In Pictures : Spies like us

[Motaro]

Tea laced with polonium

Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident and former KGB agent, was poisoned by radioactive polonium–210 while drinking tea during a meeting with former security colleagues at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square in 2006. He died three weeks later in a London hospital. Litvinenko, who was granted asylum in Britain in 2000, was working for MI6 prior to his death, his inquest was told. The British government believes the Russian state was involved, but no one has ever been charged. Picture: PA

 

[Motaro]

Hola

Melita Norwood was once described as "the most important British female agent ever recruited by the KGB". Recruited in 1937 by the NKVD, the forerunner to the KGB, she spent 40 years photographing documents nad passing them on to her Soviet controllers, who gave her the codename Hola. She was only exposed in 1999 when Vaili Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist, defected to MI1 in 199 with a large number of files. She died at a West Midlands nursing home in 2005 at the age of 93. Picture: PA

 

[Motaro]

The poison-tip umbrella

The murder of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident poisoned by the tip of an umbrella in central London 34 years ago, remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Cold War. Markov was assassinated on the orders of the Bulgarian secret service as he waited for a bus on Waterloo Bridge in September 1978. A spy known in Bulgarian files as Agent Piccadilly was the only suspect. He was named in Bulgaria eight years ago as Francesco Gullino, but his whereabouts remained unknown until March of this year, when he was tracked to his home by a documentary film-maker. He has denied having any role in the murder. Picture: Reuters

 

[Motaro]

The tiny platinum ball which killed BBC broadcaster Georgi Markov, who had defected from Bulgaria in 1969. The ball contained ricin, a deadly poison and was injected into Mr Markov's leg using an umbrella. Picture: HULTON ARCHIVE

 

[Motaro]

The embarrassing 'spy rock'

Britain initially laughed off accusations from Moscow in 2006 that spies had been caught "red-handed" using the fake rock to contact agents and download sensitive information. Video footage at the time showed men alleged to be British agents repeatedly walking past the rock located next to a Moscow street. One clip showed one of the men kicking the device, possibly because it had malfunctioned, while another British diplomat was seen picking up the football-sized rock and walking away with it.

Then, in 2012, Tony Blair's former chief of staff Jonathan Powell admitted that the Russians "had us bang to rights". "There’s not much you can say," he admitted. "The spy rock was embarrassing." Picture: AP

 

[Motaro]

A picture broadcast by the Russian state-run Rossiya television and grabbed on Euronews channel 23 January 2006 shows the 'spy-rock' that was being used as a high-tech version of the spy's traditional letter-box Picture: AFP

 

[Motaro]

The real-life Bond girl

Eleven alleged "deep cover" Russian agents are exposed by the FBI, living an elaborate lie in the US, where they had been sent by Moscow to infiltrate the circles that financial and political policy makers moved in. One was Anna Chapman, a girl about Manhattan who had gained a British passport from her whirlwind (and ultimately failed) marriage. Chapman was deported back to Russia and her British citizenship revoked. She went on to pose for the cover of Russian Maxim, wearing lingerie and holding a gun, posed nude for Playboy, became an adviser to a bank, received Russia's highest honour, and was named leader of the youth wing of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party. Picture: Rex Features

 

[Motaro]

The wig-wearing CIA 'spy'

American Ryan Fogle, whose official role is as a third secretary from the political section of the US embassy in Moscow, is detained by Russian security services who claim they caught him red-handed offering a potential recruit up to $1million per year. State media runs footage of what authorities deride as a "crude and clumsy" spy's kit: two wigs, two pairs of sunglasses, two penknives, a mini-torch, a compass, a map-book of Moscow and a pack of 500-euro notes.

 

[Motaro]

A man looks in Moscow on May 14, 2013, at a computer screen displaying a photo published by Russian state English language television RT website, which shows a man, identified as Ryan C. Fogle, the third secretary of the political section of Washington's embassy in Moscow (R), being held to the ground face down and having his hands put behind his back during his arrest by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB, ex-KGB) agent (L). Picture: AFP

 

[Motaro]

Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen

The end of the Cold War did little to slow the activities of Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, who were both recruited by Soviet intelligence and continued to leak classified information to Russia through perestroika, and the break-up of the Soviet Union. Ames, a CIA counterintelligence officer, was recruited in 1985, and arrested in 1993, after having betrayed more CIA assets than any Russian agent except Hanssen, an FBI agent who earned more than $1.4 million by selling secrets over 22 years, before his 2001 arrest. Picture: AP

 

[Motaro]

Agent Zigzag

Eddie Chapman - good-looking, disobedient and erratic - was the most notorious British double agent of World War II. A petty criminal playboy and gambler, he offered his services to Germany during his time in a prison in Paris. They trained him in explosives, radio communications and parachute jumping and dispatched him back to England to commit acts of sabotage. Thanks to British codebreakers, the UK government was aware of Chapman's existed, and dispatched local police to capture him as he landed in the UK. He surrendered immediately and offered his services as a double agent. Together, he and MI5 successfully deceived the Germans until 1944, when the British agency, unable to control Chapman, dismissed him. Agent Zigzag, as MI5 codenamed him, died in 1997 of heart failure. Picture: HULTON ARCHIVE

 

[Motaro]

The Third Man

Kim Philby stands out as the archetypal traitor, the subject of admiration in MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, even as he sent agents to their deaths behind the Iron Curtain. Philby, who defected to the Soviet Union in 1963, was a member of the Cambridge Spies, a KGB spy ring that penetrated the intelligence system of the UK and passed vital information to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early stages of the Cold War. He died in Moscow in 1988, aged 76, one of the most resourceful traitors of the 20th century. Picture: PA

 

[scroobal]

Spies and double agents are bad news for any country. Even worse are incompetent spy chiefs, paranoid spy chiefs, delusional spy chiefs, spy chiefs who can't differentiate between country and government interest, spy chiefs who turn their department into an ultra secretive unit that no one can find them to pass highly wanted classified information of their adversary. And history suggest that the most damaging information came from walk-ins.

Singapore's most famous spy chief who was made the Chairman of the Board of SPH only found much later that he had no control of the board and that decisions were made in his absence and ahead of the board meeting by men like Wee Cho Yaw, Lien Ying Chow etc.

 

[PrinceCharming]

Let's look at Sink-a-pore's own situation.

Of Singaporean missions abroad, 3 in the West and 2 in Asia have been under surveillance by their host countries for at least 2 years now. The host countries' spies have managed to infiltrate and obtain highly confidential information.

Pinky is indeed in a pathetic state: his sicko-fans (read: sycophants) keep Low Thia Khiang, Silvia Lim, Gilbert Goh et. al. under surveillance but he does not realize that his other sicko-fans based in Sinkie embassies abroad have been spied on for years.

Vely gooood, vely good Pinky. Serves you right.

 

[PrinceCharming]

Singapore's most famous spy chief........

Yeah, did he or Pinky realize that some foreign countries have collected intel on so-called Sink-a-pore's most famous spy chief? ....HA, HA, HA....