an interesting point that the
idea of a moral panic only being seen as such
in retrospect, mass hysteria, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
But paranoia and prejudice aside. There are absolutely genuine conspiracies
and sleeper agents at play, no question about it. And
I think we've already alluded to that throughout.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yeah, we'll pause for a word from our sponsors, and
then we're diving into Operation Ghost Stories. Here's where it
gets crazy. All right. It's the year two thousand. Everything
(21:59):
is different. You can just go and hang out at
the airport, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Man, that was so cool, you could smoke on the airplane.
I think we're I think we're cool with that.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Isn't it weird?
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Though there were still they're using airplanes that still have
little flippy ashtrays like on the seats. I'm only just
now starting to see those go away. Have you noticed
that a starting to finally, Yeah, but as recently as
a few years ago, that was definitely still a thing.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I always feel a little bit I wouldn't say diseased,
but I feel I always clock it when I see
an airplane that's old enough to still have those ash trays. Yep,
And I just keep thinking, what else. I hope they
have a maintenance program exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
No, that's okay. I hadn't thought about it in a while.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
But I'm realizing now that I'm not seeing those as
much anymore.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
So I think they finally passed a point where they
have Okay, guys, we got to get rid of the
ash trays. But it was a golden time.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
It was a halcyon era around this time, and the
store is a bit murky. We'll see why. FBI agents
learned that there are real sleeper spies from Russia in
the United States. They're posing as Americans and they are
you know, this is not Red Scare level stuff. They're
(23:15):
not people who just happen to be from Moldova or
Belarus or something. They are Russian intelligence officers. They have
high level training, and they have ghosted into the general population.
As the FBI supervisor Alan Kohler put it, they're posing
as Americans to get access like Americans. They had children, friends, colleagues,
(23:40):
even their next door neighbors. We're just like, what, Michael, No,
he's the most boring guy I've met.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
What a sweetheart.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
And you know, Ben, I just wanted to take this
moment to point out how what a badass and am
Operation ghost Story is because it works on so many levels,
Like it evokes fear and kind of spooky vibes. But
so it's about a backstory. It's about being ghosting your
way into this country and then having a convincing and
(24:07):
plausible story that you are telling everybody that is forward facing,
and that is believable.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Yeah, And the FBI's operation, this was their name, Operation
ghost Stories, was the FBI investigation of finding these folks today.
I agree with I love what you're pointing out about
the levels of the name because as we know, the
FEDS don't always knock out a home run when it
comes to naming things, but they.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Did pretty well one.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Yeah, honestly, it would have been even cooler if it
was the Russian name for the operation, but.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
I'll take it.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
However, it would have been cooler if it was the
Russian name. Yeah, that would have had some bravado, all right.
So they found that of these people, there are ten
that they identify in the US, and a lot of
them are using stolen identities of other Americans with forged documents.
They enroll at US universities, they join uh, you know,
(25:07):
trade groups like Young Americans for blah blah blah, et cetera.
And they were all they were all being ordered by
So Russia has two intelligence agencies that can conflict at times,
sort of like how the FBI and the CIA don't
always get along. These folks are directly working for SVR,
which is a Russian intelligence agency. They are tasked with
(25:32):
getting information on, as you pointed out, nuclear weaponry. They
want to figure out what the US is, what stance
it has toward Iran, who's going to be the next
leader of the CIA, what's really happening in Congress. You
know what I mean? Like what teenagers? Is Matt Gates
scoring that weekend? He wasn't in play at this point.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
These are important questions, Ben, and then the answer is
all of them, right.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
This is the weirdest thing to mean. No, the FBI,
we still don't know how they came across this. It's
not public knowledge yet. But the FBI did not move immediately. Instead,
starting around somewhere around ten two thousand, they investigated and
built out the network until like twenty ten, So for
(26:24):
a decade before arresting anybody, they investigated this and when
they made their move on June twenty seventh, they got
ten people in the US and then they got another
let's call them honorable mentions kill.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
We just say that the idea of child sleeper agents
is particularly interesting and troubling.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
And I don't think we do that. Do we do that?
Speaker 4 (26:54):
I don't think we have children spies in the United States.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Not to my knowledge, in recent history. I think, well,
I think one thing we should we do have to
point out is I'm sure a kid could be this
ethically fraud, but I'm sure a kid could be used
as an informant device. Yes, yeah, And I know, well,
from what we understand with deep cover sleeper agents from
(27:21):
regardless of where they're from, if they have children, they're
usually not letting the children in on the game. The
kids are innocent bystanders.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Okay, maybe all right, I'd have a hard time believing
that that's true every time, but anyway.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
I'm sure. I mean, in the show The Americans is
a light spoiler. The spies in question do have children,
and a large part of the family drama piece of
this is.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Children finding out and they have to say, I believe
I've watched the first episode or I watched no of
a different thing in a movie or something where all
of a sudden, it's like we've been made. We have
to fly the coop. And now only now do the
children know something weird.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Has been going on? Right, like the Black Widow movie.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
That was it? Thank you Ben, that was what it was.
That was exactly what it was.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
I mean, can you imagine just all right, It's as
any parent knows, it's already tremendously stressful to shepherd your
kid through adolescence and those awkward teen years. So what
if on top of that, on top of all the
hormones and the you know, the the challenges a young
kid faces growing up. On top of all that, at
(28:39):
some point you're probably gonna have to tell them that
you're a spy to right.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Yeah, And I think I was baby barking up their
own tree with my initial line of questioning, because perhaps
the Russians also do not do child spies. So I
was not trying to be like, we have some sort
of moral high ground here, but if it's being done anywhere,
it's likely being done here as well.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
We don't know about it.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
So yeah, no's that's a good point, and I think
it's important that you make it. But also I don't
want to sound too cold war hawkish, but I do think, well,
we know for a fact much deployed Russia has a
different set of rules, They have a very different philosophy.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
I think it's entirely.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Possible, and there we say plausible that there haven't been
knowing uses of children for spying purposes.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Uh huh, as unclean as it is the US during
this multi year investigation, they started internally referring to the
suspected sleeper agents as the illegals program now all at all.
In twenty ten, they made eleven arrest ten we're in
the US, and one was all the way out in Cyprus.
(29:53):
That guy's really interesting. The eleventh dude, Christopher Metzos, he
was sort of their money guy. He flew to the
U with literal bags of money. When he got apprehended
in Cyprus, he made bail, he skipped bail, he hit
the wind, he totally disappeared, which is kind of hard
to do in this day and age, for sure.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
And Ben, can I just say, I just googled child
spies and there are a lot of agencies or organizations
that are out there trying to prevent the use of
child spies.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Oh wow, so it's a known issue.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Why using child's as children as spies?
Speaker 4 (30:29):
It's such a bad IDEA High Court rules against just
for Kids law and challenge to use of children as spies.
The judge ruled, despite the self evident dangers to children,
the current guidance is not unlawful.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
This isn't America, y'all.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
This reminds me of a child soldier, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
That's not that different.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
They're absolutely in danger in a similar way, even if
they're not like on the front lines, like you know,
killing people.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
They are, you know, playing a dangerous game.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
It's a good way to move communications too, write to
use a kid as a.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Courier always has been. Yeah, I mean, you know, in
like old school like conflicts.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
And we know Afghanistan in particular has an issue with this.
These folks, some of them do have kids. But the
folks in the Illegals program that are the target of
Operation Ghost Stories, they're all adults. Will will give you
their names, and just to be clear, a lot of
these names are fake. The suspects are Juan Lazarro real name,
(31:35):
Mikhail Antoleyevich Vasenkov I butchered that one, Vicky Pelez, Donald Heathfield,
real name Andre Bezlkov, Tracy Lee and Foley, very American
sounding name. Her real name is Yolina Vavilova.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Oh it's beautiful. I love Russian names.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
This child spy thing has got me going down a
rabbit all then, I'm actually realizing that a lot of
this is in the UK, and the language of the
laws in the UK are conducive to allowing child spies,
and that's what was shot down by the High courts.
But if they're doing it in the UK, you know,
the they're doing it here, you know it.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Well, it's like assassination. If a tactic works, then everybody
who can deploy that tactic is going to give it
a go.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
You were you were listing off some names, Ben and
I got I was distracted down the child spy Rabbital,
but I believe you left off with Yelina Vavlova a
ka Lee Ann Foley, which is your right then it
sounds like aunt LeeAnne from from Durham. You know. We
got Richard Murphy also very just quintessentially American name aka
(32:49):
Vladimir Guriev Cynthia Murphy, his his wife aka Lydia Guriev.
And we've got Michael Zatoli A k al Kutzik.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
And then Patricia Mills real name Natalia Para Verzeva. That's
close to that.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Well, that's easy to want to insert another ev er
kind of combo in there.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Para vera Zerra.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah, that's fun to say.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
And then there's Mikhail Simenko and most famously Anna Chapman.
We mentioned that the eleventh man out there in Cyprus
who escaped around the same time, there was a Russian
national who was working for Microsoft in the US. He
was apprehended, and he was deported on July thirteenth, twenty ten,
(33:42):
so a little bit before the big arrest. We got
to be honest with you folks, Even just based on
publicly available knowledge, this does not seem to be a
red scare. It does not seem to be a witch hunt.
Investigators found tons of concrete evidence that indicated motive tactics,
and and they found, as we mentioned, that some of
(34:03):
the agents functioning in his couples even had children. Maybe
not because they always wanted to start a family.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
It's a cover, unto itself, the ultimate cover, because you like,
like I think maybe the fact that we spent so
much time talking about the idea of child spies and
how abhorrent that would be is the whole point, because
no one would suspect, you know, a lovely, loving couple
with their small children, because who would do that to children?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Who you know?
Speaker 3 (34:31):
We would? Uh we neat America? Yeah not Nolan and
Dylan and myself or I don't know, Dylan. Where are
you at?
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Which I mean you get in situations, Ben, I'm going
to quote you back at.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
You you do get in situations. Dylan is not going
on record, he's not taking the bait. Well played, mister Fagin.
So okay, man, this is this is true right even
we had to take pains to point out the danger
as a paranoia because it can go wrong so quickly.
(35:04):
But it looks like if you go to the DOJ
and the criminal complaints, you'll see that they they nail
down not just intent and targets, but they nail down
the way folks communicated with each other, which I gotta
tell you is just it's so cool, man, just objectively,
you know, like dead drops. Haven't you ever wanted to be,
(35:26):
you know, to like sit on opposite sides of a
park bench And I do it.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
I do it sometimes just for funsies, just by myself
and just sit there waiting for you know, my contact
who never arrives. And then I go home and cry
into my pillow.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
And what language do you cry it?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I just say, yeah, yet that's Russian for now?
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yes, yes, So they found that these Russian agents would
communicate with their handlers or with the SVR proper using
messages hidden in digital photographs or things written in actual
disappearing inc Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Yeah, which is a thing we talked about the Spy
Museum that we all went to and hung out at
in DC.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Is that where we went, Ben?
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Yeah, Wait there was another one though, Wait it was
We haven't been to DC together, have we?
Speaker 3 (36:22):
No? But I think we went to that same museum,
just at different times.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
I think it was a different time. But then there
was the Mafia Museum. That was another one. But gosh,
I swear we've been together, but it doesn't matter. There
is an incredible spy museum where you can see a
lot of the kind of tradecraft stuff that we're talking
about here, like how invisible ink is made and deployed
and listening devices and things like that. So if you're
into this stuff and you want to see some irl,
(36:46):
highly recommend checking that out.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
And these guys are using real old school stuff we
talked about dead drops. They're also doing the thing, oh man,
this is what are those pranks that we just have
to do one day. They're doing the thing where you
get two identical bags or like a valise or a
suitcase and then you switch them when you meet and
(37:10):
I love that stuff. They were also we also learned
that they were gathering information to report back to Moscow
about what the US planned to do in Central America,
what they were internally thinking about Russian foreign policy, if
there were any internal problems with the US military they
(37:30):
can be leveraged. And then how the US handles terrorists
on the internet, Like what kind of tools and toys
do they apply to this? And it just gets even weirder.
I don't know, should we take an ad break?
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Oh we must, we got we gotta meet our dead drop.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
We've returned.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
All right.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
The next thing is as we mentioned previously. The next
thing is proving that these assets are functioning under their
own free will and that they know what they're doing, right,
or they're aware of their position, because it's not impossible
that someone could be accidentally working for a spy group
(38:22):
and they don't know it, you know what I mean?
They just know some guy named Jeremy has blackmail on them.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
You know Jeremy.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, you know Jeremy.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
What's he got on you?
Speaker 3 (38:31):
He's got nothing on me, man, We're just old friends.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
That's called Jeremy's a bit of a rap scallion. He's
a bit incorrigible.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Yeah, he's a sort of a Maverick character. So all right,
So the FBI has to prove their case in public too,
because you know, we know that the FBI in the
past has run into serious controversies and accusations about so
called witch hunts. So a year, about a year after
(39:01):
these arrests in twenty eleven, the FBI says, okay, everybody,
here's a ton of evidence that these are actual spies.
They've got documents, photos, videos backing up these allegations. And
then the FBI also said, I've always said this that
these agents didn't get their job done, they did not
(39:24):
get classified info, they not you know, attain their goals,
whatever those goals may be.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
This is the line being fed to the public. Or Okay, yeah,
so don't worry about it. Everything's cool. We might have
missed this for like a really really long time, but
now we're on the case.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Then nothing bad happened.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Exactly exactly. So they said, yes, these guys did get
some info, they did talk back to Russia, but mainly
what they were doing is the is something we call
and assessing. This is where spying turns into like a
multi level marketing scheme.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Okay, explain, I don't think I understand.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
So spotting and assessing this is where you identify a
colleague like a coworker or someone you know through social circles,
et cetera. And you ask yourself, could these people be
vulnerable targets for baby a honeypot operation, distortion threats.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
Yes, blackmail, whether it be extorting you know, money or
influence or whatever it might be. I guess it wouldn't
be money though exclusively. It would always be some greater
you know, puppet string kind of maneuver from Moscow, right.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, like access information right. And and then the the
real golden goose is determining whether you can co opt
someone to knowingly become a spy. As that's the multi
level marketing.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Then you got to you've made a new asset. Yeah,
I understand what you know.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
It's weird. I hate how accurate the MLM comparison is.
But no, this is where the FBI and their statement
references a precedent we talked about in previous episode, the
Cambridge five.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Ah, yes, the Cambridge five.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Perhaps the most famous example of this tactic can be
found in the Cambridge five.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
This took place in Great Britain.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
Soviet intelligence talent spotters like you're referring to Ben. This
is from the FBI themselves, by the way verbatim with
you know, styling on it a little bit. These talent
spotters were able to recruit Cambridge University students in the
nineteen thirties, including futures by Kim Philby, who would later
rise to power in the British government and becomes Soviet
operatives during World War II and into the nineteen fifties.
(41:46):
So this, yeah, this group of Cambridge students collectively would
go on to become Soviet assets.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
And they functioned to your point for so long successfully
and we still I remember we were talking about this
earlier and you started calling it the Cambridge plus or
minus five.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Well that's because, like I think there were more.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Five was just referring to the concept of it. But
there were some that are like undocumented or rather have
not been publicly named.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Yeah, what do we say? They started as the Cambridge four.
They found like a.
Speaker 4 (42:20):
Ska band, doesn't it, Like wearing rude boy shoes and
like skanking, you know, to saxophone music.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
I you know, I oh my sky years, your sky years?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Ben Bowl in the sky years? Did you have checkerboard pants?
Dance that you don't have dance?
Speaker 4 (42:41):
I want to sometimes though in the public if anybody
isn't old like us and doesn't know what that is.
It's a dance move associated with ska music where you
kind of scissor your arms and legs sort of back
and forth in different directions, with kind of a cool
swagger to it, right, Like it's I always thought it
was cool, but now, looking back kind.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Of looks ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Did you did you have a scoff face?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Not really.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
I was in a punk band for a while, and
I did wear I remember going to a thrift store
with my older than me punk friends and getting my
first pair of thrifted like punk type outfit, you know,
And it was like the pants were old man golf
pants kind of, but they were absolutely like I had
a tartan kind of pattern on them. And then I
(43:24):
had some Doc Martins and I think I wore a
dog collar for a hot minute.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
There bn not gonna lie time.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Nice And you know, it's a good memory to have, right.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
I think these photos floating around out there somewhere, maybe
I'll try to find a few and show you, guys.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
And that will take careful planning. The Feds were also
all about careful planning. They didn't that.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Was a stretch band.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
But I stretch I get that.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
I appreciate this.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Yes, they're they were intensely planned. It seems counterintuitive to say, Okay,
we know these folks, right, we know their intent. We
know that they are actively doing stuff or they're sleeper
agents and they may be activated at some point. So
why did they hold off on arresting them?
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Oh, but you need to answered your own question.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
And I think it's like, you know, we we buy
it our time, We watched and see what they know
and what they find out, who they have access to,
and in doing that, you know, we could learn a
lot about maybe our flaws and maybe find some folks
on our side.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Who are you know, need to be rooted out. Because again,
the whole.
Speaker 4 (44:29):
Red Scare McCarthy ism thing, I think that's what most
people think about when they think about this era. But
to your point, Ben, I mean, the folks that aren't
just out gabbing to the public and making a big
witch hunt like McCarthy, They were having to deal with
actual effects, you know, sleeper agents and folks that were
you know, intending to do harm or to compromise the
(44:50):
integrity of you know, the sovereignty of the United States.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
And we don't know how long the FBI investigation would
have lasted, like how long they would stretch it out
searching for more agents, more evidence. Because they had to
move quickly, they intercepted we believe they intercepted a phone
call on June twenty sixth from Anna Chapman to her father,
(45:15):
veteran KGB agent working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
And as soon as she confided to her dad that
she was concerned her cover might get blown, and this
led the Obama administration to move their timeline up quickly,
so the next day they arrested everybody. There were a
(45:35):
couple other members who of the group who were going
to travel outside of the US, and they didn't want
them to slip through their clutches.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
And this also reminds me of a plot line and
another quite excellent in my opinion, at least the first
season spy show. It's a Taylor Sheridan series called Liones
with Zoe Saldana, and it really shows the military side
of this kind of stuf and these kinds of operations.
And I'm sure there's some hyperboleon there and it's overblown,
(46:04):
but I very much enjoyed it and found it to
be an interesting kind of peek behind the curtain about
the various levels of who knows what when and who
authorizes what operation and collateral damage and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
So do recommend Lioness.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Feels like a very tense job.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Nicole Kidman is in it, and it was one of
the high level of folks in the US government. And
I think she's really really great in the show. She's
a handler, like a high level handler of some of
these basically folks on our side who are turning people
close to political targets, whether it be girlfriends or wives,
(46:43):
specifically women in this case that's the Lions program into
assets in order to gain access to their spouses or
fathers or what have you.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
And it's very interesting.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
Yeah, I can't wait to check it out. We know
that this raid, these arrest when they happened, they happened suddenly,
and the FEDS come down hard. There are raids all
on the same day in Boston, Yonkers, New Jersey, and
Northern Virginia. And there was no evidence that these suspected
(47:14):
agents all knew of each other. The only ones who
definitely knew of each other were folks who were spouses exactly,
although that'd be funny if they were both Russian spies
and they didn't know the other one.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Was holy crap. That's the plot of mister and Missus Smith.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Yeah, they're assassins, right, yeah, and they.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
Don't yeah, and they don't know, and they're both sleeper
agents essentially who are turned against each other. And the
Donald Glover Mister and Missus Smith TV series excellent.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Really, really good. A lot of people slept on that.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
Sorry so as The Guardian would later go on to
describe it as the FBI's biggest known breach of Russian
intelligence communications. The Feds, uh, this is the Guardian speaking.
Read there decrypted their intel, read the embedded coded text
on images posted on the net.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
I love what they're calling it, the net bug.
Speaker 4 (48:07):
Their mobile phones videotaped the passing of bags of cash
and messages and invisible ink from one agent to another,
and hacked into their bogus expense claims.
Speaker 5 (48:18):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
This is a very two thousand uh sentence.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
They just love the net. Uh huh yeah. Yeah, it's
like that movie Hackersrite Tensions.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Yeah. Twenty ten.
Speaker 4 (48:30):
This was written this opinion piece on Russian inspiring Russian
Spies Bungle was epic by.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
David Hurst from The Guardian.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Yeah, I think we got to shout this one out
because I in particular love some classic British snark as
well as it's got directed at us.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
For I couldn't handle it. I would crumble.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Yeah, like I I can't watch Peep Show without pacey uh,
just because of the snark.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
For some reason, that one does it for me. That
one's a comfort show for me. But there are certain
British shows that are just so uncomfortable and awkward that
it just makes you kind of tense up and like, yeah,
need to I cover my eyes at cringe like I
would a horror movie sometimes.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
I don't know if you felt that.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Yes, yeah, And I've seen horrible, horrific things in real
life and dealt with those as they came. But for
some reason, watching David Mitchell yet again sabotage a romantic
relationship is just horrific to me. It's horrid.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
I'm with you, I get I get where you're coming from.
Speaker 5 (49:34):
That.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
Yeah, Britain. Well yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
In the review of the Spy Group's methods, they refer
to the tactics as being amateurish refer to one skin
as in the title is bungling on a massive scale.
You know when I say, I say bring back the
word bungled, bungling, nobody says bungling anymore.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
I like it. It has a certain new mommy to it.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
Let's make it a noun. I think that's quite a bungle.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
What a bungle?
Speaker 4 (49:58):
Yeah, one of my favorite bands is mister Bungle, so
I'm with you. They go on to have a spiring
uncovered before they could actually do any serious spying is
doubly embarrassing.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Ooh, the snark that's cold. That's cold, So.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
It's both cold and it burns.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Yes, yeah, icy hot.
Speaker 5 (50:18):
This is.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
Again, as we'll see, it is in step with the
FBI's official line. Right, we caught them before something terrible
would have happened. So what happens to these folks now?
The one guy in Cyprus, he escapes. The other ten
are in US custody. They're busted, and Reuter's reports on
(50:41):
July seventh, twenty ten, just a few days after the arrest,
Russia and the US hatch a prisoner swap deal, the
biggest of its kind since nineteen eighty six, we're trading
our people back and forth.
Speaker 4 (50:57):
So the ten individuals are arrested as part of the
illegals program at age as well would be deported to
Russia in exchange for individuals whom Russia convicted of espionage
on behalf of the US and the UK. And like
you said, man, this is something that has often done,
these prisoner exchanges. It is a bargaining chip type situation
in the world of tradecraft. It's it's yeah, and it works,
(51:20):
but it is also interesting because it's sort of it's
sort of like a no harm, no foul kind of
thing almost, But it's weird. I don't know how I'm
not describing it right, but yeah, you're right, it's super
it's super weird, and it can make it feel as
though all the all the work to bust these folks has.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Come to nothing exactly.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
That's what I was butting up against. Thanks man.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
Yeah, yeah, it's it can feel that way. But we
have to remember, you know, by the time these ten
spies get back to Russia, they've been thoroughly interrogated. They're
squeezed dry like a lemon. You know. If the US
thought there was more to be gained from them the
deal would not have occurred. And another another little pro
(52:05):
tip folks, especially during the War on Terror, it's interesting
to go back and read through stories of prison escapes
in Pakistan and parts of the stands, because not every time,
but more often than you might think, those prison escapes
(52:29):
were manufactured so that we didn't have to tell the
American public that we were letting some bad guys go
as part of a larger deal.
Speaker 4 (52:38):
You need a lie, a deception, a prevarication.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Now it's Joe, sir. I don't mean to be jaded
about it.
Speaker 4 (52:49):
It's just kind of like, this is why we do
this show, y'all. I think it's really hard to believe
at face.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Value what any government says.
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Ever, whatever the administration, whatever the political climate, it's just
it's it's a game that's built on a mountain of
bullet Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
Yeah, and that is a broad brush that we are
more than comfortable painting with because it has never not
been true broad brush of bullet. Right. So there are
happy endings for some of these spies. Anna Chapman in
particular becomes a sort of celebrity. She heads a youth council,
(53:31):
She becomes a model at fashion shows. She even runs
her own TV series. Things worked out well for Chapping.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Did they go to like the premiere of the Americans?
Speaker 3 (53:40):
That'd be amazing, But I don't think they're I don't
think they're traveling back to the States.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Okay, fair enough, Yeah, that would have been cool.
Speaker 4 (53:48):
Though you don't make a special dispensation for an appearance.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
So it's a close call, and you know, the FBI
considers it a success story. They busted the conspiracy. There
are some great in depth reports about this fantastic documentary.
In this case, it seems that the good guys won,
but that's not quite the end because the discovery of
a group like this, even if they were a bungle,
(54:15):
it leads us to some disturbing implications. I mean, no,
we only caught these folks because they screwed up.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
And again, we just did an episode about this kind
of rash of spies getting caught and spies screwing up
our spy, our spies getting works.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
What's going on?
Speaker 4 (54:36):
To your point, band, the implications there can be pretty disturbing.
This means there's a non zero chance, as you put it,
ben of a more competent network out there potentially the
one that didn't get caught, and that's part of why
the FBI isn't exactly being entirely forthright about how they
went about identifying this ring, which totally makes sense.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Yeah, because you don't want the other if there is
another gang out there, you don't want them to know
how you catch your rabbits.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
You call this a cell, right all the cell.
Speaker 3 (55:09):
Yeah, they they definitely were grouped under the same umbrella
in Moscow, but they did not you know, they didn't
have group meetings with all times.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Isn't that the point?
Speaker 4 (55:21):
Like a cell, they're they're siloed by nature, they don't
know about each other, but they're kind of doing the
same thing and it's sort of a numbers game, right.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, they're decentralized, which is a really smart
thing to do. And second, this might disturb our international listeners.
These tactics and these groups are not limited to the US.
I know Russia has done this in the UK. They're
messing around in Australia. People are trying to get in
where they fit in. They're likely occurring around the world
(55:52):
right now, and some just haven't been caught because in
a very real way, to our Russian friends. The Cold
War never ended.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
No, it didn't.
Speaker 4 (56:01):
And can I just say Ben that your name on
our video chat today is Ben exclamation mark, which you
would say just as Ben, And.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
You're making me feel that way today.
Speaker 4 (56:10):
Very exclamatory and excited to be talking about this topic
with you, as dark as it may be, and the
implications being what they are, and you know, as rough
as things might feel out there for some of us,
many of us in the United States, it's good to
know that you're in a good mood and you have
my back.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Well.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
Who knew that a small piece of punctuation could make
such a positive difference. Yeah, you and I have had
candidly pretty rough weeks and we're both very happy for Friday,
and folks, we're so happy that you took the time
to join us. We will be returning in the future
with episodes on things like diplomatic immunity or shock doctrine,
(56:54):
and then we'll have some paranormal mixed in there too.
Or takeaway here though to your earlier question, is our
spies getting worse technology getting better? These conspiracies are real,
but the same technology that makes it easier to track
sleeper spies can also make it easier for them to
hide and communicate. There's a new world order in the
(57:17):
realm of tradecraft. So tell us if you're a child spy,
tell us what kind of sleeper agent you would be, Like,
what would your cover job be?
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Or a sleepy agent?
Speaker 3 (57:28):
You know, a sleepy agent.
Speaker 2 (57:29):
Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
Speaker 3 (57:31):
I do.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
I'm not gonna lie. I love a stuffed animal. My
house is full of them.
Speaker 4 (57:35):
I had a house cleaner come over once and ask
me if I had lots of small children.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
I don't. They're mine.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Good, draw the line in the sand there, no, and
let them know what's what. In the meantime, we want
you to let us know what's what. We love your
input on this. We'd love to hear your stories and
you know, build out your sleeper agent or sleepy agent persona.
Tell us all about it online via email or on
the phone.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
It's all right.
Speaker 4 (58:02):
You can find us at the handle conspiracy Stuff, where
we exist on all the social media platforms of note,
I suppose that is conspiracy Stuff on x FKA, Twitter,
on YouTube where we have video content color for your
perusing enjoyment, and on Facebook, where we have our Facebook group.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (58:18):
Start your own sleeper cell with your fellow Here's where
it gets crazies on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
However, we're conspiracy stuff show and.
Speaker 3 (58:26):
Should you engage with telephonic devices, why not give us
a call? We are one eight three three std WYTK.
What do you call? You will hear a hopefully familiar voice,
and then you'll hear a beep like so beep that
means you're off to the races three minutes. Those minutes
are yours? Go nuts, get weird with it. You can
(58:47):
give us your real name or cool nickname. Most importantly,
just let us know if we can use your name
and or message on the air. If you prefer to
communicate via email, we have some good news for you.
We're available twenty four hours a night, seven evenings a
week at our good old fashioned email address.
Speaker 4 (59:06):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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