Spying is back like it never left


Counter-intelligence officers around the world have had their hands full lately, dealing with a string of high-profile espionage cases.

Just in the past few weeks:

  • 🇹🇼 A lieutenant-colonel in the Taiwanese Army was arrested for allegedly recruiting spies on behalf of China
  • 🇺🇸 Two junior officers in the US Navy were arrested on charges of passing sensitive information to Beijing, and
  • 🇩🇪 On Wednesday (9 August), a German government official was arrested for sharing national security info with Russia.

And those are just the ones we know of…

Intrigue’s take: Spying has been around for millennia, but nations tend to place a premium on doing it (and catching it) when the stakes are highest. With a war in Europe and jitters in the Indo-Pacific, the stakes are pretty high right now.

And these latest cases are a reminder that, even as nations lean more on cyber-spying from afar, there’s still a role for the ol’ trench-coat and fake ‘stache.

Also worth noting: