March 26, 2024 • 35 mins
"When I entered the house, two people immediately jumped on me. One kicked me in the stomach and I collapsed. Another one jumped on me put his hand on my mouth, silencing me. Another woman came and injected me and then I lost consciousness."
Show Credits:
- Produced by Tenderfoot TV in association with iHeart Podcasts
- Host/Writer: Neil Strauss
- Guest: Aliia Roza
- Executive Producers: Neil Strauss, Donald Albright and Payne Lindsey
- Lead Producer and Editor: Tristen Bankston
- Additional Editing: Miles Clark and Christian Brown
- Supervising Producer: Tracy Kaplan
- Consultants: Nooshin Valizadeh, Chelsey Goodan and Jaime Albright
- Cover Art Design: Byron McCoy
- Original Music: Makeup and Vanity Set, with additional music by Ben Fleisch
- Mixed and Mastered: Dayton Cole
- Theme song: Killer Shangri-lah by Pshycotic Beats featuring Pati Amor
- Special thanks to: Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing, Oren Segal, Rebecca Jensen, Rose Baruc, The Nord Group, Meredith Stedman, and Alex Vespestad
For free, confidential, 24/7 support for survivors of sexual assault, as well as information and resources, visit rainn.org, or call 1-800-656-4673.
For more podcasts like To Die For, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app, or visit us at tenderfoot.tv.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All eight episodes of The Die For are available now
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or on Apple podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Warning, the following episode contains explicit language and sexual themes.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
About four years ago, I received an unexpected offer to
interview the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. He wanted to
create quote mutually beneficial ties with the US, and someone
evidently thought that one way to do that was for
me to profile Lukashenko for Rolling Stone magazine.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Belarus quotes between Russia and the European Union has been
ruled for decades by autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko FTKL victory
in August elections the US said were fraudulent. Huge protests followed,
and he moved swiftly to crush them.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
They reached out to me, and I told them that
if my editors approved the story, I'd be honest in
the interview and wouldn't be throwing him softball questions, and
they seemed open to that.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
He and Russian President Vladimir Putin are two peas in
a pod. When it comes to shutting down to scent.
So Putin swiftly helped his skiing partner with one point
five billion dollars. Months of systematic repression and torture followed,
documented by human rights groups.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Then came the emails, ask me what kind of women
I liked, asking me to send photos of my type
of women, offering to range dates for me when I'm
in Belarus. Perhaps they can even throw a party from me,
start with beautiful women. I will be set in Belarus
for the trip and possibly my life, they said. As
(01:58):
a journalist, I knew what accepting favors, whether cash or
sex or anything from a subject, can mean the end
of your career. And that was my first possible experience
with what the Russians call compromat.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
Compromat comes from the Russian for compromising material. It means
that the Russian Secret State have managed to film somebody
having sex with somebody they shouldn't be having sex with. Politicians, diplomats, spies, whoever.
A former British spy called Christopher Steele reported that the
(02:36):
Russian Secret State had filmed Donald Trump in a hotel
room in Moscow. Trump has denied it ever happened but
if it did happen, then that was a classic case.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
Of compromat.
Speaker 8 (03:00):
Sorry, I had to do that.
Speaker 7 (03:04):
I got on my duty.
Speaker 9 (03:09):
The away that was how my.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
God, I got to.
Speaker 10 (03:18):
You.
Speaker 8 (03:21):
I had to joy.
Speaker 10 (03:26):
It, says Sost.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Episode five, chapter eleven, Seduce and Destroy.
Speaker 11 (04:03):
I wanted to let you know I was transcribing the
interview with the sex buy and I actually have firsthand
knowledge of this because in my past life I worked
on these black programs in aerospace. Each program had its
own security office.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Shockingly, at least to me, the voice you're hearing is
that of my audio transcriber. For ten years, she's listened
to my interviews and written down the secrets of the
famous and powerful, from Tom Cruise to Elon Musk. And
this is the first time she's called like this after
listening to my first recordings with Alia Rosa. She wants
to let me know that she has actually had her
(04:39):
own experiences with compromont and sexpionage.
Speaker 11 (04:42):
We would actually have meetings where the upper management would
inform us about it, and the men who were usually
the target had to sign paperwork indicating yes, they had
been informed about these women, especially for Brussia.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I had no idea that prior to this, she'd worked
at a company that contracted with the military, and that
spies like Aleah are evidently a well known threat in
the industry.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Wow, it was like part of standard operating procedure.
Speaker 11 (05:12):
Absolutely every program I worked we talked about it. I
just remember them warning, mostly men about women who might
approach them when they're traveling on work or traveling out
of town.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
And what were the telltale signs of these people.
Speaker 11 (05:28):
Oh, if the woman was extremely attractive, you know, definitely,
if she was really out of your league type of
a woman. And if she came on sexually, you know,
too aggressive sexually, or wanted to be alone with you,
or wanted to get into your hotel room with you
for whatever reason and to watch your drink, they could
(05:48):
drug you that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
In fact, the government was so worried about compromant that
anyone with a secret sex life was considered a security risk.
Speaker 11 (05:58):
There were people who openly key it on their wives
that everybody knew, and they lost their clearances.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
I asked my transcriber for her thoughts in Aliah's story.
Since she's listened to the recordings so closely, I.
Speaker 11 (06:12):
Think it sounds accurate. Because it was exactly what we
were being warned about. She's incredibly attractive, she's charming, she's smart,
she's manipulative, she's loyal to her country.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
But it all sounds like it worked.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I call a Leah after speaking with my transcriber, and
Aaliyah has just returned from a session with a new therapist.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
How was your therapy session?
Speaker 9 (06:42):
Honestly, not really good.
Speaker 12 (06:47):
I mean, I don't know, it's like really difficult to
go through that again. It's like it's so so many feelings,
you know, so many sensations which are just like disgust
me so much.
Speaker 9 (07:04):
I feel really.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Guilty, guilty in what way and can very differ like.
Speaker 9 (07:09):
In many like I felt like I have done so
much that, you know.
Speaker 12 (07:13):
Things in my life, like really bad things, Like I've
done so many things.
Speaker 9 (07:18):
Which I never wanted to do.
Speaker 12 (07:21):
The therapist she said that I had to survive, That's
why I did it. But it doesn't matter to me,
you know, It's it's just like I feel really guilty.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
I asked her more about it. Eliah says she was
at a friend's birthday and was given a small dose
of mushrooms, something she doesn't ordinarily do. These triggered memories
that she keeps compartmentalized in her mind. She calls that
compartment Pandora's box.
Speaker 8 (07:49):
I felt like I saw so many ghosts of those
people who who were like were killed or I did unintentionally,
or they were affected by my life or something like.
I saw them and it was so scary. I felt
like I saw they.
Speaker 9 (08:06):
Even they faces.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
You know.
Speaker 12 (08:08):
It's not really pleasant, you know, view and it's kind
of like maybe I'm going crazy.
Speaker 9 (08:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
We talk about PTSD and therapy and decide to take
a little time off so that Aliah can recover from
her experience. She feels that unburdening herself of her secrets
will give them less power over her. In the meantime,
I tell her about the conversation with my transcriber, So
my transcriber called she and we discussed how large this
program must have been and how many women must have
(08:44):
faced similar traumatic experiences.
Speaker 13 (08:47):
You know, Neil, I feel very very very big sorrow
and very big sadness when I think about this woman.
Speaker 12 (08:56):
I remember my classmates, the old king, so.
Speaker 13 (09:00):
Young and fresh and beautiful, and then just in a
few months, instead of happy face, instead of smile.
Speaker 9 (09:09):
I saw sorrow and helpless and nothing else.
Speaker 13 (09:17):
I wonder how many women have done this throughout the history,
and how many women are doing this right now in
the whole world, even in the United States.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
So while Aliah takes some time off, I decided to
take some time to find answers to her questions about
the program. Since speaking to my transcriber, I've been wondering
similar things. Are there other countries also using sex as
a weapon of war? And just how big are these operations.
(10:03):
I spent the next couple of weeks doing research and
interviewing agents and journalists from around the world, and what
I find shocks me. First of all, it's not just
Russia that does this, it's China.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Chinese intelligence operation on US soil, targeting American politicians with
a female operator who had ties to a Democratic congressman
and intimate relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors.
Speaker 14 (10:27):
North Korea, according to Young, North Korea's honeytrap plan, established
by former leader Kim Jong il, was to set up
foreign dignitaries with females buys posing as translators or aids.
Speaker 10 (10:36):
Pakistan, You're dear, befriended on email and WhatsApp group, etc.
Speaker 15 (10:42):
And they get entrapped, and then they emotionally get in.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Trapped, even America, the United Kingdom and so many others
throughout history.
Speaker 15 (10:51):
We will then Nostellius in a pub and Lisbon a
pub frequenc it biof cuity sellers from a nearby army
plan and we're here.
Speaker 7 (10:58):
This tamply planned opper began.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
In fact, even ancient military writings advised weaponizing this weakness
in human nature.
Speaker 16 (11:09):
If we go back to two and a half thousand years,
one of the ancient military writers said that you should
trade a martial art warrior to identify an employed four
humored weeks. So they were fear, lost, anger, and greed.
The certain of these are all used in sexpionage.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
This is David Lewis, a psychologist and author of the
book Sexpionage, The Exploitation of Sex by the Soviet Union.
I called doctor Lewis to find out the kind of
impact that this type of spycraft has had on political
history and why it works so well.
Speaker 16 (11:42):
It's always struck me as a psychologist very straight. So
you have people who are immensely powerful, usually highly educated,
very wealthy, yet they throw it all away for the
sake of a one night stead.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Yet it happens over and over again. And if you
think that more people would be smarter, think again. Here's
just one chilling example of a target who's literally in
hiding from the government, throwing all cautions to the wind
for an attractive woman. Mordecai Venunu was working as a
technician in an Israeli nuclear facility when he began to
(12:17):
have moral misgivings. He gathered evidence, left the country and
told journalists for the first time about the extent of
Israel's nuclear weapons program. And then, as he was working
with the Times of London unleaking the story, he met
someone special. Here he is describing it in his own words,
speaking to an interviewer from sixty minutes Australia.
Speaker 17 (12:40):
I bought a cigarette that I saw an American woman
standing there buying gos a cigarette.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I look at her, she look at me.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
You'll notice in this next part some similarities with the
lea's training, which is that the agent never approaches the target.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
She gets the target to approach her.
Speaker 6 (12:57):
You took the initiative to forgive the collequialism to pick
up this lady.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yes, you did it.
Speaker 17 (13:03):
If she had tried to pick me up, then I
would suspected her. But if I was too with the initiative,
I mean, I'm not suspecting it.
Speaker 9 (13:12):
She was dragging you into her trap.
Speaker 17 (13:16):
No, I was already in her trap.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
After a few dates, she convinced Venunu to join her
for a weekend in Rome. Despite being a whistleblower who
was wanted for treason by the Israeli government. Venunu suspected
nothing and flew to room with her. In the car
from the airport, she kissed him passionately all the way
to the house where they'd be staying, evidently to keep
him from thinking with his brain.
Speaker 17 (13:41):
When I entered the house, the door opened and immediately
jump on me two people and one kick me in
the stomach and I collapsed. Another one jump on me,
put his hand on my mouth, silencing me. Another woman
come and injected me, and then I lost my conscience.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
The New New spent the next eighteen years in an
Israeli prison, eleven of those years in solitary confinement. And
this is just one of many historically significant examples from
the Moon Sisters. Two Confederate seduction spies who at one
point were engaged to thirty eight Union soldiers. Between them
to Ramone Mercator, an agent of Stalin who honeytrapped his
(14:27):
way into Leon Trotsky's study, where he executed the famous
Russian revolutionary with an ice pick.
Speaker 7 (14:33):
Posing as a Trotskyist or Ramon Mercando seduced Trotsky's secretary.
Soon he was a frequent visitor to Trotsky's villa and
a familiar face to his security guards.
Speaker 16 (14:46):
I don't think people really understand the extent to which
sexual version has helped shape Western society.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
This is historian David Lewis. Again.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
I have a specific question that I'm hoping he could answer.
How did expionage go from a dirty trick that governments
use in a moment of desperation like in the cases
we just heard. Twitaliah and my transcriber have been describing
to me a factory like training camp that a country
uses to turn out sex buys.
Speaker 16 (15:15):
We can trace the start of what we might call
industrial sexual version back to a woman called Katherine Zabage.
She was actually known as Kitty Smith. She started life.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Kitty Smith began running Berlin's most in demand brothel. Then
World War II began.
Speaker 16 (15:34):
When she saw war was going to be declared after
Hitler come to Part thirty three, she tried to flee
to England. She was arrested at the border and she
was offered a choice. She could either come back and
rather her brothels for the government as spy centers, or
she could go to a concentration gap. So she decided
(15:56):
to set up the brothels for them.
Speaker 12 (15:58):
It's all own Kitty Riou's House for Forbidden Pleasures in
Berlin under the Nazi.
Speaker 16 (16:03):
This was organized by a guy called Walton Schillenberg, who
was head of SS counter espionage. Now this was the
first time. The girls used were highly trained. They had
to be aged between twenty and thirty. They had to
be single, they had to be National Socialists snots these
other words. When they joined they were inducted into the SS.
(16:24):
They took it over the leaders to Hitler. They attended
classes on hairdressing and social etiquette, but also on ad
armed combat marksmanship, foreign languages, uniform identifications, so they were
very professional spies. This was really the start of the
industrialization of sexual reversion and it was certainly a model
(16:46):
followed by the KGB after the war, and they took control.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Now with the kg be the first ones that then
take women, some who'd even had a sexual experience before,
and then train them from there versus using sex workers.
Speaker 16 (17:00):
Don't know of any other intelligence agency which had done
that to that extent.
Speaker 15 (17:05):
On the outskirts of Moscow stands the Giant Training Academy
of the KGB. Here the uncles as they are called
in the espionage business are instructed in how to persuade
women to offer sex to foreigners in return for information.
These days the organization is called the FSB the Wild
(17:26):
The name may have changed. Sexual entrapment using young women
is still a priority.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Young women, much like Aaliyah enter classmates.
Speaker 16 (17:37):
And they had traders in their kind of total the
robes and showed them how to behave and really deprive
them of their inhibitions. So they were prepared to go
with any bad however disagreeable they found him, or however
older he was, or indeed however young he was, in
order to extract information problem, and they were taught how
(17:59):
to behave that. Actually, although the situation they were in
was of course, I any think about.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Natural Chapter twelve, Tools of the Trade. As our time
(18:30):
off draws to a close and Leah feels ready to
continue her story. I find myself deep down the rabbit
hole of Russian espionage. I even managed to find FBI
agents and contractors who work to bring down the Russian
illegals program. Eleven spies who are working in the US
using seduction and other techniques to infiltrate different groups. You
did some work with I think you were saying with
(18:52):
agents that were still.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Working here, turn it off in the corner.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Most of the people I reach aren't willing to talk
about it on the record, not just in America, but
even more so in Russia. Or my sources fear reprisals
from Putin. Here's a former Russian intelligence officer who is
trained at the same academy that a Lea went to,
speaking through a translator.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
You ever heard of a program like that? With this question,
I wouldn't.
Speaker 12 (19:25):
I will not be able to reply to respond to
this question due to let's say, professional secret.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Many of these sources were willing to speak to me
off the record, and a few you'll hear from shortly.
We're surprisingly willing to talk openly. And here's what I learned.
There are four levels of sexual espionage that are important
to know because they'll help explain the next parts of
a lea's story, and because they're still going on today.
(19:56):
Level one is the most mild, but it's also the
most It is everywhere, and unknowingly you may have come
across it in your own life. It's called nabludinya, or
surveillance in American intelligence terms. We call these people eyes
and ears.
Speaker 14 (20:13):
You know. One of their biggest exports of Russia is
beautiful women, and they send out an enormous amount of
girls into the world.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
This is Ina DeSilva, one of the first Russian model
agents in New York City during the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 14 (20:31):
All these girls were sent out into the world and
they were told try to meet important men, try to
attach yourself to important men. And they would send back
information to handlers that you know, this moment, I'm dating
so and so, I've met so and so, and the
(20:51):
handlers would decide if anybody was important enough to really
put an effort into by maybe recording them or you know,
they would be received further instructions.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
She mentions a well known Russian model who did this
type of work along with her boyfriend who was also
her KGB handler.
Speaker 14 (21:14):
If you're really going to do modeling, you do not
go Moscow to Washington. They lived in Washington for a year,
attending daily cocktail parties and ambassies, consulates and stuff like that.
And that's like a typical thing. It's pretty unbelievable. I mean,
Germany right now is like a rat's nest with all
(21:37):
of this.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
German intelligence agency has warned against the risk of an
aggressive Russian espionage operation.
Speaker 9 (21:45):
This comes as West ramps up its support for Ukraine.
Speaker 14 (21:48):
They've all been told to penetrate and influence anybody who
has decision making powers in Germany, you know, regarding meaning
Milly So. I mean, the war in Ukraine is also
being fooed by older girls that are all over important cities.
Speaker 8 (22:12):
You know.
Speaker 14 (22:12):
There's this Russian doll, a doll within a doll within
Nadal Kolomatosha. Well, a lot of these girls. That's really
what it's like, unless, like any you know, national security agencies,
any of these countries gets lucky. I think it's very
(22:32):
difficult to keep track of this women.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Level two is pravo kasia in Russian or provocation, and
someone who has eyes and ears, if they land the
right target, can be moved by their handler into this
more prestigious position of influence. One example of this type
of agent is Maria Bhutina, who is living in yes, Washington,
DC and convicted in twenty eighteen of acting as an
(22:57):
unregistered foreign agent of Russia.
Speaker 10 (23:01):
She definitely was going into these conservative circles right among
mostly the Republican Party, the NRA, these types of places
where there is a machismo. And she came in looking sexy,
toting a gun, and she used that.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
This is Alex Finley, a former CIA officer who was
stationed in Europe and the author of the Victor Caro
trilogy of novels about the CIA.
Speaker 10 (23:29):
The whole point, as an intelligence officers you have to
assess your target. What is it that's going to motivate
them or what are their vulnerabilities. She knew and understood
if I go in in short shorts and carrying my gun,
that's going to get me closer to them. Now, separately,
she did have relationships with a few different political functionaries
(23:51):
right within the Republican Party.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
She goes on to mention a prominent figure that Maria
Boutina had a relationship with, one who ended up pushing
many canspeak theories that may have been planted in his
mind by this agent, because the goal of these agents
is not just a spy, but to suit as powerful,
vulnerable people and influence their thoughts and behavior to help
destabilize a country.
Speaker 10 (24:14):
So she knew who to target, and she knew how
to find the people that were going to have the
sympathies that she needed to help push more and more ideas.
So you see, it's not always just to I'm going
to have sex with you, you'd give me secrets. It
can become a bit more complicated.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
I ask Alex what she thinks of the statements from
Ena de Silva, the model agent, about the large number
of low level Russian agents still operating in the US,
and she confirms this terrifying assessment.
Speaker 10 (24:44):
We went through this sort of kicking diplomats and everything
out over the past few years, right, But those are
just the people who are declared, So you have to
assume that there's still networks of illegals, you know, sort
of these sleeper cells who live in live and work
among us like normal Americans, but in fact they're Russian
(25:05):
agents and then their assets. I'm sure, I'm sure you
have been a huge network of them still in the
United States doing both collection and also influence operations.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
So what happens when these Russian agents get expelled and
go home. The answer, they return as military heroes or
more accurately, the modern equivalent of that, celebrities.
Speaker 14 (25:29):
Bhutnai is on the Russian State TV. Chapman became a
playboy model, you know, so they get rewarded.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
This women, the other spy, Ina de Silva is referring
to is Anna Chapman, who's arrested and deported as part
of the illegals program. But it gets even darker. Level
three is compromant. This is journalist Mark Collinsworth, the author
(25:59):
of Agents of Influence, How the KGB subverted Western democracies.
Speaker 18 (26:04):
The term compromat is a Russian term which means compromising information,
and what the KGB are now the FSB in Russian
intelligence service specializing compromat in terms of finding compromising information
about Western politicians, diplomats, spies, officials.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Many believe that Putin, who was formerly director of the FSB,
rose to power through kompromat.
Speaker 19 (26:32):
Putin is in the intimidation business. When Vladimir Putin met
Angela Merkel, he knew her weakness. The German chancellor was
afraid of dogs, so Putin whistled in a black labrador
just to intimidate it.
Speaker 18 (26:48):
What's interesting about Putin is that there's a strong case
to be made that he only became President of Russia
in two thousand because of a honey trapping compromat operation.
And what happened was that in nineteen ninety nine there
was a corruption investigation into President Yeltsin's office. Young women
(27:11):
were hired to sleep with him and they did the classes.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
So rather than defend themselves in this corruption investigation, the
Yeltsin government decided to set up a honeytrap for the
prosecutor leading the investigation instead.
Speaker 18 (27:25):
And then the FSB leaked the videos to Russian TV stations.
And the significance of this is that the FSB intelligence
officer who was actually seen delivering the incriminating videos to
Russian TV companies and holding press conferences about it was Putin.
(27:46):
And so basically the consequence of this honey trapping operation
was that it helped Putin become the next president of Russia.
Speaker 19 (27:54):
After Yeltsin, Yieltsen appointed Putin his successor by twos Yieltsen
had resigned and Pousa was president.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
The extremes that the Russian government has gone to get
compromont even go so far as drugging foreign officials and
staging sexual scenes of them while they're incapacitated.
Speaker 18 (28:14):
They'll do anything. There were no limits, and they would
get you drunk, or they would poison you, or they
would hire women or men.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Of course, this type of compromont doesn't always work if
a target is single or doesn't have sexual secrets or shame.
But compromot can get much more sophisticated than this. Listen
carefully to author David Lewis's explanation of this honeytrap, and
notice how the target is slowly manipulated deeper and deeper
into a web he can't get out of.
Speaker 16 (28:46):
An American businessman visiting Moscow or the business trip would
be hooked up with an attractive woman who he thought
he'd just met by charge. She would be very charming,
would go back to his hotel or her hotel, or else.
They would be walking back to the hotel when she
would start to kiss him. She would then rip her
(29:09):
clothes and screen rape, whereupon birdie police officers cover arrest him.
That was one of the ploys they used, and he
would then be offered freedom in return for some very
minor secrets which he knew perfectly well were completely unimportant,
but they were secret documents, but of course that was
kind of the bait. He would then be filmed handing
(29:32):
over the documents and they were then blackmailing, not on
the sex charge, but because he had committed an act
of espionage and which was not sull serious.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Not only is this incredibly harmful to these men, it's
harmful to people who have experienced sexual assault and are
not believed. Lastly, Level four is the love trap, or
is the FSB calls it quote ESTA an operative relationship,
(30:02):
the most effective, complex, and destructive of these tactics. It's
based on psychological understanding that not everyone responds to blackmail,
but human beings will do just about anything for love,
and there are men and women around the world in
long term relationships, even marriages, to these types of spies.
(30:23):
One example of how this worked is the story of
Gabrielle Klein. She was a translator at the US embassy
in East Germany when one day she met a man
on the river bank and began dating him, She also
began giving him hundreds of secret documents for what he
claimed was a world peace project. It wasn't until he
was arrested seven years into the relationship that she learned
(30:44):
he'd been a male sex buy known as a raven
or Romeo the whole time. Here's journalist Mark Collingsworth.
Speaker 18 (30:51):
It was a very organized strategic operation. It was quite
sad because, certainly the end of the Cold War, lusis
Germans eyes would break off the relationships and the women
were devastated because they thought it was a serious relationship,
and then they would get into trouble because they had
leaked secret documents.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
There's one last spy story I studied that shows just
how powerful a love trap can be.
Speaker 20 (31:17):
It was called the espionage case of the Century. It
also became known as a sex for secrets Marine spy
scandal of nineteen eighty seven. It involved a marine guard
at the American Embassy in Moscow, Clayton loan Tree, who
traded secrets for love with sergeon.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Clayton Loan Tree was a marine stationed as a guard
at the US Embassy in Moscow, where he began dating
a Russian embassy employee who was of course a swallow.
He fell in love and was soon giving her plans
to US embassies, as well as the names and identities
of US agents in the Soviet Union. He was eventually
caught and arrested, becoming the first marine convicted of spying
(31:53):
against the United States. After serving some seven years in
prison and finding out about the extent of his betraying,
Here's what he told an interviewer when asked about his
affair with the Russian spy.
Speaker 8 (32:04):
What we had back then was genuine.
Speaker 17 (32:09):
I respect her, I forgive her.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
And this is the danger of playing with the fourth
and darkest level of sexpionage, because love is a lot
more powerful, persuasive, and longer lasting than sex. You'll notice
that one thing is missing from all this research into
the methods and consequences of sexpionage, the perspective of the
(32:35):
agents themselves, the swallows and ravens. That's because there wasn't
a single seducer spy I could find prior to this
podcast who had ever publicly gone on the record and
reveal the inner workings of this training and these missions.
We only know the stories of their victims. But let's
not forget before we continue with the LEAs story that
(32:56):
the agents themselves, possibly without a single exception, are victims
as well. Here's David Lewis again with the case of
the Soviets by Gudrin Heidel, who wrote the Cardinal Rule
of the Love Trap. She developed genuine feelings for her target.
Speaker 16 (33:13):
She was under orders to seduce an American officer who
had access to data secrets. Then she made a mistake,
the worst mistake a swallow could ever make. She actually
fell in love with her target. She wouldn't put pressure
on you because she feared it might end the relationship,
and her bosses suspected she's changed sides, so they had
(33:36):
terminated with extreme prejudice.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
If your body is disposable to the state, so too
is your life if you decide you want your body back. This,
in the end, is what I learned from my research.
No person wins when sex and love are used as
weapons of war.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Everyone loses. And this is exactly what a Leah Rosa.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Discovered when she made the same critical mistake and fell
in love with one of her targets. The consequences for
her would be even worse than death.
Speaker 21 (34:11):
So when the criminals find out that I was a
mon they put the back into my head. They drove
me to the forest, They beat me up, they did
terrible things. But that moment, when I was ready to
bedad he called them and he gave the order to
(34:35):
bring me back to him.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
This would come much later in Aliah's career. After being
pulled deeper and deeper into a world from which there
were few escapes besides death, whether the hands of your enemy,
your own government, or yourself. Leah returns in episode six,
(35:04):
available now on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Form full credits, check out our show notes
All eight episodes of The Die For are available now
to bitch absolutely free, but for ad free listening and
exclusive bonuses, subscribe to tendorfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot com
or on Apple podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Warning, the following episode contains explicit language and sexual themes.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
About four years ago, I received an unexpected offer to
interview the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. He wanted to
create quote mutually beneficial ties with the US, and someone
evidently thought that one way to do that was for
me to profile Lukashenko for Rolling Stone magazine.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Belarus quotes between Russia and the European Union has been
ruled for decades by autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko FTKL victory
in August elections the US said were fraudulent. Huge protests followed,
and he moved swiftly to crush them.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
They reached out to me, and I told them that
if my editors approved the story, I'd be honest in
the interview and wouldn't be throwing him softball questions, and
they seemed open to that.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
He and Russian President Vladimir Putin are two peas in
a pod. When it comes to shutting down to scent.
So Putin swiftly helped his skiing partner with one point
five billion dollars. Months of systematic repression and torture followed,
documented by human rights groups.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Then came the emails, ask me what kind of women
I liked, asking me to send photos of my type
of women, offering to range dates for me when I'm
in Belarus. Perhaps they can even throw a party from me,
start with beautiful women. I will be set in Belarus
for the trip and possibly my life, they said. As
(01:58):
a journalist, I knew what accepting favors, whether cash or
sex or anything from a subject, can mean the end
of your career. And that was my first possible experience
with what the Russians call compromat.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
Compromat comes from the Russian for compromising material. It means
that the Russian Secret State have managed to film somebody
having sex with somebody they shouldn't be having sex with. Politicians, diplomats, spies, whoever.
A former British spy called Christopher Steele reported that the
(02:36):
Russian Secret State had filmed Donald Trump in a hotel
room in Moscow. Trump has denied it ever happened but
if it did happen, then that was a classic case.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
Of compromat.
Speaker 8 (03:00):
Sorry, I had to do that.
Speaker 7 (03:04):
I got on my duty.
Speaker 9 (03:09):
The away that was how my.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
God, I got to.
Speaker 10 (03:18):
You.
Speaker 8 (03:21):
I had to joy.
Speaker 10 (03:26):
It, says Sost.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Episode five, chapter eleven, Seduce and Destroy.
Speaker 11 (04:03):
I wanted to let you know I was transcribing the
interview with the sex buy and I actually have firsthand
knowledge of this because in my past life I worked
on these black programs in aerospace. Each program had its
own security office.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Shockingly, at least to me, the voice you're hearing is
that of my audio transcriber. For ten years, she's listened
to my interviews and written down the secrets of the
famous and powerful, from Tom Cruise to Elon Musk. And
this is the first time she's called like this after
listening to my first recordings with Alia Rosa. She wants
to let me know that she has actually had her
(04:39):
own experiences with compromont and sexpionage.
Speaker 11 (04:42):
We would actually have meetings where the upper management would
inform us about it, and the men who were usually
the target had to sign paperwork indicating yes, they had
been informed about these women, especially for Brussia.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I had no idea that prior to this, she'd worked
at a company that contracted with the military, and that
spies like Aleah are evidently a well known threat in
the industry.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Wow, it was like part of standard operating procedure.
Speaker 11 (05:12):
Absolutely every program I worked we talked about it. I
just remember them warning, mostly men about women who might
approach them when they're traveling on work or traveling out
of town.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
And what were the telltale signs of these people.
Speaker 11 (05:28):
Oh, if the woman was extremely attractive, you know, definitely,
if she was really out of your league type of
a woman. And if she came on sexually, you know,
too aggressive sexually, or wanted to be alone with you,
or wanted to get into your hotel room with you
for whatever reason and to watch your drink, they could
(05:48):
drug you that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
In fact, the government was so worried about compromant that
anyone with a secret sex life was considered a security risk.
Speaker 11 (05:58):
There were people who openly key it on their wives
that everybody knew, and they lost their clearances.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
I asked my transcriber for her thoughts in Aliah's story.
Since she's listened to the recordings so closely, I.
Speaker 11 (06:12):
Think it sounds accurate. Because it was exactly what we
were being warned about. She's incredibly attractive, she's charming, she's smart,
she's manipulative, she's loyal to her country.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
But it all sounds like it worked.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I call a Leah after speaking with my transcriber, and
Aaliyah has just returned from a session with a new therapist.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
How was your therapy session?
Speaker 9 (06:42):
Honestly, not really good.
Speaker 12 (06:47):
I mean, I don't know, it's like really difficult to
go through that again. It's like it's so so many feelings,
you know, so many sensations which are just like disgust
me so much.
Speaker 9 (07:04):
I feel really.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Guilty, guilty in what way and can very differ like.
Speaker 9 (07:09):
In many like I felt like I have done so
much that, you know.
Speaker 12 (07:13):
Things in my life, like really bad things, Like I've
done so many things.
Speaker 9 (07:18):
Which I never wanted to do.
Speaker 12 (07:21):
The therapist she said that I had to survive, That's
why I did it. But it doesn't matter to me,
you know, It's it's just like I feel really guilty.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
I asked her more about it. Eliah says she was
at a friend's birthday and was given a small dose
of mushrooms, something she doesn't ordinarily do. These triggered memories
that she keeps compartmentalized in her mind. She calls that
compartment Pandora's box.
Speaker 8 (07:49):
I felt like I saw so many ghosts of those
people who who were like were killed or I did unintentionally,
or they were affected by my life or something like.
I saw them and it was so scary. I felt
like I saw they.
Speaker 9 (08:06):
Even they faces.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
You know.
Speaker 12 (08:08):
It's not really pleasant, you know, view and it's kind
of like maybe I'm going crazy.
Speaker 9 (08:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
We talk about PTSD and therapy and decide to take
a little time off so that Aliah can recover from
her experience. She feels that unburdening herself of her secrets
will give them less power over her. In the meantime,
I tell her about the conversation with my transcriber, So
my transcriber called she and we discussed how large this
program must have been and how many women must have
(08:44):
faced similar traumatic experiences.
Speaker 13 (08:47):
You know, Neil, I feel very very very big sorrow
and very big sadness when I think about this woman.
Speaker 12 (08:56):
I remember my classmates, the old king, so.
Speaker 13 (09:00):
Young and fresh and beautiful, and then just in a
few months, instead of happy face, instead of smile.
Speaker 9 (09:09):
I saw sorrow and helpless and nothing else.
Speaker 13 (09:17):
I wonder how many women have done this throughout the history,
and how many women are doing this right now in
the whole world, even in the United States.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
So while Aliah takes some time off, I decided to
take some time to find answers to her questions about
the program. Since speaking to my transcriber, I've been wondering
similar things. Are there other countries also using sex as
a weapon of war? And just how big are these operations.
(10:03):
I spent the next couple of weeks doing research and
interviewing agents and journalists from around the world, and what
I find shocks me. First of all, it's not just
Russia that does this, it's China.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Chinese intelligence operation on US soil, targeting American politicians with
a female operator who had ties to a Democratic congressman
and intimate relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors.
Speaker 14 (10:27):
North Korea, according to Young, North Korea's honeytrap plan, established
by former leader Kim Jong il, was to set up
foreign dignitaries with females buys posing as translators or aids.
Speaker 10 (10:36):
Pakistan, You're dear, befriended on email and WhatsApp group, etc.
Speaker 15 (10:42):
And they get entrapped, and then they emotionally get in.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Trapped, even America, the United Kingdom and so many others
throughout history.
Speaker 15 (10:51):
We will then Nostellius in a pub and Lisbon a
pub frequenc it biof cuity sellers from a nearby army
plan and we're here.
Speaker 7 (10:58):
This tamply planned opper began.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
In fact, even ancient military writings advised weaponizing this weakness
in human nature.
Speaker 16 (11:09):
If we go back to two and a half thousand years,
one of the ancient military writers said that you should
trade a martial art warrior to identify an employed four
humored weeks. So they were fear, lost, anger, and greed.
The certain of these are all used in sexpionage.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
This is David Lewis, a psychologist and author of the
book Sexpionage, The Exploitation of Sex by the Soviet Union.
I called doctor Lewis to find out the kind of
impact that this type of spycraft has had on political
history and why it works so well.
Speaker 16 (11:42):
It's always struck me as a psychologist very straight. So
you have people who are immensely powerful, usually highly educated,
very wealthy, yet they throw it all away for the
sake of a one night stead.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Yet it happens over and over again. And if you
think that more people would be smarter, think again. Here's
just one chilling example of a target who's literally in
hiding from the government, throwing all cautions to the wind
for an attractive woman. Mordecai Venunu was working as a
technician in an Israeli nuclear facility when he began to
(12:17):
have moral misgivings. He gathered evidence, left the country and
told journalists for the first time about the extent of
Israel's nuclear weapons program. And then, as he was working
with the Times of London unleaking the story, he met
someone special. Here he is describing it in his own words,
speaking to an interviewer from sixty minutes Australia.
Speaker 17 (12:40):
I bought a cigarette that I saw an American woman
standing there buying gos a cigarette.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I look at her, she look at me.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
You'll notice in this next part some similarities with the
lea's training, which is that the agent never approaches the target.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
She gets the target to approach her.
Speaker 6 (12:57):
You took the initiative to forgive the collequialism to pick
up this lady.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yes, you did it.
Speaker 17 (13:03):
If she had tried to pick me up, then I
would suspected her. But if I was too with the initiative,
I mean, I'm not suspecting it.
Speaker 9 (13:12):
She was dragging you into her trap.
Speaker 17 (13:16):
No, I was already in her trap.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
After a few dates, she convinced Venunu to join her
for a weekend in Rome. Despite being a whistleblower who
was wanted for treason by the Israeli government. Venunu suspected
nothing and flew to room with her. In the car
from the airport, she kissed him passionately all the way
to the house where they'd be staying, evidently to keep
him from thinking with his brain.
Speaker 17 (13:41):
When I entered the house, the door opened and immediately
jump on me two people and one kick me in
the stomach and I collapsed. Another one jump on me,
put his hand on my mouth, silencing me. Another woman
come and injected me, and then I lost my conscience.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
The New New spent the next eighteen years in an
Israeli prison, eleven of those years in solitary confinement. And
this is just one of many historically significant examples from
the Moon Sisters. Two Confederate seduction spies who at one
point were engaged to thirty eight Union soldiers. Between them
to Ramone Mercator, an agent of Stalin who honeytrapped his
(14:27):
way into Leon Trotsky's study, where he executed the famous
Russian revolutionary with an ice pick.
Speaker 7 (14:33):
Posing as a Trotskyist or Ramon Mercando seduced Trotsky's secretary.
Soon he was a frequent visitor to Trotsky's villa and
a familiar face to his security guards.
Speaker 16 (14:46):
I don't think people really understand the extent to which
sexual version has helped shape Western society.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
This is historian David Lewis. Again.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
I have a specific question that I'm hoping he could answer.
How did expionage go from a dirty trick that governments
use in a moment of desperation like in the cases
we just heard. Twitaliah and my transcriber have been describing
to me a factory like training camp that a country
uses to turn out sex buys.
Speaker 16 (15:15):
We can trace the start of what we might call
industrial sexual version back to a woman called Katherine Zabage.
She was actually known as Kitty Smith. She started life.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Kitty Smith began running Berlin's most in demand brothel. Then
World War II began.
Speaker 16 (15:34):
When she saw war was going to be declared after
Hitler come to Part thirty three, she tried to flee
to England. She was arrested at the border and she
was offered a choice. She could either come back and
rather her brothels for the government as spy centers, or
she could go to a concentration gap. So she decided
(15:56):
to set up the brothels for them.
Speaker 12 (15:58):
It's all own Kitty Riou's House for Forbidden Pleasures in
Berlin under the Nazi.
Speaker 16 (16:03):
This was organized by a guy called Walton Schillenberg, who
was head of SS counter espionage. Now this was the
first time. The girls used were highly trained. They had
to be aged between twenty and thirty. They had to
be single, they had to be National Socialists snots these
other words. When they joined they were inducted into the SS.
(16:24):
They took it over the leaders to Hitler. They attended
classes on hairdressing and social etiquette, but also on ad
armed combat marksmanship, foreign languages, uniform identifications, so they were
very professional spies. This was really the start of the
industrialization of sexual reversion and it was certainly a model
(16:46):
followed by the KGB after the war, and they took control.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Now with the kg be the first ones that then
take women, some who'd even had a sexual experience before,
and then train them from there versus using sex workers.
Speaker 16 (17:00):
Don't know of any other intelligence agency which had done
that to that extent.
Speaker 15 (17:05):
On the outskirts of Moscow stands the Giant Training Academy
of the KGB. Here the uncles as they are called
in the espionage business are instructed in how to persuade
women to offer sex to foreigners in return for information.
These days the organization is called the FSB the Wild
(17:26):
The name may have changed. Sexual entrapment using young women
is still a priority.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Young women, much like Aaliyah enter classmates.
Speaker 16 (17:37):
And they had traders in their kind of total the
robes and showed them how to behave and really deprive
them of their inhibitions. So they were prepared to go
with any bad however disagreeable they found him, or however
older he was, or indeed however young he was, in
order to extract information problem, and they were taught how
(17:59):
to behave that. Actually, although the situation they were in
was of course, I any think about.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Natural Chapter twelve, Tools of the Trade. As our time
(18:30):
off draws to a close and Leah feels ready to
continue her story. I find myself deep down the rabbit
hole of Russian espionage. I even managed to find FBI
agents and contractors who work to bring down the Russian
illegals program. Eleven spies who are working in the US
using seduction and other techniques to infiltrate different groups. You
did some work with I think you were saying with
(18:52):
agents that were still.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Working here, turn it off in the corner.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Most of the people I reach aren't willing to talk
about it on the record, not just in America, but
even more so in Russia. Or my sources fear reprisals
from Putin. Here's a former Russian intelligence officer who is
trained at the same academy that a Lea went to,
speaking through a translator.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
You ever heard of a program like that? With this question,
I wouldn't.
Speaker 12 (19:25):
I will not be able to reply to respond to
this question due to let's say, professional secret.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Many of these sources were willing to speak to me
off the record, and a few you'll hear from shortly.
We're surprisingly willing to talk openly. And here's what I learned.
There are four levels of sexual espionage that are important
to know because they'll help explain the next parts of
a lea's story, and because they're still going on today.
(19:56):
Level one is the most mild, but it's also the
most It is everywhere, and unknowingly you may have come
across it in your own life. It's called nabludinya, or
surveillance in American intelligence terms. We call these people eyes
and ears.
Speaker 14 (20:13):
You know. One of their biggest exports of Russia is
beautiful women, and they send out an enormous amount of
girls into the world.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
This is Ina DeSilva, one of the first Russian model
agents in New York City during the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 14 (20:31):
All these girls were sent out into the world and
they were told try to meet important men, try to
attach yourself to important men. And they would send back
information to handlers that you know, this moment, I'm dating
so and so, I've met so and so, and the
(20:51):
handlers would decide if anybody was important enough to really
put an effort into by maybe recording them or you know,
they would be received further instructions.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
She mentions a well known Russian model who did this
type of work along with her boyfriend who was also
her KGB handler.
Speaker 14 (21:14):
If you're really going to do modeling, you do not
go Moscow to Washington. They lived in Washington for a year,
attending daily cocktail parties and ambassies, consulates and stuff like that.
And that's like a typical thing. It's pretty unbelievable. I mean,
Germany right now is like a rat's nest with all
(21:37):
of this.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
German intelligence agency has warned against the risk of an
aggressive Russian espionage operation.
Speaker 9 (21:45):
This comes as West ramps up its support for Ukraine.
Speaker 14 (21:48):
They've all been told to penetrate and influence anybody who
has decision making powers in Germany, you know, regarding meaning
Milly So. I mean, the war in Ukraine is also
being fooed by older girls that are all over important cities.
Speaker 8 (22:12):
You know.
Speaker 14 (22:12):
There's this Russian doll, a doll within a doll within
Nadal Kolomatosha. Well, a lot of these girls. That's really
what it's like, unless, like any you know, national security agencies,
any of these countries gets lucky. I think it's very
(22:32):
difficult to keep track of this women.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Level two is pravo kasia in Russian or provocation, and
someone who has eyes and ears, if they land the
right target, can be moved by their handler into this
more prestigious position of influence. One example of this type
of agent is Maria Bhutina, who is living in yes, Washington,
DC and convicted in twenty eighteen of acting as an
(22:57):
unregistered foreign agent of Russia.
Speaker 10 (23:01):
She definitely was going into these conservative circles right among
mostly the Republican Party, the NRA, these types of places
where there is a machismo. And she came in looking sexy,
toting a gun, and she used that.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
This is Alex Finley, a former CIA officer who was
stationed in Europe and the author of the Victor Caro
trilogy of novels about the CIA.
Speaker 10 (23:29):
The whole point, as an intelligence officers you have to
assess your target. What is it that's going to motivate
them or what are their vulnerabilities. She knew and understood
if I go in in short shorts and carrying my gun,
that's going to get me closer to them. Now, separately,
she did have relationships with a few different political functionaries
(23:51):
right within the Republican Party.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
She goes on to mention a prominent figure that Maria
Boutina had a relationship with, one who ended up pushing
many canspeak theories that may have been planted in his
mind by this agent, because the goal of these agents
is not just a spy, but to suit as powerful,
vulnerable people and influence their thoughts and behavior to help
destabilize a country.
Speaker 10 (24:14):
So she knew who to target, and she knew how
to find the people that were going to have the
sympathies that she needed to help push more and more ideas.
So you see, it's not always just to I'm going
to have sex with you, you'd give me secrets. It
can become a bit more complicated.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
I ask Alex what she thinks of the statements from
Ena de Silva, the model agent, about the large number
of low level Russian agents still operating in the US,
and she confirms this terrifying assessment.
Speaker 10 (24:44):
We went through this sort of kicking diplomats and everything
out over the past few years, right, But those are
just the people who are declared, So you have to
assume that there's still networks of illegals, you know, sort
of these sleeper cells who live in live and work
among us like normal Americans, but in fact they're Russian
(25:05):
agents and then their assets. I'm sure, I'm sure you
have been a huge network of them still in the
United States doing both collection and also influence operations.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
So what happens when these Russian agents get expelled and
go home. The answer, they return as military heroes or
more accurately, the modern equivalent of that, celebrities.
Speaker 14 (25:29):
Bhutnai is on the Russian State TV. Chapman became a
playboy model, you know, so they get rewarded.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
This women, the other spy, Ina de Silva is referring
to is Anna Chapman, who's arrested and deported as part
of the illegals program. But it gets even darker. Level
three is compromant. This is journalist Mark Collinsworth, the author
(25:59):
of Agents of Influence, How the KGB subverted Western democracies.
Speaker 18 (26:04):
The term compromat is a Russian term which means compromising information,
and what the KGB are now the FSB in Russian
intelligence service specializing compromat in terms of finding compromising information
about Western politicians, diplomats, spies, officials.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Many believe that Putin, who was formerly director of the FSB,
rose to power through kompromat.
Speaker 19 (26:32):
Putin is in the intimidation business. When Vladimir Putin met
Angela Merkel, he knew her weakness. The German chancellor was
afraid of dogs, so Putin whistled in a black labrador
just to intimidate it.
Speaker 18 (26:48):
What's interesting about Putin is that there's a strong case
to be made that he only became President of Russia
in two thousand because of a honey trapping compromat operation.
And what happened was that in nineteen ninety nine there
was a corruption investigation into President Yeltsin's office. Young women
(27:11):
were hired to sleep with him and they did the classes.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
So rather than defend themselves in this corruption investigation, the
Yeltsin government decided to set up a honeytrap for the
prosecutor leading the investigation instead.
Speaker 18 (27:25):
And then the FSB leaked the videos to Russian TV stations.
And the significance of this is that the FSB intelligence
officer who was actually seen delivering the incriminating videos to
Russian TV companies and holding press conferences about it was Putin.
(27:46):
And so basically the consequence of this honey trapping operation
was that it helped Putin become the next president of Russia.
Speaker 19 (27:54):
After Yeltsin, Yieltsen appointed Putin his successor by twos Yieltsen
had resigned and Pousa was president.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
The extremes that the Russian government has gone to get
compromont even go so far as drugging foreign officials and
staging sexual scenes of them while they're incapacitated.
Speaker 18 (28:14):
They'll do anything. There were no limits, and they would
get you drunk, or they would poison you, or they
would hire women or men.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Of course, this type of compromont doesn't always work if
a target is single or doesn't have sexual secrets or shame.
But compromot can get much more sophisticated than this. Listen
carefully to author David Lewis's explanation of this honeytrap, and
notice how the target is slowly manipulated deeper and deeper
into a web he can't get out of.
Speaker 16 (28:46):
An American businessman visiting Moscow or the business trip would
be hooked up with an attractive woman who he thought
he'd just met by charge. She would be very charming,
would go back to his hotel or her hotel, or else.
They would be walking back to the hotel when she
would start to kiss him. She would then rip her
(29:09):
clothes and screen rape, whereupon birdie police officers cover arrest him.
That was one of the ploys they used, and he
would then be offered freedom in return for some very
minor secrets which he knew perfectly well were completely unimportant,
but they were secret documents, but of course that was
kind of the bait. He would then be filmed handing
(29:32):
over the documents and they were then blackmailing, not on
the sex charge, but because he had committed an act
of espionage and which was not sull serious.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Not only is this incredibly harmful to these men, it's
harmful to people who have experienced sexual assault and are
not believed. Lastly, Level four is the love trap, or
is the FSB calls it quote ESTA an operative relationship,
(30:02):
the most effective, complex, and destructive of these tactics. It's
based on psychological understanding that not everyone responds to blackmail,
but human beings will do just about anything for love,
and there are men and women around the world in
long term relationships, even marriages, to these types of spies.
(30:23):
One example of how this worked is the story of
Gabrielle Klein. She was a translator at the US embassy
in East Germany when one day she met a man
on the river bank and began dating him, She also
began giving him hundreds of secret documents for what he
claimed was a world peace project. It wasn't until he
was arrested seven years into the relationship that she learned
(30:44):
he'd been a male sex buy known as a raven
or Romeo the whole time. Here's journalist Mark Collingsworth.
Speaker 18 (30:51):
It was a very organized strategic operation. It was quite
sad because, certainly the end of the Cold War, lusis
Germans eyes would break off the relationships and the women
were devastated because they thought it was a serious relationship,
and then they would get into trouble because they had
leaked secret documents.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
There's one last spy story I studied that shows just
how powerful a love trap can be.
Speaker 20 (31:17):
It was called the espionage case of the Century. It
also became known as a sex for secrets Marine spy
scandal of nineteen eighty seven. It involved a marine guard
at the American Embassy in Moscow, Clayton loan Tree, who
traded secrets for love with sergeon.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Clayton Loan Tree was a marine stationed as a guard
at the US Embassy in Moscow, where he began dating
a Russian embassy employee who was of course a swallow.
He fell in love and was soon giving her plans
to US embassies, as well as the names and identities
of US agents in the Soviet Union. He was eventually
caught and arrested, becoming the first marine convicted of spying
(31:53):
against the United States. After serving some seven years in
prison and finding out about the extent of his betraying,
Here's what he told an interviewer when asked about his
affair with the Russian spy.
Speaker 8 (32:04):
What we had back then was genuine.
Speaker 17 (32:09):
I respect her, I forgive her.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
And this is the danger of playing with the fourth
and darkest level of sexpionage, because love is a lot
more powerful, persuasive, and longer lasting than sex. You'll notice
that one thing is missing from all this research into
the methods and consequences of sexpionage, the perspective of the
(32:35):
agents themselves, the swallows and ravens. That's because there wasn't
a single seducer spy I could find prior to this
podcast who had ever publicly gone on the record and
reveal the inner workings of this training and these missions.
We only know the stories of their victims. But let's
not forget before we continue with the LEAs story that
(32:56):
the agents themselves, possibly without a single exception, are victims
as well. Here's David Lewis again with the case of
the Soviets by Gudrin Heidel, who wrote the Cardinal Rule
of the Love Trap. She developed genuine feelings for her target.
Speaker 16 (33:13):
She was under orders to seduce an American officer who
had access to data secrets. Then she made a mistake,
the worst mistake a swallow could ever make. She actually
fell in love with her target. She wouldn't put pressure
on you because she feared it might end the relationship,
and her bosses suspected she's changed sides, so they had
(33:36):
terminated with extreme prejudice.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
If your body is disposable to the state, so too
is your life if you decide you want your body back. This,
in the end, is what I learned from my research.
No person wins when sex and love are used as
weapons of war.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Everyone loses. And this is exactly what a Leah Rosa.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Discovered when she made the same critical mistake and fell
in love with one of her targets. The consequences for
her would be even worse than death.
Speaker 21 (34:11):
So when the criminals find out that I was a
mon they put the back into my head. They drove
me to the forest, They beat me up, they did
terrible things. But that moment, when I was ready to
bedad he called them and he gave the order to
(34:35):
bring me back to him.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
This would come much later in Aliah's career. After being
pulled deeper and deeper into a world from which there
were few escapes besides death, whether the hands of your enemy,
your own government, or yourself. Leah returns in episode six,
(35:04):
available now on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Form full credits, check out our show notes
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