Both the reality in which we live and the tools used in political conflict are changing on a daily basis.

Individuals no longer have the same willingness to die in the trenches as they once did, so gaining power through military means is somewhat outdated.

Traditional warfare is becoming less common in favour of more covert means of gaining territory. War is costly and time-consuming.

The coloured revolution is one of the most significant.

A coup d’etat, or the removal of an incompetent government, is actually taking place under the guise of a democratic revolt.

Outside forces typically sponsor, plan, coordinate, and carry out “revolutions”.

Colored revolutions are dependent on external causes and cannot occur in their absence.

Continuity of Colour Revolutions

Regime change has been a key aspect of American foreign policy for decades, beginning with the fall of the Syrian government in 1949.

Since then, it is estimated that the CIA has overthrown or attempted to overturn more than 50 countries, despite admitting to only seven of them.

Colour revolutions are a key component of American foreign policy, which seeks regime change in hostile countries.

In addition to the CIA, the State Department, the Pentagon, and numerous American and domestic non-governmental organizations are frequently involved.

In the past decade, a long list of countries with generally stable political systems have had colorful revolutions.

Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, China, Iran, and Venezuela are among the places where they have had both greater and lesser success.

There are notable parallels among the regime change plans in each of these nations. It is not possible for the recurring patterns to be the result of coincidence.

An explanation of the phenomenon

Even today’s Western media observes that color revolutions, defined as the use of technology to export democracy through civil disobedience, have progressed to the point where their tactics have become norms for changing political regimes.

Initially, the colour revolution was defined as a peaceful overthrow of the government and a change in the political system.

With time, the term expanded to include the following: nearly all coups began as nonviolent rallies and marches, but only one in five concluded without casualties.

The true meaning of colour revolutions would be that they are methods of instigating political instability, using the youth protest movement as a tool for political blackmail, in order to overthrow the government and take control of the political climate in a target nation from abroad.

A coup d’etat, or the annexation and consolidation of power through force, is the aim of every colourful revolution.

Even though there are significant differences amongst the nations that experience revolutions (geopolitical, social, economic, and other), they all follow a similar pattern that involves starting a protest movement, turning it into a political movement, and then using the newly formed popular mass to overthrow the established government.

Colour Revolutions: Hard Power

Colour revolutions are not representative of a country’s soft power.

If this is true, the colour revolutions represent a significant step forward in the struggle against authoritarian regimes.

However, they are just as hazardous as local civil conflicts that began for legitimate local reasons.

Such revolutions are frequently the starting point for wars, as seen in Syria, Libya, and Ukraine. People frequently use color revolutions to destabilize democratic transitional regimes.

The purpose of a revolution is to establish government and bring about political change.

It is reasonable to claim that the Americans have not only developed a political model for export, but also specific tools for breaking down (un)democratic governments if necessary.

These are the means by which the color of the revolution is defined.

They constitute a powerful force, but gentler than battles (between states).

The emergence of color revolutions requires certain conditions

Without prepared conditions for their emergence, revolutions cannot succeed.

The first and most fundamental condition is political instability in the country, which is accompanied by a crisis in the current government.

Election fraud, the nation’s weak economy, the discontent of particular groups like farmers or artisans, teachers or medical professionals, etc., can all lead to political instability.

If political conditions stay stable, we need to induce artificial disruption.

Young dissident movements and political blackmail are two characteristics of revolutions.

Student discontent with issues such as excessive tuition costs, unsanitary canteens, and difficult-to-get-to and packed dorms typically sparks young dissident movements. Students plan demonstrations in the streets, which can quickly topple the government and inspire uprisings in other spheres of society.

Revolutions are caused by spontaneous and directed scenarios

There are two radically opposing explanations for why revolutions occur.

It is about spontaneous uprisings caused by societal disputes between different groups, which result in protests and rebellion, according to the first.

Proposals suggest non-democratic, poverty, religious, and ethnic divisions as causes. Indeed, social group inequalities exist in all countries, but they are not the sole cause of revolution. Rather, these divisions expedite and facilitate a colored revolution.

Another perspective asserts the meticulous orchestration and planning of revolutions. The same qualities and events occur in countries that have absolutely nothing in common.

Coloured revolutions may appear to be classical, but they are not.

Any resemblance is superficial.

Real revolutions are spontaneous and occur at some point in history, whereas painted revolutions are staged and well planned.

The Anglo-Saxon concept of democratization, which seeks to disseminate the democratic political model and democratic institutions throughout the world, serves as the foundation for the staged scenario of color revolutions.

Everything follows the same pattern. There is always a youth movement, revolutionary leaders are consistently similar, and revolutions lack content or revolutionary ideology.

It’s about people suddenly rebelling against “evil dictators,” and aside from basic appeals for democracy, everything else is missing or nonexistent.

This demonstrates that the foreign elements driving revolutions have little understanding of the local population’s culture and psychology.

There are three stages of color revolution

Coloured revolutions are governed by the notion that power structures (government) rely on their subjects (the people), implying that the people’s loyalty allows the rulers to rule the country.

If the subordinates refuse to submit to the authorities, the authorities will lose power in the state. Classic coloured revolutions have three phases.

The first stage

The first phase entails the formation of an “underground” movement of cells that together constitute a network of persons who are dissatisfied with the current administration. Strong slogans and calls to action serve as recruitment tools for members.

In response to a certain signal, a network of largely young, disillusioned individuals appears on the streets of major cities, breaking free from obscurity. The protests claim to be spontaneous, yet everything was planned ahead of time.

Most often, protests occur due to various reasons, including irregularities in elections (Serbia 2000, Georgia 2003, Ukraine 2004, Russia 2012), shocking and unexpected events such as the self-immolation of a seller in Tunisia in 2010, or Ukraine’s delay in implementing the EU 2013 Association Agreement.

Members of subterranean cells start the insurrection.

Protests, gatherings, marches, and the construction of fences will follow.

The people recognise that, while the government is lawful, it is illegitimate, and they establish an anti-government movement that becomes the driving force behind eventual revolutionary regime change.

Of course, the protest organizers put in a great deal of effort to gather the majority of people who genuinely believe in the stated goals.

People would not be as outspoken in the streets if they knew they were CIA or MI6 agents. A political throng develops, and protests last for days or weeks in the city’s main squares.

The Second stage

The second phase aims to discredit the defence, security, and law enforcement forces through strikes, civil disobedience, rioting, and sabotage.

Protesters have occupied municipal squares and streets, and they refuse to leave until their demands are met. The logistical network has organized the protests.

Demonstrators issue an ultimatum to the government, threatening major uprisings if their demands remain unmet. The government has two options: respond with force or accept the demands.

The Third stage

The third and final phase involves the “non-violent” overthrow of the government.

In actuality, it refers to open attacks on authorities, as well as the occupation of government buildings, institutions, and other government components or symbols.

There is a civil uprising against the current political system.

If the government uses force against the protestors, the media will accuse it of committing crimes and killing peaceful protesters. However, if the government makes concessions, it will quickly lose support because the protesters will not accept compromises.

Negative results

Even when revolutions succeed, they rarely result in progress, freedom, or democracy.

The much-lauded colour revolutions, such as the Pink Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, have not improved democracy, freedom, or human rights.

The question is, why did the revolutions fail and not achieve their goals?

The rule of law, as far as I can see, never established itself.

Too often, governments elected through color revolutions acted above and beyond democratic principles, much like their undemocratic predecessors.

The new authorities frequently emphasized the “diseases” and defects of the previous administrations, despite their vow to uphold democracy and the rule of law.

The people who eventually permitted the revolutions to prevail made the critical mistake of viewing the uprisings as the peak of democracy and succumbing to complacency rather than demanding the establishment of solid institutions.

“History teaches us invaluable lessons, but it’s through the passage of time that we truly come to understand and internalize them, shaping a wiser and more resilient future.”

Introduction

Undoubtedly, we are currently in the midst of a new Cold War. For those unfamiliar with the previous Cold War, this article will elucidate its methods and the ongoing rivalry between old rivals.

During my recent visit to Berlin, Germany, the epicentre of espionage and spies, I witnessed the ongoing, intensifying, and direct nature of the Cold War.

The Cold War’s enduring motif was espionage.

Throughout this period, stories of spies, agents, and assassins going into hiding and living double lives in order to infiltrate adversarial regimes or civilizations abound.

Despite the sometimes-overstated scope of espionage, both the United States and the Soviet Union undoubtedly spent a significant amount of money on hiring, preparing, and deploying spies and agents during the Cold War.

The reason behind espionage

During the Cold War, gathering intelligence and information about the enemy, particularly about their military and technological prowess, was the primary goal of espionage.

This information comes from a variety of sources, including paid informants, double agents, stolen documents, intercepted communications, “bugs” (eavesdropping devices), and other surveillance techniques.

Agents’ destructive operations included sabotage, as well as the kidnapping or murder of politicians or other hostile operatives.

Cold War spies typically lacked the flashy James Bond personas depicted in novels and films.

Their ability to appear and act like regular people in society was typically essential to the accomplishment of their tasks and, in fact, to their survival.

Agencies

There was at least one government organisation devoted to espionage and intelligence gathering in each of the main Cold War powers.

CIA

This was the duty of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States.

During World War II, the military arm known as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) carried out clandestine operations and espionage before becoming the CIA.

In 1947, the OSS underwent restructuring and received a new name, the CIA. The Cold War impacted the CIA’s goals, structure, and operations.

An early directive in 1948 authorized the CIA to conduct covert activities “against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups” with the goal of “making the responsibility of the United States government therefor not apparent to unauthorised persons.”

Other departments of the US government also provided assistance to the CIA. Established in 1952, the National Security Agency (NSA) gathered data through signal and radio communication surveillance, interception, and decryption.

Espionage, sedition, and other acts of treason were among the domestic criminal activities that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI, founded in 1908, was in charge of looking into.

During the Cold War, the CIA engaged in a variety of illicit operations, including killings and human experiments, in addition to conducting general surveillance on potential foreign agents and sending its own agents abroad.

Additionally, the CIA enhanced US foreign policy by arming, funding, and assisting anti-communist politicians and organisations overseas.

In 1948, one of the CIA’s first significant assignments was to assist non-communist political parties in Italy.

The CIA actively assisted in the execution of a number of Cold War coups and attempted coups, including the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile.

CIA operatives recruited and trained 1,500 Cuban exiles between 1959 and 1961. The group of Cubans planned to topple Fidel Castro by landing on his island, known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, which took place in April 1961.

Over Soviet and Cuban territory, CIA pilots conducted U-2 flights to gather intelligence on military installations, armaments, and troop movements.

Project Azorian, a mission to retrieve nuclear technology and coded papers from a wrecked Soviet submarine submerged under 16,000 feet of water in the Pacific Ocean, cost the CIA more than $800 million in 1974.

The CIA occasionally collaborated with the Department of Defence to conduct research on nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and their effects on humans.

Methods of interrogation and mental control

One of these research projects was Project MK-ULTRA, which received over $10 million in funding and ran from 1953 to the late 1960s.

MK-ULTRA was primarily interested in hypnosis and mind-altering substances, with the goal of utilizing them for Cold War objectives.

Many people have raised doubts about MK-ULTRA and the immoral nature of its study. Without their informed consent, hundreds of Americans—the majority of them military personnel—were the subjects of drug tests and experiments.

It is thought that the MK-ULTRA trials were involved in a number of deaths, including those of Frank Olson and Harold Blauer, who passed away in 1953 following a hallucinogenic chemical injection.

Other clandestine CIA initiatives include:

• Project Resistance is responsible for collecting information about radical student organizations.
• Operation Mockingbird (promoting positive media coverage);
• Operation Chaos involves the dismantling of left-wing and anti-war American organisations.

The Stargate CIA experiment even investigated the possibility of using psychic skills for intelligence purposes.

FBI

The CIA was not allowed to conduct domestic operations by US law, yet this prohibition was frequently broken during the Cold War.

The FBI is in charge of looking into and punishing alleged spies inside US borders.

Edgar Hoover, a vicious political operator and fervent anti-communist, directed the FBI from 1935 until 1972.

In 1943, the FBI received an anonymous letter prompting them to start looking into Soviet espionage. The FBI more than doubled in size to roughly 13,000 agents in just two years.

Elizabeth Bentley, who was also feeding intelligence to Moscow, provided the FBI with a wealth of information regarding Soviet espionage in late 1945.

Bentley confessed to the FBI in a 112-page document, naming 80 individuals as paid informants or Moscow-affiliated spies.

Bentley’s defection fuelled the American Anti-Communist frenzy of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Hoover approved the Counterintelligence Programme, or COINTELPRO, in 1956. COINTELPRO was a longer-term operation that targeted domestic political organisations.

FBI operatives infiltrated a wide range of organisations throughout a fifteen-year period, including labour unions, radical student organisations, civil rights groups, left-wing political parties, the anti-war movement, local militias, and hate groups based on race, including the Ku Klux Klan.

In addition to providing information to the FBI, these agents periodically intervened inside these groups to cause disruptions.

USSR

The Soviet Union has a far longer history of collecting intelligence and conducting espionage.

Beginning with the Okhrana in the late 1800s, the Russian secret police agencies included Stalin’s NKVD (1934–54), the OGPU (1922–34), and the Communist Cheka (1917–22).

Each employed clandestine techniques to obtain data on political opponents and possible “enemies of the state.”

KGB

Following Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, the KGB (Komitet of Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, or “Committee for National Security”) replaced the NKVD.

The KGB’s purview included both international intelligence and internal security.

The Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) was another institution that gathered intelligence for the Soviet military.

The Soviet Union possessed a definite “advantage” in this field due to its decades of espionage experience, as well as its agents and relationships in Western nations.

Moscow gave top priority to breaking into the United States’ nuclear weapons research programme, the Manhattan Project, during World War II.

It was remarkably simple for Soviet spies to gather and disseminate technical information, including blueprints, regarding this initiative.

Stalin was more informed than most American leaders about the catastrophic new weapon when the United States unleashed its first atomic bomb on Japan in August 1945.

The most well-known instance of Cold War espionage may have resulted from the sharing of US nuclear secrets.

FBI investigations in the late 1940s uncovered an organization of Soviet spies and paid informants operating inside US borders.

The Rosenberg case

I’ll summarize what I’ve already written about this case: the FBI started looking into Julius Rosenberg, a civilian engineer who had worked for the US Army, in 1950.

Rosenberg was detained in 1950 on suspicion of providing information to a Russian agent while he was affiliated with an American communist organization.

Following his refusal to confess or provide investigators with additional names, the FBI began pursuing his spouse, Ethel.

Eventually, both faced charges under the Espionage Act. In court, they refuted the accusations and declined to identify their companions or provide a statement.

In April 1951, a jury found the Rosenbergs guilty and sentenced them to death in the electric chair. This decision sparked incredulity and fury both domestically and abroad.

Some held the belief that the Rosenbergs were innocent, while others argued that their role as middlemen justified their execution. In June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg suffered an electrocution in New York.

During the Cold War, they were the only Americans put to death for espionage.

In the United States, the question of Soviet espionage became a national concern.
To uncover the Communists, legislative committees fought each other.

The executive branch aimed to remove government officials who were not loyal.

Courts struggled to strike a balance between social self-preservation and constitutional rights.

Most people agreed that American Communists supported the Soviet Union, that Soviet spying was a major problem, and that several prominent officials had betrayed the country.

Soviet spies not only penetrated the United States but also other Cold War nations.

The Soviet Union also conducted espionage against Britain, especially through the Cambridge Five spy network. I also wrote about the Cambridge Five in 1963.

Kim Philby, a British journalist, vanished from Lebanon. Philby served as a senior intelligence officer for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) until resigning in 1951.

As a double agent, Philby had been providing Moscow with information since the middle of the 1930s. Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, two of Philby’s coworkers, defected to the USSR and lived there until their deaths.

The 1963 revelation that cabinet member Donald Profumo had a mistress who was a known Soviet spy severely weakened the British administration.

Soviet diplomat and KGB colonel Vladimir Petrov fled to Australia in 1954. Petrov provided the Australian government with information about Soviet agents working there.

The Petrov Affair caused Australia and the USSR to cut diplomatic ties for five years.

Global surveillance techniques have evolved to reflect the changing context in which they are utilised, but the essence has stayed constant.

Even today, the world’s intelligence agencies spend a significant amount of time attempting to obtain other people’s secrets, preserving their own secrets, and engaging in clandestine actions, all of which rely heavily on technology.

Introduction:

I do remember as a kid when someone mentioned the word “Hollywood.” It was not a forbidden word in communism, not at all.

On the contrary, we were told how Hollywood, apart from making movies, is the hub of people who are working day and night in creating perfect commercials to undermine communism.

A few decades later, when someone says the word “Hollywood,” we think about those amazing actors who, if they don’t act, appear on commercials for amazing white teeth, alcohol, food, body weight loss injections, and the list goes on.

When an actor struggles with alcoholism, drug abuse, or mental health issues, they understand that the next step is to secure a book deal, participate in TV shows, and podcasts.

These platforms allow them to share their journey of recovery, showcasing their journey to sobriety, health, and happiness, and encouraging others to purchase their story.

However, that is far from the truth.

I believe you’ve all seen at least one episode of the TV series “Friends.”

I admit that we are watching “Friends.”

We are all familiar with all the roles played by everyone, and we mourn the loss of one of them.

It was a sad day for everyone who appreciated this sitcom.

Chandler, the comedic character, is a well-known role for Matthew Perry.

Matthew Perry’s death is garnering attention once again these days, almost a year after his passing.

“Delete all our messages.”

When word of the actor’s death surfaced, Jasveen Sangha told her associate, “Delete all our messages.”

The terrible end of actor Matthew Perry, who died last October at the age of 54, took a new turn on Thursday (August 15), when it was announced that five persons, including Perry’s longtime personal assistant and two doctors, had been prosecuted in connection with his death.

On October 28, 2023, authorities discovered the actor, who had battled alcohol and drug addiction for years, dead at his Los Angeles home.

A coroner’s report revealing that the “Friends” star died from the “acute effects” of ketamine.

What is ketamine?

Ketamine, a dissociative anaesthetic with a hallucinatory effect, has long provided animal and human anaesthesia.

These days, doctors only treat depression under close supervision.

Because it produces a brief “out of body” experience and hallucinations, it has psychedelic properties that led to its popularity as a drug as early as the 1980s.

Matthew Perry

He has been transparent about his battles with alcohol and drug addiction.

At one point, he checked himself into rehab for amphetamine and Vicodin addiction, putting “Friends” production on hold.

He claimed that over his lifetime, he had more than a dozen stays in treatment and that he had spent up to $9 million attempting to get clean.

On October 28, 2023, authorities discovered Perry unconscious in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home.

An autopsy attributed Perry’s death to the effects of ketamine, while his system also contained the opioid buprenorphine, a treatment for opioid use disorder.

Perry began using ketamine for recreational purposes while receiving frequent infusion therapy for depression and anxiety before his death.

The Ketamine Queen: Who is she?

The suspected dealer, Jasveen Sangha, who holds both American and British citizenship, is well-known among elite affluent circles.

Sangha appeared in court, wearing a Nirvana T-shirt, and pleaded not guilty.

However, a judge denied her bail application, likely due to the risk of escape, and she will remain in detention until her appearance before a judge in October.

According to the accusation, she sold Perry ketamine on October 24, and he died four days later. Perry accused her of selling him about 50 ampoules of ketamine for $11,000.

In 2019, Sangha started dealing drugs.

At the press conference, prosecutor Martin Estrada claimed that Sangha’s North Hollywood residence was a true “centre of drug trafficking.”

A search of her home turned up more than 80 ketamine ampoules and hundreds of pills, including cocaine, methamphetamines, Xanax, and other prescription drugs.

She stored, packaged, and sold her materials outside of the house. She dealt only with celebrities and the wealthy.

The “queen of ketamine” was glad to flaunt her jet-setter lifestyle on social media because her illegal activities brought her a handsome income.

She socialised with the rich and famous; she attended the Oscars and the Golden Globes.

Two weeks after Perry’s passing, she shared an Instagram Story from Japan and then from Mexico.

Social media posts claim that just one day before her arrest became public, Sangha went to a hair salon and had her hair dyed purple.

Accusation

The prosecution claims that she began providing Perry with ketamine after co-defendant Dr. Salvador Plasencia disclosed the actor’s drug interests.

He had been treating his depression with ketamine.

Additionally, Dr. Plasencia bought ketamine from Mark Chavez, a different doctor who is also a defendant.

The two made roughly $55,000 off the actor, and they knew he was abusing ketamine to the point where his life was in jeopardy.

The prosecution claims that Plasencia instructed Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry’s personal assistant, on how to administer ketamine injections to the star.

According to Prosecutor Estrada, the defendants were more focused on their financial gain than Mr. Perry’s well-being, and Jasveen Sangha was the primary supplier of ketamine for all victims, not just the late actor.

During the investigation, US police discovered evidence linking her to another overdose fatality that occurred in 2019.

The documents state that she gave the ketamine to a man named Cody McLaury, who overdosed and died as a result.

“The ketamine you sold my brother killed him,” a family member texted her. The family member identified it as the cause of his death.

Days later, she searched the Internet for “Can ketamine be listed as a cause of death?”

If convicted, she faces a required minimum of ten years in federal prison and a maximum life term.

According to NBC, court documents suggest that Iwamasa gave the actor the deadly quantity of ketamine.

On his death day, he begged the assistant to inject him three times.

Perry begged Kenneth Iwamasa to give him “one big one,” referring to his third dose of ketamine that day, just before he died in the bathtub.

The actor was in the hot tub when the assistant obeyed him and went to conduct some errands.

When he came back, the actor had passed away.

Thus, “Give me a big dose” seems to have been his last words.

And maybe the best way to sum up Perry is to quote Chandler from Friends: “I’m hopeless, awkward, and desperate for love.”

The role of the intelligence agency in protecting government and party ideals

Introduction

Recently, I travelled to Berlin, Germany. More specifically, I visited “East Berlin,” the capital of the GDR, also known in the West as the German Democratic Republic, or, for those of us who lived behind an iron curtain, as the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik).

It goes without saying that exploring streets, places, and discussions with East Berliners brought some sense of melancholy, nostalgia, and missing old times before East and West Germany unified into one country.

Interviewing experts about the Cold War and one of the most successful intelligence agencies, STASI, made me wonder why some people seem to miss those bygone days of the ruthless and brutal police apparatus.

One thing I discovered, which is often overlooked, is that STASI is the first modern intelligence agency to cease operations with its activities intact. Yes, I acknowledge the destruction of a significant portion of archives, but STASI, as a modern intelligence agency, remained open for post-mortem analysis by NATO countries and their intelligence agencies.

It goes without saying that researchers study numerous operational procedures to comprehend the effectiveness and successes of STASI.

This article is based on my research and analysis while in Berlin in May 2024.

The German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) secret police and intelligence agency was known as the Stasi, or “Ministry of State Security” (also MfS).

In reality, though, the Stasi served as the Socialist Party of Germany’s (SED) spy network, monitoring GDR inhabitants and tracking down its political rivals.

The Stasi was also known as “the shield and sword of the party.”

The Stasi’s adversary was the GDR’s ideological foe, the class enemy.

Furthermore, what did “Class Enemy” stand for?

The term “class enemy” originated in communism and referred to anyone who disagreed with the SED’s socialist doctrine and the working class.

However, the Stasi used the word more frequently to describe anyone who posed a threat to the state.

Stasi: The head

Wilhelm Seisser was the first minister, or leader, of the Ministry of State Security. The Stasi’s failure to identify and put an early stop to the rebellion on June 17, 1953, forced him to hold the position until 1953.

As a result, the MfS briefly lost its ministerial rank and became a state secretariat between 1953 and 1955.

On November 24, 1955, the Stasi added the Intelligence Headquarters, which acted as the foreign intelligence service’s representative.

The early years of the GDR saw an exodus from the Republic, prompting the Stasi to first concentrate on stopping the refugees.

In particular, ideological divisions between the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as between the East and West, ensured that the Stasi watched and prosecuted the secret services operating in the West.

Following the Berlin Wall’s erection, which restricted escape movements, the stasi’s primary responsibility was to avert any threat to the GDR’s stability.

Erich Milke assumed leadership of the SS in 1957 and stayed in that position until 1989.

Stasi: Work methods

As I mentioned earlier, the Stasi served as the GDR’s secret police. Their methods of operation included population oppression and surveillance.

With the SED providing guidance and backing, the Stasi took advantage of every freedom.

Included in the homework:

The investigations and cover-ups surrounding the deaths at the Berlin Wall; the regulation of anti-regime organisations and individuals; supervision of GDR citizens; maintenance of state security; education and the prevention of escape from the Republic are crucial.

oversight of other GDR bodies, including the People’s Police, ministries, enterprises, the transport system, etc.

Personal protection for party officials.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the state, including the GDR, willfully ignored civil rights and civil liberties.

On occasion, the Stasi ordered or participated in the killings of regime opponents, the majority of whom were foreign nationals.

Furthermore, the Stasi collaborated with the Reconnaissance Headquarters as a foreign intelligence service.

The Stasi carried out routine counterintelligence and espionage operations within her country. Additionally, in keeping with the SED, the Stasi foreign service specifically distributed material about the GDR overseas.

Stasi: Tasks and Organisation

The GDR’s administrative headquarters housed the Stasi in a hierarchical structure.

The Stasi office in Berlin-Lichtenberg served as the venue.

Following that, district departments were held accountable to district administrations. Additionally, there were property departments in charge of particular businesses.

Moreover, the Stasi and its divisions received specific assignments such as:phone monitoring, counterintelligence, and combating escape.

Stasi strategies

People view the Stasi’s tactics as controversial and particularly harsh.

Torture and forced confessions were not something the Stasi fled from.

Psychological techniques have also been employed to agitate victims or suspects until they no longer provide a threat and to get them to confess.

The Stasi mainly worked in secret as the GDR grew more and more dependent on outside recognition.

The Stasi used covert tactics that received little notice. The Stasi avoided criminal charges whenever possible, opting instead for so-called decompositions.

The Stasi employed a psychological technique called “zersetzung,” or “decomposition,” to discourage “hostile-negative people” from acting.

OIC and OP

Once, the Stasi distinguished between the OPK and the OV in terms of their opposition and political opponents, labelling them as “hostile-negative people.”

OIC

If it was believed that she had engaged in government-critical behaviour or committed a crime, an operational identity check, or OIC, was conducted.

We gathered information through various methods, such as accessing personal correspondence and professional files maintained by individuals and the German People’s Police.

The Stasi also employed wiretapping as a tactic.

If the OIC expressed doubt, we initiated the OP operational procedure.

OP

The OP prioritised “political-operational cooperation” with other authorities and “unofficial officials” (UO) through several “measure plans.”

The purpose of an operation is to deepen the investigation into a suspect.

We also examined the relationships between the friend group and the family.

The OP’s outcome dictated how the investigation would proceed moving forward.

In the event that the OP was unsuccessful, we put the probe on hold.

On the other hand, if the OP validates the suspect, the National Police may launch an official investigation.

Methods of torture

During the course of the investigation, the Stasi also employed torture techniques to obtain a confession.

This covered both psychological and physical forms of torture.

The suspects were isolated, constantly under pressure, and agitated.

It was common for people to confess to crimes they had not really committed.

However, a breakup occurred instead of official investigations.

Decommissioning began when it became clear that the suspect’s custody was not advantageous. This was the case, for instance, if the Stasi wanted to get additional incriminating information about the suspect or did not want to disrupt the suspect in their surroundings.

Exposing someone is a compromise

Since 1976, “Directive No. 1/76 on the Development and Processing of Operational Processes” has governed Zersetzung.

The covert decommissioning procedures essentially manipulated the “hostile-negative person” into being less of a threat.

Most of the time, the individual experienced psychological coercion without understanding that the Stasi was the source.

We kept the individual as far away from others as possible and prohibited him from carrying out any plans that would have been against him.

Through the use of real or fake evidence, the public image of a “hostile-negative person” was harmed until the evidence was proven incorrect.

Additionally, obstacles such as professional bans obstructed the individual’s path.

It was intended for someone to lose faith in himself through repeated failures.

She ought to lose motivation and turn against others in her immediate vicinity, accusing them of spreading untruths.

Zersetzung measures even made reference to psychological research from the MfS Faculty of Law’s “operational psychology” course.

The Stasi’s primary tactic was subtlety.

The goal was to gather as much information as possible about suspected individuals without drawing attention to themselves by avoiding public or governmental investigations.

Many of those impacted by the “collapse” were unaware that the state was controlling their lives until the GDR fell apart.

Employees of Stasi

Only permanent staff members officially made up the MfS. The Stasi always hired this specifically.

Before considering a person, the dictatorship checked their background to ensure their loyalty.

When they first started work, full-time employees were required to sign a statement of allegiance and take an oath of allegiance to the GDR and Stasi flags.

Officers, enlisted temporary soldiers, special assignment officers, civil servants, and full-time unofficial workers are all examples of Stasi personnel.

If they disregarded the proclamation, Stasi employees faced harsh consequences, including the death penalty.

There was one full-time Stasi employee for every 180 citizens, which is an extremely high employee density.

This made the Stasi the biggest secret police force in the world in terms of both personnel and citizens.

The Stasi Faculty of Law provided training for Stasi candidates.

Stasi: illegal employees

Unofficial employees (UE) were those who worked for the Stasi but weren’t formally employed, as the term implies.

They either obeyed Stasi directives to manipulate those around them or provided information to the Stasi, mainly from their surroundings. UE operated invisibly, evading detection.

On the other hand, UEs were originally known as GIs, or covert informants.

There are various methods for recruiting UEs. The SED classified someone as a UE either because they demonstrated their allegiance to the SED by possessing the appropriate ideological traits, or because they expressed a particular motivation in doing so or expected to personally benefit from it.

For UE, monetary reward was irrelevant.

An individual was required to demonstrate their devotion as an UE by disclosing personal information or secrets.

Sometimes, in an effort to track down additional opposition figures or groups, the Stasi would also attempt to appoint a suspected individual as an unofficial officer.

Typically, we used coercion to force the UE to cooperate.

The SED also classified numerous religious and artistic organizations as dissident organizations.

The GDR’s communist ideology excluded religion out of fear that a strong religious conviction might clash with it.

Because art serves as a platform for expressing criticism, people often perceive artists as “negative-hostile” individuals.

In other instances, the Stasi deliberately selected individuals as IMs to monitor “hostile-negative persons” within their personal circles.

Typically, the applicant for instant messaging would handwrite a statement guaranteeing anonymity, include a pseudonym, and sign it.

Up to 24% of people living in the GDR were occasionally active UEs.

Composing reports about his surroundings or particular people was one of UE’s responsibilities.

This implies that UE was also spying on his friends and family.

Categories of non-official employees:

To spread specific information, unofficial Special Assignment Officers mistreated and coerced powerful media.

Persons suspected of hostile activity or unofficial counterintelligence officers with enemy links were assigned to gather information on a particular subject they already had close contact with, such as part of the OV.

As the name suggests, special operations assigned non-official officers’ specific responsibilities, most of which involved observation and analysis within their work environment.

The responsibility for keeping an eye on internal security and spotting dangers fell to unofficial political-operational penetration and security areas of responsibility.

Up to five subordinate IMs received tasks from management UEs.

Those in managerial positions, such as business and administration, were known as social security workers. Even if they weren’t IMs per se, they were still information collectors, much like especially devoted workers.

Disintegration of Stasi

The Office for National Security replaced the NSA on November 18, 1989, to mark the end of the GDR.

Citizens who wished to stop the destruction of Stasi archives took over AfNS district offices in December.

The most well-known occupation took place during the Berlin Stasi headquarters attack, which you can learn more about in the article.

Afterwards, committees within the Civil Guard initiated the process of dissolving the AfNS, also known as the Stasi, and began addressing the crimes perpetrated by this group.

Several desperate attempts to combine the AfNS with the Federal Republic of Germany’s intelligence services were unsuccessful. The People’s Chamber of the GDR constituted a “special committee to control the dissolution of the Ministry of State Security” at the end of the regime.

Joachim Gauck became the special committee’s new leader.

Ultimately, practically every Stasi employee was let go by March 31, 1990. Afterwards, the “Federal Commissioner for Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic” took over oversight of the Special Committee “Dissolving the Stasi.”.

Introduction

Needless to say, when I began my career in diplomatic security intelligence, I always kept in mind who was watching me, who was reading my body language, and whether I was expressing myself without causing or attracting the interests of third parties (foreign intelligence agencies, etc.).

Then, I discovered that most corporations in the West, in reality, have little or no interest in protecting the most valuable commodity in business: information.

Each piece of information has a human source. We can rewire the human brain to produce more tangible intelligence, making it less demanding than any other method.

In the article “ASIO warns foreign spies trying to recruit people via social media” published on November 17, 2020, Anthony Galloway explains how foreign intelligence agencies are using LinkedIn to recruit informants.

Are you a member of the LinkedIn network? Do you have a profile?

LinkedIn was likely introduced to most of you as another social media platform.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional social networking site that connects people in the business world.

LinkedIn is a popular tool for job seekers.

Anyone interested in taking a serious step towards finding new possibilities to enhance their profession, whether they are a student trying to explore future job opportunities or a business owner running a small local store, can benefit from using LinkedIn, as well as collaborating with other experts through networking.

It resembles a conventional networking event in that you go meet other professionals, introduce yourself, and trade business cards.

This social network, however, is ideal for spies and their operations.

LinkedIn is a fantastic resource for job searching, networking, and research.

However, the amount of private data users share on LinkedIn makes it perfect for both bizarre marketing campaigns and state-sponsored spying.

Identity theft and cryptocurrency hacking frequently employ fake accounts.

For cybercriminals, LinkedIn doesn’t score very high when it comes to frauds, defrauding individuals, or framing them. People use Instagram, Telegram, and WhatsApp more frequently.

Nonetheless, a Chinese spy targeted thousands of British officials over a five-year period via LinkedIn.

Counterintelligence officials from various Western nations have been alerting people for years to beware of foreign agents using this business network as a recruiting tool.

According to reports, Chinese spies are the most active in this area, using LinkedIn to potentially recruit thousands of people at once.

Western intelligence officials believe that using LinkedIn to quickly connect with multiple targets at once and invite them to China under the pretence of a business trip is more effective than sending spies to the US to process each target one at a time and extract trade secrets, intellectual property, and research findings that can be profitably sold.

Counterintelligence officials from various Western nations have been alerting people for years to beware of foreign agents using this business network as a recruiting tool.

Fake profiles

According to reports, Chinese spies are the most active in this area, using LinkedIn to potentially recruit thousands of people at once.

Western intelligence officials believe that using LinkedIn to quickly connect with multiple targets at once and invite them to China under the pretence of a business trip is more effective than sending spies to the US to process each target one at a time and extract trade secrets, intellectual property, and research findings that can be profitably sold.

For a period of five years, a Chinese spy was active on LinkedIn, reaching out to scientists, politicians, and security officials in the United Kingdom in an attempt to obtain confidential information that China would find valuable.

Despite having open LinkedIn profiles under the following names,

• Eric Chen Yixi,
• Robin Cao,
• Lincoln Lam,
• John Lee, and
• Eric Kim,

Robin Zhang was the most common name he used when contacting victims.

For his profile photos, he made up the names of the companies he worked for and used photographs he acquired from stock pages.

His approach was to approach people he thought fascinating by sending them a friend request first, and then over time, he would gradually develop a relationship with them in order to earn their confidence.

He would then offer them substantial sums of money in exchange for specific information when they got close.

As a result, he offered $10,000 to one recruiting consultant each time they provided information about potential intelligence service hires, while also offering other consultants free trips to China, speaking engagements at important conferences, and other benefits.

Western security services believe this to be one of the busiest spies operating against British interests.

Chinese spies have previously made their operations on LinkedIn public.

A few years back, a man came clean about using LinkedIn to find individuals from whom he could obtain critical information.

Active on LinkedIn as well, North Korean hackers pretended to be hiring agencies for US defence contractors. Once they contacted the victims, they would send them dangerous files through private messaging.

As far as is known, two European military companies lost their lives in that war.

British security agencies are aware of the risk that China’s intelligence services are exploiting LinkedIn and other social media platforms to target their nationals.

They expressly warn that Chinese spies target not only government workers but also businesses and their employees, scientists, and members of the academic community.

The British Ministry of Security vigorously combats such dangers and has initiated initiatives to alert residents about social media threats.

They also combat such threats on LinkedIn, where they state that creating false profiles is a violation of their terms of service and that they are always looking for evidence of harmful activity and actively trying to delete such phoney profiles.

Ex-CIA operative

Linkedin experienced this issue, which became public after Kevin Mallory, a retired CIA agent, was charged in 2018 for attempting to spy for China.

A Chinese national who claimed to be looking for new staff contacted Mallory, a fluent Mandarin speaker with financial problems, over LinkedIn.

Anguy, going by the name Richard Yang, organized a phone call between Mallory and a man who claimed to work at a Shanghai think tank.

On two more visits to that city, Mallory consented to offer US defence secrets.

During travels to Shanghai in March and April of 2017, Kevin Mallory sold sensitive US “defence information” to a Chinese intelligence agent for $25,000. The Espionage Act found him guilty.

In a message dated May 5, 2017, he stated, “Your object is to gain information, and my object is to be paid.”

After finding $16,500 in luggage, a US defence contractor faces accusations of spying for China.

Speaking Mandarin fluently, the former US army member had worked as a special agent for the State Department’s security division and later joined the CIA as a clandestine case officer.

Mallory is one of several high-level security-cleared US officials who were detained and charged with unauthorised interactions with Chinese intelligence.

Methods: lies or bribes.

Chinese intelligence agents try to entice them with bribes or fictitious business deals.

According to a US official, there is a connection between assaults in 2014 and 2015, which used data from the US agency that oversees public sector personnel, and the targeting of Americans on LinkedIn.

Subsequently, hackers obtained sensitive personal data from over 22 million Americans, including addresses, bank and medical records, work histories, and fingerprints.

China rejected the accusation as “absurd logic,” even though the USA continued to throw the finger at it.

How can one avoid being picked up by spies on LinkedIn?

Understanding the techniques used by intelligence services in recruitment activities is essential to countering the threat posed by the LinkedIn network.

Three fundamental steps make up the recruiting process:

• To identify the target,
• Setting the trap, and
• Relationship evaluation and reinforcement.

Depending on the objective and the situation, these phases can be broken down into smaller steps, and the process can vary greatly.

The following are the recruitment stages:

1. Identifying the target
   During this stage, intelligence officers compile a list of individuals with access to the needed data and categorise them based on the likelihood that they would be successful in obtaining it.Before the Internet, intelligence services had to follow certain procedures to obtain the identities of individuals working on a particular project within a corporation in order to identify a target within that organisation.

   They occasionally had to enlist the assistance of agents from the same company.

   All of this took a great deal of time and work, and if the operation was not completed properly, the targeted organisation might begin to suspect something was wrong.

   However, in the age of social media, intelligence officers can quickly obtain a list of personnel and their job titles at a certain company or agency using LinkedIn.

   While social media platforms are not a “guaranteed” way for intelligence officers to get a list of everyone with access to a program or piece of technology, they do assist them in their preliminary investigations.

   Intelligence officials can then add those who did not provide specific information on their LinkedIn accounts to a list of potential targets.

2. Setting the trap
   The intelligence officer’s next step would be to decide which approach and recruitment strategies would be most effective in winning over the people on the list of possible targets.In this case, the LinkedIn network can also be helpful.

   Because this social network is meant for business networking, members typically disclose enough information to build traps and recruit the chosen person.

   Those who regret their lack of employment or underutilization of their abilities and skills may be susceptible to financial inducements, whereas those who are dissatisfied with their jobs may be receptive to hiring out of animosity.

   There are also people who post frequently, and in an effort to feed their curiosity and ego, they can give in to the pressures of the intelligence agencies.

3. Relationship evaluation and reinforcement
   The agent recruiting process can go in a lot of different directions, depending on the ultimate objective.Building rapport and trust with the target individual is the ultimate aim of the development phase, which aims to enable the intelligence service to accomplish the intended objective.

   Intelligence agencies frequently pose as think tanks or academic institutions on LinkedIn to establish rapport with a target.

   They invite potential hires to visit, cover their travel expenses, present their completed research, and then pay them for writing an article on a completely innocent subject.

   When they reach the target nation, the intelligence service will continue to evaluate the individual’s characteristics and build rapport with him in an attempt to enlist him as a spy.

   The intelligence community may put pressure on a target to reveal even more sensitive information after formal recruitment.

   Based on my knowledge and expertise, I can state that the fundamental recruitment procedure is the same for all intelligence services.

   Use caution when using all social media platforms; don’t post too much personal information; be mindful of who you chat to and how much about yourself you share.

   My grandfather used to say to me, “Less sell, more buy,” meaning listen more, talk less.

Even though the wars raging around the world today are “far away” from us, we are unable to watch them in peace. It affects each of us differently.

The war’s veterans know what it’s like to be on both sides and I am one of them

I assure you that there are no winners in war.

I have firsthand experience with it. When you draw the line, all sides have lost a great deal, and we are all losers.

Disinformation

These days, a propaganda war is being fought in addition to the battle in which horrible things occur, killing adults and children, destroying entire cities, and destroying lives.

In contrast to the “physical” war, it is also challenging to determine the victor of the propaganda war.

And in the propaganda war, all parties involved have trained for years to deceive, twist, and fabricate facts about reality in an effort to make it fit their desired narrative.

Nonetheless, propaganda for war has been used since the beginning of conflicts, particularly during World War II.

False letters claimed to be from dead German soldiers telling their parents they had made it out alive, deserted, and were safe.

Journalist Sefton Delmer of the Daily Express presented a compelling contrast between the Nazi operation, which relied on free thinking, and the Nazi premise that people desire a leader and follow their lead.

This served as a demonstration of how to defeat the Nazis in the propaganda war, at least in one attempt.

We can make a comparison between this and the current propaganda war raging between Russia and Ukraine.

Dennis Sefton Delmar: The Master of Black Propaganda

Dennis Sefton Delmer, also known by his nickname “Tom,” was born in Berlin to Australian parents who lived in Germany. His father, Frederick Sefton Delmer, was an Australian-British English literature professor at the University of Berlin.

He also wrote a textbook that was required reading in German schools.

Following the start of World War I, the Ruhleben camp near Berlin detained his father as an enemy alien.

In 1917, the governments of the United Kingdom and Germany sent the Delmer family back to England as part of a prisoner exchange.

Delmer had his education at St. Paul’s School in London, Friedrichsverdersches Gimnasium in Berlin, and Lincoln College in Oxford, where he graduated with a degree in modern languages.

After graduating from college, Delmer worked as a freelance writer until the Daily Express hired him to head its new Berlin office.

Collaboration with Hitler

He made history as the first British journalist to interview Adolf Hitler in April 1931, thanks to his friendship with Ernst Röhm, whom he had met during his time in Germany. Hitler flew a private plane with Delmer during the 1932 German federal election.

He then “associated with Nazi party activists,” “taking copious notes on everything from the style of the future Führer’s oratory to the group he thought lay behind the bond he was creating with the German people.”

In 1933, he was also present when Hitler conducted an inspection following the Reichstag fire. Leaders believed Delmer was a member of MI6, and his denial of any involvement only reinforced their belief that he was not just a member but a significant one.

During this time, Delmer faced criticism for being a Nazi sympathiser, and the British government once believed he was working for the Nazis.

Delmer observed up close how Hitler could induce a condition of near hypnosis in the audience in between captivating acts, resembling a blank-faced travelling salesman.

Nazi propaganda said it wanted people to give up their uniqueness and join the Nazi Volk.

“Only a mass demonstration can convince a person of the greatness of this community.” In Mein Kampf, Hitler stated, “He submits himself to the fascination of what we call mass-suggestion.”

His senior propagandist, Goebbels, declared, “The Community of the People will replace the era of the individual.”

Meanwhile, as Delmer pointed out, Hitler’s supporters were also demonstrating their passion.

According to Delmer, the Nazis were like a „spooky cabaret“ that gave people roles that they liked.

During a period of intense social turmoil, the Nazis provided means for people to feel superior and safe in their “purity.”

 

They provided a platform for you to show out your repressed fury, violence, and sadism in the service of nationalistic “ideals.” The Führer character turned into a means of justifying your most hedonistic desires.

 

Following their ascent to power, the Nazis transformed Germany into a fascist show complete with coordinated events and large-scale marches.

The Nazis promoted an early version of the selfie by encouraging people to purchase cameras and take pictures of themselves participating in Nazi festivities.

Your living room became a part of Hitler’s Germany when the Nazis produced inexpensive radios, making the Germans the most radio-listening nation in Europe.

Delmar realized that the only way to counteract this propaganda was to weaken the emotional connection between the Nazis and the German people, as well as the appeal of their assigned roles.

Radio Station

In September 1940, the Political War Executive (PVE) hired Delmer as part of a psychological warfare effort to plan propaganda broadcasts for Nazi Germany.

The radio station’s idea was to pose as a staunch supporter of Hitler and the Nazis in order to discredit him.

Delmer thought that British attempts to counter German propaganda during the war were misguided, as the broadcasts targeted already-persuaded non-Nazis, resulting in a phenomenon known as an echo chamber of like minds.

When he was able to do so, he broke taboos by insulting Nazi authorities and broadcasting as a fervent Nazi who was critical of the Nazi leadership.

He achieved this by presenting disparaging material about official sado-masochistic orgies to attract listeners.

On June 6, 1944, at 4:50 a.m., the Germans learned of the Allied D-Day landings via the military radio station Soldatensender Calais.

“The enemy descends with force from the air and sea.” There are several breaches in the Atlantic wall.”

The initial listener thought it sounded like any other Nazi radio station, blending news from the front lines with speeches by Goebbels and Hitler.

However, it was actually a British station that was disguising itself as a Nazi station, which meant it was aware of the landing beforehand.

Over 40% of German soldiers listened to Soldatensender, one of the top three clandestine stations in major German cities.

This can compare to some of the best cable networks available today.

“They lay on the beach in their smashed and torn dugouts, naked and without coverings,” the station claimed, citing inside testimonies of German soldiers abandoned by the Nazi high command during the war.

The Nazi high command abandoned them, leaving them vulnerable to trample and scrape.

It was obvious that the purpose of this information was to lower German soldiers’ morale.

However, things become exciting from this point on.

German soldiers and civilians listening to the program were aware that Soldatensender was a British station pretending to be a German station.

The British broadcasters wanted the Germans to know they were British.

Their goal was not to deceive the audience, but rather to “cover” for German listeners.

“Der Chef”

Der Chef was Delmer’s debut performance in his counter-propaganda cabaret.

A renegade army officer simply known as ‘Der Chef’ broadcast the station, full of expletive-laden tirades about Nazi party corruption, including graphic pornography showing the Gestapo and SS indulging in decadent orgies with wives of front-line soldiers.

Sex and obscenity were used strategically. Der Chef took Nazi propaganda clichés and turned them against the Nazis. He accused Nazi leaders of being covert Bolsheviks, working against the German people, and being overly weak.

According to a British intelligence source in Sweden, the station is “undermining the German people’s confidence in the party apparatus.”

When Delmer presented his shows to the King of England, he claimed that the goal of the show Der was to “push Nazi propaganda into the ridiculous.”

This was not the same as satire; in these early broadcasts, Delmer still wanted the Germans to believe this was a real soldier.

Instead, Delmer took Nazism’s filthy, racist vocabulary, magnified it, and used it against them.

Delmer, for example, damaged Nazi propaganda by accusing them of being hidden Bolsheviks.

Delmer appears to have intended to suggest that peculiar moment of estrangement from oneself when you suddenly realise how much of your own conduct is skilful and performance-based.

Delmer acknowledged the need for engaging individuals based on their own interests rather than what you might care about.

This is what Ukrainian information fighters learned during their conflict with Russia.

Ukrainian advertisers, hackers, activists, and journalists are all attempting to reach Russian viewers.

When people feel powerless, conspiracy theories are especially appealing.

Delmer’s strategies shifted as his war operations expanded.

He launched his most ambitious station, the Soldatensender Calais, disguised as a native German military station. It combined broadcasts of Nazi leaders’ speeches with music and the latest news and gossip from the front, exposing all the lies and inequalities soldiers faced.

But the goal was no longer to trick the listener into thinking this was a Nazi station.

This time, the audience was supposed to participate in the action.

Today, Delmer has important lessons to teach us, both good and bad.

Most importantly, we can still use his lessons today.

He possesses the ability to enthral listeners who appear uninterested.

His grasp of the power of propaganda—which justifies the worst emotions—and how it may provide people with enjoyable roles to play in a complex environment is still relevant in the era of social media.

Everyone consistently showcases themselves online

These days, participating in a joint performance doesn’t require you to physically attend a meeting.

People can become enraged and agitated online, congregating into a boisterous mob that shares the same catchphrases and emoticons, and erupting into a boiling ball of wrath and superiority.

We frequently witness such occurrences, with various actions taking place in this way.

Although the Nazis were particularly evil, there are recurring themes in propaganda.

The emotional notes that propagandists play is the same everywhere.

They instil a false sense of camaraderie in individuals who are disinterested in swift change.

They can most effectively create entire other realities, conspiracy realms in which you have no responsibility. Many people may be excited to play with this.

Our world is filled with influential people, both big and small.

Do we have Delmer to compete?

If you remember what I stated at the beginning, there are no winners in war.

INTRODUCTION:

Industrial espionage is a significant issue today, costing global economies an estimated $500 billion annually. This illegal practice affects various industries, including technology and defence.

In the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, cyber espionage is particularly rampant, with state-sponsored actors targeting intellectual property and trade secrets.

Industrial espionage impacts national security because sensitive information can enhance the military capabilities of adversarial nations, influencing both Russia’s war effort and Ukraine’s defence strategies.

Industrial or corporate espionage is more frequently national in nature and takes place between businesses or firms, whereas political espionage is carried out or coordinated by governments and has an international scope.

Obtaining intellectual property, such as knowledge about industrial manufacturing, concepts, methods, and formulas, can be considered a kind of industrial espionage.

Alternately, it can entail the isolation of confidential or operational data, such as pricing, sales, marketing, research and development, policies, customer datasets, potential bids, planning or marketing plans, or shifting manufacturing sites and compositions.

It might cover things like trade secret theft, bribery, blackmail, and electronic spying. In addition to private companies, governments can be the target of espionage operations.

Why am I saying all of this to you?

A few days ago, a long-kept secret about Cold War-era political and industrial espionage came to light.

The” Intering” Operation

The US prohibited the transfer of “dual-use” technology, or goods having both military and civilian uses, to the Soviet Union for many years. That was the height of the Cold War. Sanctions intensified further after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979.

By the early 1980s, the FBI knew that the Soviet Union was in dire need of US-made microchips, which at the time were transforming a wide range of digital equipment, including military systems.

Moscow spies were hard at work, pilfering or secretly acquiring such dual-purpose technologies.

It was essential for Soviet space shuttles, air defence systems, ballistic missile programmes, and electronic espionage platforms.

“Silicon Valley”

The very reason the Soviets considered infiltrating Silicon Valley was to gain as much access to this technology as possible.

Moscow spies illegally obtained thousands of pieces of Western microelectronics worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the late 1970s, according to CIA estimates.

Despite the ongoing confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, Russian intelligence services continue to search the globe for prohibited American technology.

The current sanctions have temporarily restricted, but not entirely prevented, the flow of prohibited commodities. Russia has even surreptitiously imported appliances like washing machines and refrigerators in order to remove microchips for use in military hardware, according to reports.

Almost all countries engage in this practice. The nature of industrial espionage varies for each nation.

Sabotage

But circumventing technology-focused sanctions gives US and foreign intelligence services a chance to start extremely covert sabotage operations aimed at changing critical technologies before they get to their intended target.

US covert activity in this region has a long and sordid history.

A White House initiative to penetrate Soviet supply channels for technology may have resulted in the 1982 explosion of a major oil pipeline in Siberia.

Additionally, US intelligence services have been in charge of plans to destroy North Korea’s missile capability and implant defective technology into Iran’s nuclear enrichment and missile programmes.

However, the majority of sabotage activities remain hidden from public view, and little is known about their actual mechanisms.

The US intelligence services are currently looking at ways to break into Russia’s illicit supply networks in order to halt their war machine, since relations between the two countries are at an all-time low—possibly the lowest since the 1980s.

The Austrian

In the green Cow Hollow district of San Francisco, an FBI agent named Rick Smith entered the Balboa Cafe early one morning in 1980.

He recognised a familiar face as he walked up to the bar to place his drink order—someone Smith had met a year prior.

Although the man was born in Austria, he lived in Silicon Valley and was an entrepreneur who served as a go-between for American software firms and European nations eager to acquire the latest high-tech goods.

Attempting to deal with the Soviets did not seem particularly suspicious at the time.

For instance, lawful trade between the US and the Soviet Union totalled $4.5 billion in 1979, of which $200 million was in high-tech goods.

Attempting to deal with the Soviets did not seem particularly suspicious at the time.

For instance, lawful trade between the US and the Soviet Union totalled $4.5 billion in 1979, of which $200 million was in high-tech goods.

But Smith was already “prepared” for this meeting; he had already tracked the Austrian.

Smith and the Austrian identified commonalities during their first meeting. The Austrian was a well-mannered, well-educated, and worldly man.

In addition to his native German, he was a proficient speaker of English and a keen skier.

Thus, throughout the discussion, Smith didn’t need to say much to persuade the Austrian. That evening, over cocktails, the two began formulating a plan, which they refined over several meetings in the ensuing months.

Under the FBI’s instruction, the Austrian volunteered to pose as a thief, willing to sell technology that was prohibited to the communist Eastern Bloc.

Operation Intering, a large, multi-year, transcontinental operation that had never been publicized before, was about to begin.

Moscow and its allies would receive the defective technology from the FBI and Austria.

Empty the Soviet bloc’s coffers, reveal to American counterspies exactly what technologies they are pursuing, and expose their intelligence officials and covert American accomplices.

The Soviet Bloc would unintentionally purchase millions of dollars’ worth of American items that had been tampered with by Intering. Communist spies, unaware of their deception, will receive a genuine parade in the Warsaw Pact capital as a reward for successfully securing this forbidden technology from the West.

However, as the operation gathered steam, it became riskier, risking more than just the Austrian’s life.

Cooperation, careful preparation, and a little bit of luck are necessary for double agent operations to be successful.

The Bureau initially attempted to obtain its new assets by collaborating with a few gullible Soviet officials on board.

Naturally, this was easier said than done because Soviet diplomats and intelligence spies were always on the lookout for Western spies.

The Austrian was not a trained spy, so initially he needed some guidance from his FBI supervisors.

The FBI returned the Austrians to Vienna, the main Cold War espionage hub. Both Communist and Western officials could operate in the city with a certain degree of confidence and safety because it was neutral territory.

The Austrian arranged a meeting with the Soviet embassy and got ready to pitch state-of-the-art computer and microelectronics technologies in Moscow’s Silicon Valley.

Initially, the Austrian drew little attention from the Moscow spies. Although they showed some curiosity, their main request was for secret information, which he was unable to provide.

The Austrian technology appeared to be of no interest to the Soviets, who instead gave it to their partners in the Eastern Bloc.

It was all charade, though.

The Soviets goal was to get the plan past their “allies” in the Eastern Bloc, not to obtain microelectronics or other banned technology.

Bulgarian Ties

The East Germans brought the Bulgarians, another ally from the Soviet bloc. However, American intelligence was aware that Moscow would be the final user of this prohibited technology.

Using its associated services, the KGB distanced itself from these technology transfer activities. As a result, the Russians were able to pursue other espionage targets with greater resources.

Moscow knew that Western nations did not scrutinize trade with Eastern European nations as much as with the Soviet Union.

The Austrian ties now offer a fantastic opportunity. The plan was for the Bulgarians, in collaboration with their Russian and East German allies, to acquire the banned technology, but not before the FBI took the initiative.

It took some time to get the business started, but by 1982, Intering was operating at full capacity.

It was more than the agency could handle. In collaboration with other foreign and US government organizations, technical specialists were required. To disrupt the parts en route to the Bulgarians, the FBI also needed to establish a specific location.

The key transhipment hub was London, where US officials intercepted and occasionally discreetly modified the hardware.

The operation took place across continents and nations. US officials received information from an East German electronics industry employee who was an undercover US intelligence source.

The primary route for supplies was through a technology broker based in the Netherlands.

The Bulgarians used a dummy business named INCO to import prohibited technology. One shipper’s base was in Toronto.

Cosmotrans, a crucial intermediary for the Bulgarians, owned a warehouse in Zurich, Switzerland.

In certain cases, the cargoes seemed to straddle China.

Every nation’s intelligence services were actively involved and working to the fullest extent possible.

Furthermore, the operation appeared to be a huge benefit for the Bulgarians and, implicitly, for their Soviet “overlords.”

American intelligence had no trouble determining that the Soviets had intentions beyond simply pilfering or unlawfully acquiring Western microelectronics to integrate into their military gear. Their goal was to covertly imitate the whole computer industry in the United States.

In fact, by 1981, covert agreements between Soviet and Bulgarian intelligence services allowed Bulgarian spies to get high-tech, export-banned machine tools that were required by Russian firms to produce data storage devices and other modern manufacturing products.

The FBI started providing the Bulgarians with disc drive testing equipment in 1982. Thanks to these drives, computers can now permanently store and retrieve data.

The bureau mediated an arrangement to supply hard disc coating equipment to the Eastern Bloc through an Austrian business.

Additionally, the FBI sold crucial equipment for making magnetic drives—”servowriters”—to the Bulgarians in secret. In 1983, the FBI shipped a second cargo of servo printers to the Bulgarians at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars, despite the compromise of the first shipment.

The FBI sent $3 million worth of computer equipment to the Eastern Bloc in that same year.

The FBI was in charge of numerous such shipments. They quietly altered some of the technology before the Bulgarians could obtain it.

Some are useless at all.

The Eastern Bloc received part of it in its purest form to keep things moving forward and allay any doubts.

The manufacturers of this equipment were unaware that their products were being used in a transatlantic espionage game and sold to the Eastern Bloc, likely illegally.

Spy Games

It took a lot of work to execute the internship programme; FBI agents stationed in San Francisco could not do it on their own.

The enterprise was too big, too intricate, and too delicate to oversee from one office.

It was also necessary to involve Washington. Approval was required from the Department of Justice, the Pentagon, and the White House.

However, not every Washington player agreed with this. Even though a large portion of the equipment was unapproved, Defence Department officials were worried about delivering prohibited American technology to Moscow.

The government claimed that the Pentagon frequently viewed double agent technology transfer activities with scepticism.

To the uninformed, it seemed as though the FBI was giving America’s geopolitical adversaries access to state-of-the-art technology.

Other technologies had to work if some components were compromised. There was always the danger, a genuine fear, that the operation meant to deter US rivals might unintentionally gain from the transfer of so much intact technology.

And what if some modified technology provided during the Intering wasn’t sufficiently tampered with to stop its use, as some US officials fear?

The Bureau adapted technology in various ways.

During the lengthy travel to the Eastern Bloc, several experienced what seemed to be “accidental” wear and tear.

In other instances, when Soviet Bloc agents turned on equipment, the FBI would interfere with them, causing “accidental” voltage overloads.

Subdued forms of sabotage can gradually erode machine components or microchips, or create highly sophisticated instruments that require a high degree of precision but are barely noticeable.

In each of these instances, the agency had to hope that its sabotage efforts were successful enough to genuinely stop the shipments—if not successful enough to raise red flags.

What about technology, which remains untouched?

The FBI needed to provide the Soviet Bloc with high-tech equipment. After all, the Austrian needed to supply the right items to win over his “partners” on the other side to survive.

So, what were FBI officials thinking, and what was the right proportion of modified to unmodified technology required to keep up the pretence?

These operations have always entailed additional risks, including the potential for human casualties. The intelligence service could compromise such equipment, endangering innocent lives.

Just a few of the potential consequences of a burned-out electricity grid in the wintertime include road accidents, massive fires, and people freezing to death.

In the end, the FBI came to believe that the technology was intended only for the Soviet military and intelligence services, not for use in the infrastructure of the general public.

For his part, the Austrian had to stay under wraps and continually prove his credentials to his Soviet Bloc interlocutors, all the while fulfilling his obligation to supply subpar goods on behalf of a foreign intelligence operative that was interfering.

That threat quickly became more than just a theoretical worry.

By 1983, Intering was fully operational.

Two Bulgarian intelligence operatives, who oversaw the technology transfer operation on Moscow’s behalf, were close friends with the Austrian. He received payment.

The credit for obtaining this state-of-the-art technology from the United States went to Bulgarian spies.

Bulgarian Parade

In celebration of their triumph, the Bulgarians put together a parade.

A real parade of the equipment they purchased from their Austrian service provider in San Francisco.

The FBI in London, however, tampered with the cargo. Everything was useless. “What we wanted to do was design a process, but give them fake stuff to discredit them,” Smith explained.

The Bulgarian spy, overcome with embarrassment, insisted on meeting the Austrian in Vienna.

That’s when the FBI began to receive alarm calls.

“They were furious,” Smith remarked. “They informed him that either the FBI had compromised him, leading to the alteration, or he had been involved from the outset.” He was involved right from the start.

Operatives from Bulgaria insisted that the Austrians come to Sofia for more discussions. Smith remembered that this was out of the question.

The Bulgarian side was more than just threatening empty words. It’s uncertain what actions the Austrian and his Soviet allies might take if they agreed to travel across the Iron Curtain to Sofia. Bulgaria’s adversaries faced danger even in the West; in 1978, Sofia’s agents killed a well-known dissident in the streets of London while he was carrying an umbrella with a poisoned tip.

The FBI agent no longer posed a risk to the Austrian. He was revealed.

Operation Intering successfully planted sabotaged electronics worth millions of dollars to Moscow and its allies.

However, it was now finished.

Criminal Procedures

Federal authorities in Southern California prosecuted a whole covert network of illicit technology exporters in 1983. The indicted individuals included two Californians who served as the network’s American suppliers, a Dutch collaborator, and two government officials from Bulgaria.

A few years later, there was another such indictment against illicit technology exporters.

When Californian authorities dismantled these Bulgarian technology export networks, they made no mention of interference.

There was no mention of compromised computer hardware.

There was absolutely no mention of the Austrian.

And to those who collaborated closely with him, the Austrian remained a mystery, too, as if he were some sort of phantom presence, watching over these prosecutions with invisible eyes.

Why did he accept the FBI’s offer to work undercover?

Even the bureau agents who handled the case are not fully sure why he did what he did.

Did he do this out of pure enjoyment and because, like the majority of Austrians, he despises Russians?
Operatives in the counterintelligence field are accustomed to dealing with a wide range of individuals, including mercenaries, altruists, benefactors, and honest and dishonest people.

In many ways, the Austrian served as an example.

However, FBI officials also understood that the Austrian was primarily concerned with his own objectives, which might not always coincide with the bureau’s. The FBI couldn’t track down all the foreign works from their source. That uneased them.

What if the FBI was unaware of the Austrian’s business dealings with the Bulgarians or other nations in the Eastern Bloc?

However, throughout the entire situation, the Austrian performed admirably.

He made money twice: once as an FBI asset and again as an alleged Eastern Bloc spy, selling profitable but illegal high-tech products.

The Bureau ultimately awarded the Austrian around $100,000 for his services as a US intelligence asset. To them, it was well worth the expense.

He eventually made his way back to Europe following the end of the Cold War and made a sizable fortune there in real estate.

Finally, I’d like to know who the Austrian was.

The primary objective of the STASI was to intimidate dissidents, in addition to other methods such as gathering intelligence and counterintelligence.

The Stasi not only used prisons to accomplish this, but also employed deceptive techniques known as “operational psychology.”

I recently had the chance to travel to Berlin, the capital city of spies and espionage.

And I spend a few days learning about history not only in this city but throughout the entire country of Germany by reading, listening, and studying them.

But one subject that I have discussed with you previously has caught my interest in particular: Zerstörung, or psychological warfare.

Four stages of human persecution

According to estimates, between “170,000 and 280,000 people” endured psychological and physical torture as a result of political persecution in the GDR and the Soviet occupation zone between 1945 and 1989.

Imagine that for a moment.

However, let’s examine the stages of persecution in chronological order.

Zerstörung and incarceration for political reasons

The GDR, more than any other European society before, was under constant surveillance by secret police.

Both public and private people worked with the Ministry of State Security in an unofficial capacity.

They were both spied on.

A complex web of fear, control, and mistrust developed. Those who were part of that privacy were frequently the ones doing the surveillance.

The GDR’s Ministry of State Security (MfS) uses a strategy known as “Zerstörung” to combat potential and actual adversaries before, during, after, or in place of incarceration.

Zerstörung was an entirely psychological instrument of tyranny, meant to cause uncertainty, panic, and terror while undermining people’s sense of self. According to Zersetzung, the state was superior to individuals and society.

In fact, all apparatus members were required to assist the Stasi.

Employees of the Stasi first started out in the private residence of a purported state enemy. The intended recipient needs to be initially unsettled in their own life.

Stasi agents broke into a private residence covertly multiple times, taking items out or rearranging them bit by bit until the resident started to question his sanity. They bugged entire apartments and phones.

To clarify, the purpose of bugging everyone is solely for their own amusement.

Targeted encroachment on one’s private space

The Stasi also had techniques for infiltrating intimate connections. It dealt with the breakdown of personal and familial ties.

It is best to foster mistrust by disseminating rumours, such as those concerning purported extramarital affairs.

Defamation and discrimination also contribute to the occurrence of professional failures.

Zerstörung aimed to induce chaos, immobility, and disintegration in adversary groups, and psychological unease, social seclusion, and reputational damage in individuals.

Zerstörung measures, always tailored to the unique personality structure of the individual target, addressed the relevant weaknesses of the so-called “enemies of socialism”.

Zerstörung sought to combat opposing ideologies, profoundly disrupt dissidents’ and socialist opponents’ personalities through psychological disintegration, and force a particular person to deal with himself on a continual basis.

Now you can picture the impact that had on people. The situation deteriorated to such an extent that some affected individuals chose to take their own lives.

Extra-jail Zerstörung measures frequently resulted in serious psychological harm.
For all the horror of the prison, at least the victim of political persecution knew where he was.

The Zerstörung victims endured ongoing attacks, uncertainty, and feelings of insecurity.

“Operational Psychology”

The concept of “operational psychology” laid the groundwork for the state-planned Zerstörung.

The GDR’s Ministry of State Security (MfS) employed this phrase. The state security apparatus intentionally exploited scientific methods from allied domains, including general, social, and clinical psychology.

At the Potsdam-Golm Department of Operational Psychology, senior officers studied psychological techniques.

These techniques included:

• Getting confessions while under arrest,
• Gathering intelligence both domestically and internationally.
• Acquiring informal or unofficial employees, and
• Connecting with and winning the trust of youth is crucial.

Zersetzungsmaßnahmen – Zersetzungs measures

Prior to the arrests, there was always some heightened repression.

Most arrests happened without notice. Unpredictably and abruptly, they took an unspecified number of individuals into custody.

A dark van in a cramped jail drove the arrested man around for hours until he lost his sense of direction. Then followed the dazzling brightness, the total undressing, the painstaking examination of every opening, the confusion between number and name, and the imprisonment in a sterile cell.

The use of specific interrogation techniques in conjunction with solitary confinement in the notorious state security detention facilities was the main focus.

A windowless, sound-proofed, two-by-three-meter empty cell housed the detainees in solitary confinement. Day or night, brilliant neon lights blaze.

Except for a small bed with a woolen blanket and a stinking pail, there was nothing in the cell, and there was no way to do anything.

The regulations were as follows:

• There is no interaction with the outside world.
• Only lying in bed at night,
• >Don’t talk to yourself.
• No exercise, and
• There should be no more than five steps per direction.

Hold on a moment, not even a little self-talk?

They were so afraid that they couldn’t think.

Just picture that fear.

Isolation: deliberately induced anguish and utter resignation

The guards could monitor the conduct at any moment through the door’s “spyhole.”

The prisoners had all of their senses completely cut off.

Depending on the individual’s instability, in these situations, evident symptoms can start to show up 48 hours after isolation, including a loss of sense of time and space, an inability to reason, apathy, melancholy, abrupt panic attacks, and even severe hallucinations.

In response to this event, many convicts experienced either total resignation or extreme terror.

The prison also engaged in drug manipulation.

Sometimes, questioning inmates took weeks.

This intentional seclusion was methodical.

Strict oversight measures also ensured that detainees would not encounter other detainees en route to interrogation.

Many inmates expressed that they constantly felt the need for questioning.

There was a reconciliation within the group of torturers.

The Stasi deliberately cultivated conditions of extreme powerlessness and hopelessness. Subsequently, during the persecuted personality’s investigations, this method was combined with the state’s ideological and pseudo-moral devaluations.

Furthermore, because the prisoner was eager to divulge information on other people at some point, it was assumed that they were morally tainted.

Political prisoners and other psychological torture victims frequently endured complex and unpleasant patterns of stimuli.

There were humiliations, as well as traumatic relationships with psychologically astute interrogators who were able to create a feeling of absolute hopelessness and powerlessness in prisoners.

One purposefully created uncertainty about the welfare of one’s own family or political friends.

Sexual attacks on political prisoners

After forcing a confession in this way, they were convicted and sent to the notorious prisons of the GDR. Violence, including sexual assaults on political prisoners, took place there regularly.

They frequently formed alliances with serious criminals.

Political prisoners were often at the mercy of brutal guards, who also formed coalitions with fellow prisoners.

Criminal prisoners assigned themselves to supervise political prisoners even during forced prison labour.

We can add the following to the list of hardships and agonies endured by those subjected to political persecution under the SED regime:

• Eavesdropping, monitoring, and the use of covert tactics aimed at causing unrest and destabilizing individuals are all part of the process.
• Generating a strong sense of guilt.
• State security arrested and tortured him / her in isolation.
• Separation from spouses and children, along with concern for the welfare of one’s own family, is a common occurrence.
• During their stay in the prison, inmates and/or prison staff’s assaults on their mental and physical well-being left them feeling threatened and afraid for their own lives and physical integrity.
• Being forced to work in a prison that poses a health risk and where private employees refuse to work; if the standard is not met, additional sanctions will be applied.

Release from prison in the former GDR, followed by re-traumatization

Re-traumatization can occur following a reunion, such as interactions with previous interrogators.

These various forms of stress that prisoners endure are all considered forms of psychological torture.

Psychological torture now causes just as much trauma as physical torture.

As I strolled through Berlin, I couldn’t help but sense a sense of observation and, truthfully, a sense of listening.

Well, who knows?

Chances to become a crypto or bitcoin millionaire are less than 1%.

Demand and desire are not in shortage when we see how many of us want to become millionaires, and it looks like the easiest way in the shortest period of time to become one is to invest in bitcoin or cryptocurrency.

Techopedia reports that 580 million people worldwide are investing in cryptocurrencies and bitcoins, with an encouraging percentage of these investors becoming millionaires. The remarkable figure of 88.200 millionaires represents less than 1% of the total number of investors.

To illustrate why investing in cryptocurrency or bitcoin won’t make you a millionaire, consider the reality that most people overlook: there are individuals who are adept at exploiting your money through Ponzi schemes.

This can happen when you invest in cryptocurrency or bitcoin, only to discover later that another successful businessperson has been arrested on a yacht, private jet, or is in hiding.

This narrative centres on Whiz Kid Sam Bankman-Fried, whose fraudulent activities, Ponzi schemes, and scams bear a striking resemblance to those of Ruja Ignatova, who embezzled 4.5 billion through her OneCoin cryptocurrency and bitcoin company.

About FTX

In late March 2024, a court found Sam Bankman-Fried, the creator of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, guilty of one of the largest financial scams in US history and sentenced him.

Former cryptocurrency sensation Bankman-Fried, who was well-known for his untidy curly hair and preference for shorts and T-shirts over business attire, has joined the ranks of “reputable” celebrities and fraudsters, including Jordan Belfort, the “Wolf of Wall Street,” and Bernie Madoff, who was convicted of serious financial crimes in the US.

After his company, FTX, failed in November 2022, preventing consumers from accessing their funds, Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency entrepreneur, received a 25-year prison sentence for embezzling billions of dollars from his clients.

But first, let’s go in order.

Sam Bankman-Fried: Who is he?

On March 5, 1992, Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried was born in Stanford, California. He goes as SBF. His parents are Stanford Law School professors. In 2014, he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics with a minor in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 2013, Bankman-Fried interned at a private trading company that dealt in foreign exchange-traded funds.

Following his graduation from MIT, he went back to his full-time job.

Bankman-Fried left this position in September 2017 and relocated to Berkeley, California, where he served as Director of Development for the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) from October to November of the same year.

Businessman Luke Ding and millionaire computer programmer Jaan Talin provided funding for Tara Hedley and Bankman-Fried to form Alameda Research, a quantitative trading company, in November 2017.

By 2021, Bankman-Fried owned ninety percent of Alameda Research. In January 2018, Bankman-Fried set up an arbitrage trade to profit from the higher price of bitcoin in Japan compared to other countries, moving up to $25 million a day.

In late 2018, after going to a cryptocurrency conference in Macau, he relocated to Hong Kong.

Bankman-Fried and every senior employee of FTKS moved to the Bahamas in September 2021 from Hong Kong.

Bankman-Fried and other business leaders gave testimony before the Financial Services Committee on December 8, 2021, regarding cryptocurrency sector regulation.

In May 2022, news broke that Bankman-owned Emergent Fidelity Technologies Ltd. had acquired a 7.6 percent stake in Robinhood Markets.

According to a September 2022 story, Bankman-Fried’s advisors made a financial offer to support Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.

Investment banker Michael Grimes stated in correspondence that Bankman-Fried would be willing to contribute up to $5 billion on April 25, 2022, according to documents made public as part of a litigation between Twitter and Musk during the Twitter acquisition.

Nevertheless, when Musk finished the transaction, there was no investment.

In addition to investing more than $500 million in venture capital firms, such as $200 million in Sequoia Capital, which is also an investor in FTKS, Bankman-Fried spent $500 million in Anthropic.

A “flawed and at times dystopian” initiative, according to reports that surfaced in July 2023, involved Bankman-Fried “buying” the island country of Nauru to serve as a bunker in the event of a cataclysmic disaster.

Bankman-Fried, known as the “crypto king,” lives the life of a billionaire, with his business headquartered in the Bahamas.

Forbes ranked him second among the world’s richest cryptobillionaires in February 2022.

His estimated wealth is 24 billion dollars, with FTX alone valued at around 32 billion. Through Alameda, FTX, and venture capital funds, he invests at least 500 million dollars in hundreds of other firms and initiatives.

He donates to both politicians and different humanitarian organisations, and everything appears to be perfect—that is, until the general public learns about the dubious origins of his cryptocurrency empire.

In addition, he regularly makes contributions to political parties and has given Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign about $5 million in support.

It’s all a fraud.

FTX…CZ…WTF?

The investigation showed that Alameda Research bases its financial sheet on the FTT token, which the FTX exchange produces.

A portion of their holdings consist of salt pans and other tokens, but the connections to FTX are especially questionable and imply that the SBF empire as a whole is bloated and may even be bankrupt.

Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the CEO of Binance and owner of a sizable quantity of FTT tokens, becomes embroiled in the narrative shortly afterwards when he decides to swiftly sell off that token.

Not only has the sale begun, but panic and public mistrust of FTX are also increasing. Furthermore, the disclosure reveals that FTX invested a portion of the funds in their endeavours, a strong indication of a Ponzi scheme or other fraudulent operation.

Thus, the prophecy of insolvency becomes self-fulfilling: FTX clients start withdrawing their cash out of fear of losing them, which quickly led to this exchange becoming insolvent.

And that’s only the beginning of the story: the whole market, their token, and their assets are all worthless.

After announcing that it would acquire FTX, Binance suddenly pulls out of the deal, citing the finding of suspicious transactions and client fraud. Even FTX stops running on a regular basis.

Some now blame Binance for deliberately undermining its rival, while others note that they were aware of FTX’s operational issues. They allege that Bankman-Fried invested billions of dollars’ worth of his clients’ deposits in Alameda, and when those bets failed, he had nothing left to distribute to his clients.

Subsequently, Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO, and FTX and 130 affiliated companies declared official bankruptcy.

Authorities in the United States and the Bahamas are investigating him, and he allegedly attempted to escape to one of the nations from which he was not eligible for extradition.

Investors who bought cryptocurrency through FTX remain uncertain about the existence of their money, and whether they will ever see their investments in digital wallets within that firm.

Experts believe that one to two billion dollars have disappeared, and it’s likely that the majority of the ten billion dollars secretly transferred to the Alameda business also vanished.

Clinton, Blair, and Katy Perry are next in line

He became something of an industry spokesperson for the whole cryptocurrency space, showing up side by side in shorts and baggy t-shirts with Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gisele Bundchen, and Katy Perry at the very moment the business was starting to take off.

The fact that Bankman-Fried appeared to shun the level of extravagance his wealth permitted added to his mystery. He drove an outdated Toyota Corolla; he didn’t own a yacht.

“In a strange way, he seemed like a grown man in the crypto world.”

Trial

Two different accounts developed during the course of the trial, which lasted four weeks, two different accounts developed. In one case, the previous mogul was an intelligent but foolish specialist whose oversights as CEO caused massive scams to occur right in front of him.

With the assistance of former members of his inner circle, Bankman-Fried quickly embezzled billions of dollars from clients, believing he would remain undetected.

Both accounts show how closely the reputation of FTX’s creator, whose magnetic personality drew billionaire investors, former presidents, and famous people into his orbit, contributed to the company’s success.

Throughout the Manhattan trial, Bankman-Fried’s attorneys portrayed their client as a math nerd who was crushed by his expanding enterprise.

At the podium, now dressed in a suit and sporting short hair, Bankman-Fried assigned some of the blame to Ellison, who entered a guilty plea to fraud, for not following his directive to “protect” the shareholding and, thus, Alameda from a market slump.

The prosecution, on the other hand, painted Bankman-Fried as a person whose conceit and unbridled desire combined to cause him to defraud his business.

 

“He thought there was a 5% chance he would one day become President of the United States.”

 

The phrase “the defendant gambled with clients’ money” kept coming up.

Former members of Bankman-Fried’s close circle, such as Ellison, the CEO of Alameda, and his childhood friend Nishad Singh, who was Bankman-Fried’s younger brother’s childhood pal, all contributed to his defeat in court.

They stated in court that Bankman-Fried led them into fraud and set up connections between Alameda and FTX so he could use FTX as his personal piggy bank, all the while vowing to safeguard client cash and clean up the cryptocurrency sector.

His rise was propelled by money.

Along with helping to pay off Alameda’s enormous debts, he also made real estate investments, stock market investments worth billions, and political contributions totalling almost $100 million.

Ellison asserted that he staged his physical appearance, viewing his inexpensive automobile and dishevelled haircut as “good for his image,” as they gave him a more genuine aspect than the average stockbroker. But Ellison contended that his modest demeanour concealed his tremendous ambition.

“He thought there was a 5% chance he would one day become President of the United States.”.

Who knows? Maybe he will become one someday—power, money, and politics are all intertwined, right?

Once upon a time…

This is how every fairy tale starts: once upon a time, there was a Prince, 7 dwarfs, unicorn and happy ending.

And here is the story of a fake Prince who lived and still lives in our day; he pretended to be king for years, but was finally revealed and sentenced…

This is the tale of Anthony Gignac’s exposure as a fake Saudi Prince.

Who is Anthony Gignac, also known as ace “Prince Khalid”?

Anthony Enrique Gignac (José Moreno) was born in Colombia in 1970. Anthony and his younger brother, Daniel, were born in Colombia and orphaned at a young age.

Gignac’s rough childhood and his forced job as a carer for his brother have been considered contributing factors to his subsequent criminality.

In 1977, at the age of six, the United States adopted Gignac and his brother.

Criminal life

Gignac began impersonating royalty at the age of 12, convincing a salesman at a Mercedes dealership to let him test drive a car by claiming to be the son of a Saudi Prince.

Consider a twelve-year-old boy as an example. He didn’t stop at these con games, though.

Using the identity “Prince Adnan Khashoggi” at first and then “Prince Al Saud” later, Gignac has been detained eleven times since 1988 for scams in which he pretended to be a member of Saudi or Middle Eastern royalty.

The LA Times dubbed him the “Prince of Fraud” in 1991 after a scam that resulted in a two-year prison sentence and involved him falsely accruing large hotel and limousine bills while claiming that members of the Saudi royal family would pay them.

Throughout the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, Gignac persisted in committing similar frauds, running up debts totalling tens of thousands of US dollars and forcing costly “gifts” out of victims under the pretence of making advantageous transactions in the future.

Under the guise of the real Prince Al Saud, he was able to persuade American Express to issue him a platinum card with a $200 million credit limit once, claiming that his old card had been lost and that refusing to give him a new one would infuriate his putative father, the King.

I wonder, along with you, how this is possible.

In 2003, authorities detained Gignac for allegedly attempting to charge $29,000 in department store fees to the account of the real Prince Al Saud. In 2006, the court found him guilty and sentenced him to 77 months in prison.

Gignac admitted during his interrogation that he had an illicit gay encounter with a real Saudi Prince and that the royal family had offered him a real line of credit as hush money.

In 2015, Gignac founded Marden Williamson International in collaboration with Carl Marden Williamson, a North Carolina business partner.

Gignac used the company to raise money for a number of fictitious foreign investment opportunities, including an alleged Saudi corporate private offering.

In 2017, Gignac contacted billionaire Jeffrey Soffer with the intention of purchasing a $440 million holding in the Fontainebleau Hotel.

At first, Soffer accepted Gignac’s deceit, giving him flights in his private jet and spending more than $50,000 on jewellery as gifts to gain the so-called Prince’s favour.

But after witnessing the alleged Muslim Prince order pork at a restaurant, Soffer started to have doubts about Gignac. He then hired a private security company to look into Gignac, which eventually revealed his true identity and resulted in his imprisonment.

The fact that the truth always finds a way to surface and cannot be suppressed—as we all know—meant that “Prince Khalid” could have known his mask would be blown.

A charade in Aspen

In the foyer of the St. Regis hotel in Aspen, “Prince Khalid” bin al-Saud was having a violent tantrum, screaming and cursing about a transgression against him: disrespect.

He cried out, “You have insulted my honor!” “My father, the king, is going to be furious!” You don’t conduct business with royalty in this manner!

This reminds me of a scene from a movie. Allow me to pause for a second.

The Prince, the son of the Saudi king, was accustomed to receiving respect.

A few days prior, he had arrived in Aspen on billionaire Jeffrey Soffer’s private plane, with the intention of selling him thirty percent of the renowned Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach for $440 million.

Now, with Foxy, his diamond-encrusted Chihuahua, by his side, the Prince was growling at Soffer’s emissaries and threatening to sue them for their arrogance.

There was an apparent reason for the outburst.

Soffer’s team was about to reveal the Prince’s secret—that he was not actually a member of the Saudi royal family.

He was not even a king.

He was a serial con artist, whose true name was Anthony Enrique Gignac. He was a Colombian orphan, adopted by a Michigan family, and had embarked on an extraordinary 30-year ruse.

Pork discovered him

Sofer and his family became suspicious of Gignac after seeing him purchase prosciutto at a restaurant, as pork is forbidden to Muslims.

Muslims do not consume pork.

The next major red light came when Gignac misled Soffer’s staff into believing he controlled the entire structure, including all 54 luxury units, in the exclusive 216-acre Miami enclave.

However, a Miami insider informed Gignac that Soffer’s team was interested in his Miami holdings.

Gignac must have realised he was in trouble. If they discover he rents one unit and does not own the complex, he lied.

The gift

Gignac, aware of the potential for exposure, intensified the deception. He threatened to withdraw from the agreed-upon investment, claiming that if they wanted to reset everything and keep him in the game, they needed to give him a gift.

Imagine how much courage, or, to use a harsher term, “the balls.” one would need to continue playing this game.

The Prince frequently clarified that lavish gifts were a token of respect and a component of the Middle Eastern negotiation process.

Soffer had already gifted him pricey artwork, a $5,000 dog collar set with diamonds, and other mementoes for Foxy.

His Highness now desired a more expensive item. “It must be $50,000 or more.”

Over lunch the following day, Soffer and his group gave the Prince a $50,000 Cartier bracelet.

Gignac answered with his gift in hand, sharpening his deceit even more.

The insider asserts, “He either receives a phone call or pretends to receive one.” Then, in an odd code, he says something like ‘Zulu Red Echo 33.’ He then informs the entire table, “That was the State Department, and they are checking on me.”

Because I wear a computer chip around my neck, they always know where I am.

His manager then adds, “I also have a chip in my neck.” Carl then asks, “See that guy right there?” pointing to an unidentified patron of the eatery. The Secret Service employs him.

Because of the peculiar nature of all the transactions, Soffer’s team began to believe that he was involved in a scam.

Consequently, they assembled a team under the leadership of former federal agent Page, who carried out an investigation and revealed that Gignac’s claimed diplomatic status was false.

Agent Page received the response, “No.!” in just two words when he contacted a buddy who is a member of the Saudi royal family to find out if Gignac was truly a Prince.

On Google, Page also looked up the diplomatic license plate on Gignac’s Ferrari. He claims to have received a pop-up advertisement encouraging him to purchase the exact licence plate on eBay for $79, which is indeed where Gignac had found it.

According to the findings of Page and his study team, Gignac “truly thought he was this persona that he made up.”

1. The initial step in the scam was to associate with influential individuals.

2. That made it easier for the scam to swindle investors out of their money in the second part.

To assert his closeness to the Soffer family, he made an effort to establish a rapport with them. When he meets with potential investors, it gives him legitimacy.

Rotten teeth and hair

They initiated an inquiry after composing a comprehensive report and delivering it to the FBI and the prosecutor.

After presenting the case to two operatives, they immediately recognized the scraggly-toothed Prince with the bowl haircut as a fake.

“What really gave him away were his teeth,” he says, “because Saudi Arabians and other Middle Eastern royalty take good care of their teeth.”

In this instance, it is quite odd and astounding how one individual was able to trick people for such a long time.

Not only did common people entrust him with their life resources for fictitious investments, but multimillionaires and accomplished businessmen, who are accustomed to undertaking substantial tasks and possess teams to manage all their investments, also trusted him.

Agents found that Gignac was travelling on someone else’s passport in addition to pretending to be a diplomat—a charge for which he had been arrested in Michigan in 2003.

They began following him on his circuitous journey from Dubai to Hong Kong to London, and when he arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport with a substantial sum of cash in his possession last year, they took him into custody.

Gignac was remarkable to those who investigated and prosecuted him for his ability to fully assume the Princely role. Jordan remarks, “The guy is a master with people.”” He fulfills the role, whatever it may be at that particular time.

Approximately half of the pricey jewellery Gignac was flaunting on Instagram turned out to be phoney, the agents found. In order to maintain appearances, he frequently purchased the cheapest Rolexes available and had a jeweller sell them cheap diamonds.

Under various guises, he rented or borrowed expensive automobiles and yachts, which he eventually said he was “tired” of when they vanished.

One component of Gignac’s con even pleased the Diplomatic Security Service agents.

A child, who appeared to be around nine or ten years old, approached one of them while they were carrying out the search warrant on his Fisher Island condo. He questioned, “Are you a D.S.S. agent?”

The agent was surprised; most individuals had never heard of the D.S.S. “How did you know that?” he insisted.

“Oh,” the boy replied. “The prince living up there has D.S.S. agents.”

The prince had given his personal bodyguards phoney Diplomatic Security Service credentials to pin on their lapels. “We looked at Gignac’s counterfeit badges,” a source told me, “And they looked better than the real thing.”

Epilogue

Anthony Enrique Gignac is a convicted fraudster and scam artist. Over a 30-year career, Gignac employed affluent, high-ranking personas, most notably Saudi Prince Khalid bin Al Saud, to fraudulently gain funding in a succession of schemes, presenting them as supported by a huge personal fortune.

After defrauding investors of $8.1 million, Gignac was arrested in 2017 after billionaire Jeffery Soffer, the owner of the Fontainebleau Hotel (in which Gignac had falsely claimed to be investing), became suspicious of the alleged Muslim Prince ordering pork at a restaurant.

He was imprisoned for more than 18 years in 2019.

How easy it is to deceive people; how readily we take things for granted and fail to think or ask questions; how easily we believe what we see on social media…

How naive are we?