Mossad / Spy games · History
Tourists booked a Red Sea holiday at Mossad's secret evacuation base
The Arous diving resort hid a clandestine route out of Sudan. Ethiopian activists and Israeli operatives kept it working while real guests checked in.
SPY REGISTER / THE ARCHIVE
The Archive
Operations, double lives, stolen secrets and the people behind them.
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GRU / Power & scandal · History
UK inquiry says GRU’s discarded Novichok bottle killed Dawn Sturgess
A statutory inquiry traced the poison from a state-authorised assassination attempt to a counterfeit perfume bottle found months later. Russia denies any role, and three charged suspects remain wanted.
Epstein Offered a Future CIA Chief an Apartment
Texts to William Burns, favors involving an FSB Academy graduate and years of access to Ehud Barak trace Epstein’s reach into the intelligence establishment.
MI6 / Spy life · History
The KGB archive that escaped Moscow—and opened in Cambridge
Mitrokhin’s papers gave researchers a remarkable intelligence collection. Its custodians draw a sharp distinction between open typescripts and classified originals.
CIA / Cyber & technology · History
The CIA’s Oldest Secrets Included Aspirin and Water
A First World War ink formula stayed classified until 2011. It was among six documents the government finally opened after nearly a century.
Harold Nicholson sent his son to collect Russian money from prison
A former CIA officer admitted directing overseas meetings with Russian agents while serving a sentence for espionage. The second scheme added eight years.
The SVR built American lives for years. The FBI broke the sleeper ring in one day.
Operation Ghost Stories watched deep-cover agents marry, buy homes, raise children and cultivate future sources. Eleven days after ten arrests, guilty pleas became a spy swap.
Member article
FSB / Power & scandal · History
The poisoned teapot London traced to the FSB—and probably Putin
A radioactive trail led investigators from a Mayfair hotel to two Russian visitors, an earlier failed attempt and an operation the UK inquiry said was probably approved at the top.
Member article
Mossad / Spy life · History
Israel’s Nuclear Whistleblower Wrote His Kidnapping on His Hand
Mordechai Vanunu exposed Dimona, disappeared into Israeli custody and found a way to tell reporters where he said the operation had taken him.
FBI / Power & scandal · History
The FBI’s mole kept searching for himself. The warning went unread.
Robert Hanssen’s case exposed failures in file controls, background checks and computer auditing that the bureau’s own watchdog documented in detail.
FBI / Spy games · History
Ana Montes carried America’s secrets home in her memory
The DIA’s Cuba specialist was already recruited by Havana when she joined the agency. Her arrest came as investigators worried about access to war plans.
FBI / Spy games · History
Brian Regan buried stolen intelligence and hid the map in a toothbrush holder
The former Air Force intelligence officer amassed a buried collection of classified material before the FBI stopped him from boarding a flight to Switzerland.
FBI / Spy games · History
A fake Russian handler drew out the secrets of an American interrogation chief
George Trofimoff’s filmed meeting with an undercover FBI agent became central evidence in the espionage trial that ended his years of freedom.
Member article
Mossad / Spy games · History
Mossad’s Poison Plot Ended With Israel Handing Over the Antidote
The failed attempt to kill Khaled Meshaal in Amman put Israeli agents in custody, enraged Jordan’s king and brought Canada into the crisis.
The spycatcher who guessed a retired NSA clerk’s secret password
An undercover FBI officer used a chess clue to gain Robert Lipka’s trust decades after his Soviet spying. The old case ended in a guilty plea.
Shin Bet / Spy games · History
A Bomb Hidden in a Phone Ended the Hunt for Hamas’s Engineer
Yahya Ayyash had eluded Israeli forces for months. In January 1996, a call said to be from his father reached him through a booby-trapped mobile.
The CIA mole whose cash deposits outpaced the hunt for him
Aldrich Ames sold secrets to Moscow for nine years. An inspector general review later traced the missed opportunities that delayed his arrest.
Shin Bet / Power & scandal · History
Israel’s court barred a pardoned Shin Bet official from a ministry’s top job
The 1993 Ginosar judgment examined the Bus 300 cover-up and the Nafso interrogation and perjury affair.
Mossad / Spy games · History
Israel stripped seats from a jet to fly thousands out before Addis Ababa fell
Operation Solomon moved more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews in 36 hours. The frantic airlift rested on secret preparations, diplomacy and a network already helping families survive.
Germany / Power & scandal · History
The Stasi Kept Its Enemies’ Smells in Glass Jars
East Germany’s secret police built an odour archive to help dogs identify dissidents. A summons for questioning could supply the sample.
DGSE / Power & scandal · History
France breached confinement deal for convicted Rainbow Warrior agents, tribunal ruled
Two DGSE agents received ten-year sentences after the fatal bombing. A later agreement sent them to Hao; arbitration found France breached its obligations there.
ASIS / Power & scandal · History
Five armed men, a sledgehammer and the spy raid that cost ASIS its guns
An ASIS training exercise burst into Melbourne’s Sheraton in 1983. The fallout stripped Australia’s foreign intelligence service of covert-operation powers and weapons.
CIA / Cyber & technology · History
France’s KGB mole handed Washington Moscow’s technology shopping list
The Farewell source exposed a collection network—and gave the Americans a route into its requirements.
The convicted satellite spy who vanished through a prison drainage hole
Christopher Boyce escaped while serving a 40-year espionage sentence. Nineteen months later, marshals found him outside a small restaurant in Washington state.