Original subtitles

[electronic beat playing]

[narrator] Sex is one of the oldest tools in espionage.

She used sexual favors

to make friends in high places.

[narrator] Deception is key.

[man] He did use men to seduce women, or women to seduce men

um, in order to obtain intelligence.

That is the classic case of a honey trap.

[narrator] The honey trap is a technique used to lure in a target.

If they weren't married they were lonely.

[narrator] In the world of espionage, anything goes.

She never knew the meaning of the word no.

[narrator] For spies, secrets are obtained by all means necessary.

[theme music playing]

[narrator] For as long as there's been espionage,

there have been spies willing to use sex as a weapon.

To set traps,

blackmail,

and extract national secrets.

Sex and espionage are as linked as sex and life.

In a study of espionage cases,

if you want to say,

is there a sexual component in almost every one?

The answer is absolutely.

[narrator] One case in 2018

illustrates both the power of seduction

and a new breed of deep cover Russian intelligence officer

known as an illegal.

During a spy spree that prosecutors said spanned nearly a decade,

Russia's Maria Butina targeted elements of the Republican party

including the National Rifle Association, the NRA.

[Keith Melton] She simply proclaimed she was a gun rights advocate,

hunter from Russia.

She befriended people in the National Rifle Association.

[narrator] In its legal complaint,

the government alleged Butina sought ties to the Republican Party

in order to advance Russian interests

within the U.S. government.

Some agents try to stay under the radar.

But Butina, she was hiding in plain sight.

Her calling cards were photos that combined her love for guns

with sex appeal.

Prosecutors say the pictures were bait.

What's unusual and unique to the world of espionage

is when sex is used as a tool to recruit someone,

or it's used as a tool to control someone, or to blackmail them,

and we call that sexpionage.

And when done very effectively,

it can be a very effective tool.

[narrator] Butina, a special assistant to Alexander Torshin, Russian politician,

moved around the United States on a student visa.

Butina flew back to Russia to debrief in person,

and also used private encoded apps

to communicate the details of her U.S. encounters

to handlers back in Moscow.

Spies often send and receive encrypted messages

via popular services like WhatsApp,

which offers users government level security.

In encrypted messages,

the person writing or receiving sees normal text,

but the site operator or anyone else looking at intercepting the postings

will see a garbled string of letters and numbers.

To view the message normally, you need an encryption key.

Butina sent thousands of tweets back to her handler in Russia.

It was later revealed

that the FBI viewed Butina's activities with suspicion all along.

And on the night President Trump was elected,

took notice when she tweeted her handler back in Russia and wrote,

"I am ready for further orders."

[electronic beeping]

A federal judge in Washington D.C.

sentenced 30-year-old Butina to 18 months in prison.

In a plea deal, the Russian national pled guilty to charges of conspiracy

to act as an unregistered foreign agent of the Russian state

and was deported back to Russia.

The Butina story has all the hallmarks of modern espionage.

But using sex to gather clandestine information

is a technique that has existed for as long as there have been spies.

In the modern era, the woman who became synonymous with sexpionage

was a Dutch courtesan and exotic dancer

named Margaretha Zelle, better known as Mata Hari.

She's been described as the ultimate femme fatale spy.

However, historical records indicate

she may not have been quite as prolific a spy as many believed.

Mata Hari was a sensation in Paris in the 1900s,

and is said to have had many lovers from among the European aristocracy

including high-ranking military officers, politicians, and other influential men.

But by World War I,

the now 40-year-old Mata Hari had fallen in love

with a 23-year-old Russian aviator captain named Vadim Maslov

who served with the French.

When Maslov was shot down and badly wounded,

Mata Hari's attempts to visit him in the hospital were blocked by the French

who made her a deal.

She could see Maslov only if she agreed to be a spy.

Her task was to seduce the German crown prince Wilhelm

and obtain German military secrets.

According to French prosecutors,

Mata Hari used secret, invisible ink hidden in makeup containers

to communicate with her contacts in Berlin.

The French found out and accused her of treason.

On October 15th, 1917,

Mata Hari was shot to death by a firing squad.

According to eyewitnesses, she looked her executioners in the eye,

and in one final, defiant move,

blew them all a kiss.

Mata Hari was a celebrity even before her execution.

But it's often the ordinary, mid-level worker

who makes the best target for sexpionage,

a theory tested and proven by Markus Wolf.

Markus Wolf was, uh…

the head of the East German intelligence service, the Stasi.

He put the service together at the end of the Second World War.

[Melton] He was the expert

and the most successful

exploiter of sexpionage in the Cold War.

He spoke multiple languages.

He was tall, urbane, intellectual…

Very shrewd politician.

One might argue that he was the most effective spymaster of the Cold War.

[narrator] During the Cold War from 1947 to 1990,

Germany was split into Communist East and Capitalist West,

with the Berlin Wall dividing the city in two.

It was crucial for the East to know what their enemies were thinking.

To do this, Markus Wolf spearheaded a program

involving seasoned agents he called "The Romeos" in 1970.

[Melton] Wolf's concept was,

"I want them to fall in love because then we can accomplish anything."

Romeos were the most successful sexual operation of the Cold War.

And the Romeo's purpose would be to go to the clubs,

the social areas that the secretaries from the NATO,

from the government buildings went,

and he had been selected because he was affable,

the life of the party, well-groomed, plenty of money,

and he would be the center of attention,

and the women would be drawn to him.

We know of stories of a number of women, particularly in West Germany,

who work for the government,

that had very empty lives on the personal level.

They didn't have a man in their life, they weren't married, they were lonely.

And, of course, the East Germans who ran the Stasi,

which was a very successful

and aggressive intelligence agency, knew this,

and they were able to pick out certain men

that would work to capitalize on this deficit,

this internal sense of womanly failure

of not being able to attract a man into their life,

and fulfill them that way.

His ideal woman was first,

did she have access to secret information they needed?

But secondly, and had she perhaps seen all of her friends married,

and having children, and having this wonderful life,

while she was sitting home alone?

Because once he selected her,

she would feel that she was the belle of the ball.

And Markus created several steps for the recruitment that are brilliant.

The first was have the target approach the agent.

The second is pursue the relationship and make it intimate.

The third was

confess to your new girlfriend that you are a spy.

But…

tell her you're a spy from Canada.

Or some other country that's not seen as hostile to West Germany.

The next step was marry the woman.

[delicate, tense music plays]

They would bring in a Catholic priest

who was actually an East German intelligence officer,

they would have a sham marriage.

[narrator] One of the most successful targets Wolf managed to co-opt

was Gabriele Kliem.

Gabriele was a secretary at the American Embassy

in Bonn, West Germany,

and had access to top secret documents when she was approached by Frank Ditzel,

a Stasi Romeo, who she ended up falling in love with.

Ditzel convinced her that he would be recalled to his country

unless he supplied them with information.

Gabriele agreed to help.

She was provided a handbag with a secret compartment

where she could hide documents and sneak them out of the U.S. Embassy.

She'd photograph the documents at home, then give the roll of film to Ditzel,

who turned them over to the German Stasi.

They included secret intelligence on armed supplies

and military movements coordinated between West Germany

and the United States.

In 1978, Markus had more than 40

individual Romeo recruitments operating in the west.

And it was one of the most very successful concepts ever used.

Because he realized people aren't motivated by blackmail,

they'll dispense with any sense of reality,

and they can justify anything if they think they're doing it for love.

[narrator] Gabriele's relationship with Ditzel ended in 1984,

but she had supplied him with confidential information

hidden in various objects for six years.

By 1991, her espionage activities had been discovered.

Documents revealed that Gabriele had passed along

over 1500 documents to the Communists.

They also revealed that the Stasi was using her

as part of a false flag project,

meaning she believed she was giving the information

to a western agency the whole time.

Gabriele was charged with espionage

and received a two-year suspended sentence.

Markus Wolf died in 2006.

[sensuous music playing]

As men like Markus Wolf know, sexpionage is personal.

It involves preying on people's most vulnerable acts and secrets.

And maybe no sexpionage technique better combines the personal

and the vulnerable than the honey trap.

THE CENTURY

[Christopher Costa] A honey trap is a term of art

for using, perhaps, a member of the opposite sex

to lure you into a relationship,

and ultimately, it's a setup.

Perhaps you will be compromised for that relationship.

Perhaps a diplomat that isn't allowed to have contact with a foreigner

would meet a woman,

and then be filmed during some kind of liaison,

and that would be used to blackmail the diplomat.

That is the classic case of a honey trap.

[narrator] The honey trap is a well-used technique by intelligence services

to gain information or to entrap and discredit an adversary.

Kompromat was the purpose of a 15-minute video clip

uploaded to a website in Romania's capital of Bucharest.

The target, Ion Nuica, a married man,

and Romania's consul to the Republic of Moldova,

a country in Eastern Europe.

It shows Nuica having sex with an employee

of the Romanian consulate in Moldova.

The secret recording was obtained via a pinhole video camera

concealed in the baseboard in the corner of the room.

The footage was evidently designed to affect his parliamentary reelection,

which it did. Nuica resigned.

If kompromat were an art,

experts say that Russians would be masters.

It's believed hotels in Moscow frequented by dignitaries and businessmen

almost always contain rooms that are used for kompromat.

It's likely if the Intelligence Service wants to get you to a room,

they upgrade you to a room that's been specially modified for collection.

[narrator] In 2009, James Hudson, the deputy council general

at the British consulate in Russia, was allegedly lured into a honey trap

by organized crime, and the Russian intelligence service,

and secretly recorded.

The recordings, entitled Adventures of Mr. Hudson in Russia,

shows Hudson having sex with two prostitutes in a brothel

in the city of Ekaterinburg.

Investigators uncovered two covert cameras inside the room.

One, about the size of a U.S. penny,

concealed in the upper right corner of the room,

the other, inside the television set directly across from the couch.

The four-minute, 18-second video was posted to local news websites,

reportedly to send a message,

that if you didn't cooperate you'd be taught a lesson.

Hudson resigned.

But not every honey trap involves overt compromise.

Take the true story of Chinese opera singer

and French diplomat,

which continues to prove stranger than fiction.

In 1964, Bernard Boursicot was working as an accountant

at the newly opened French Embassy in Beijing when he met Shi Pei Pu,

a writer and actress.

Boursicot fell in love.

Their relationship turned sexual,

always carried out quickly and in the dark,

as Boursicot later recalled.

Chinese authorities uncovered Boursicot's affair

and threatened to reveal it to the world

unless he passed along French state secrets.

What's very interesting is when sex becomes a component

that either motivates, rewards,

or controls the spy.

And clever intelligent services use that very, very effectively.

[narrator] Between 1969 and '79,

Boursicot handed more than 500 secret documents to the Chinese.

And then, in 1983, Boursicot and Shi were arrested.

That's when all of Shi Pei Pu's secrets were finally revealed.

[Murray] The French were never really sure

whether the French lover ever knew Shi was a man.

[narrator] When Boursicot learned the truth,

he attempted suicide, but survived.

In 1986, Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu were sentenced to six years in prison.

A year later, they were both pardoned.

THE "MATA HARI" WAS A MAN

There's no doubt that the Cold War was a high point for sexpionage.

Nevertheless, the thaw in relations between East and West

didn't mean the end of the honey trap.

Russia's been sending agents to the U.S. since the early '80s

to build contacts and gain access.

These agents are called illegals by U.S. intelligence.

Their mission: assume new identities and build contacts

with academics, industrialists, and policymakers

to gain access to intelligence.

By 2010, the FBI had ten spies,

nicknamed the Russian Ten, on their radar.

Some of the spies assumed the cover of ordinary suburbanites.

Another earned a degree from Harvard.

And yet another became a minor fixture on New York's social scene.

She was a beautiful 28-year-old from the industrial city of Volgograd.

Her given name was Anna Kushchenko,

but in New York, everyone knew her as Anna Chapman.

[Melton] Anna Chapman came to the United States

in early 2010.

While she was here, she had at least five significant lovers.

It is believed that they were selected by their abilities to pay her bills.

[narrator] In New York, Chapman was the head of a real estate company.

In a city filled with pricey properties, it seemed like the perfect cover.

[Melton] It is expressly believed that she came here with the intention

to use her good looks and her favors as a recruitment tool

because she wanted to work her way up the ladder into New York society

and eventually try to penetrate people of influence and power,

and hopefully do the same thing in Washington D.C.

So Anna saw sex as a tool,

and apparently had very little qualms in employing it as a tool.

[narrator] Anna set up social media accounts,

and posted pictures of herself at parties across Manhattan,

letting prospective victims know that she was up for anything.

[Melton] When the FBI went and questioned her significant boyfriends

that she had had during the months she was here,

they asked each of the five boyfriends, the first five,

"Would… With everything you know now,

would you go out with her again?"

And before they could finish the sentence,

the answer was "Yes."

Said, "But, why?"

Said, "She never knew the meaning of the word no.

Virtually anything you wanted,

that was fine with Anna."

[narrator] After luring men to bed, Anna would report back to Moscow

from coffee shops and other public venues.

Ultimately, her gamble that she could hide in plain sight proved unwise.

Well, Anna Chapman wasn't confident in her training

and that was part of her downfall.

Anna Chapman used a laptop computer.

She was very uncomfortable with the technology that she had,

which really underscored that she probably didn't have the training that she needed

to act as an illegal working against the United States

here in the United States.

[narrator] By 2010, the FBI had evidence against eight of the Russian Ten.

Anna was one of them.

During a sting operation,

an FBI agent posing as a Russian operative

gave Anna a fake passport

to pass along to another operative.

The agent told Anna to introduce herself to her contact by saying,

"Excuse me, but didn't we meet in California last summer?"

The contact was to reply:

"No, I think it was the Hamptons."

When Anna took the passport, and agreed to take the job,

alarm bells went off.

She communicated back to Russia to ask for some assistance,

and additionally, the other disadvantage she had is

an FBI undercover agent interacted with her,

and she shared a lot of information that she should have protected,

and ultimately that led to her demise, and her ultimately being arrested.

[narrator] FBI agents followed Anna's every move,

and monitored her communications closely,

and finally arrested her.

On July 8th, 2010, Anna Chapman was flown back to Moscow

as part of a spy swap between the U.S. and Russia.

Back in her home country, the sexy spy stayed in the limelight,

posing for men's magazines, walking the catwalk in fashion shows,

and even hosting a reality TV show.

Sex can be used as a tool for espionage,

but it's also been used to track terrorists.

One such operation involved a Danish motorcycle gang member named Morten Storm.

[tense music playing]

Morten Storm is cherub faced, jovial, outgoing, happy-go-lucky.

The kind of person you'd expect to meet in an Irish pub,

and one would want to sit there and drink with him.

[narrator] But young Morten would never be found in an Irish pub.

Or any pub, for that matter.

During a stint in jail, he discovered and converted to Islam.

When he was in his 20s,

Storm moved to the UK

where he studied with the likes of Zacarias Moussaoui,

known as the 20th 9/11 hijacker,

and Richard Reid, who later tried to blow up an airplane

with explosives hidden in his shoes.

Storm made several trips to Yemen to learn Arabic.

While there, he met senior Al-Qaeda members

and became a close confidant to Anwar al-Awlaki.

[Melton] Anwar al-Awlaki was a U.S. citizen

and one of the most effective recruiters for Al-Qaeda.

His YouTube videos were responsible for bringing many people

to the cause and radicalizing them.

He was in touch with the Fort Hood shooter, Major Hasan.

He is one of the individuals involved with the famed underwear bomber

that tried to bring down the commercial flight over Detroit.

He was a charismatic mastermind.

He was an imam at one of the mosques outside of Washington, D.C.

At one time, he was celebrated as an example of a moderate,

articulate member of the Islamic faith.

When his true colors showed, and he took to Yemen,

and he prosecuted terrorist war there,

he became a target of the United States.

And there was a reward put on his life.

And there was a reward offered to someone

that could ultimately help identify his location.

[narrator] The CIA, working with Danish intelligence and MI5,

approached Storm with a mission that merged sex and secrecy in equal parts,

al-Awlaki wanted a bride.

And they wanted Morten to find one for him.

The CIA offered him a $250,000 reward

to find a bride and take the bride

with a piece of tracking electronics down to Yemen.

[typing]

[narrator] Morten found the perfect match on Facebook.

Morten went onto Facebook, kind of a fan book page,

and found a woman that spoke gushingly over Anwar al-Awlaki,

the sheik, they called him.

And he found an attractive woman in former Eastern Europe who,

young, mid-20s, blonde, attractive,

and was gushing over her praise for him.

Morten sent her a message and said he would like to speak with her,

he had a message coming from Anwar al-Awlaki.

And she was kind of in disbelief, but she agreed to meet with him.

To put her at ease, he traveled, Morten traveled with his wife,

and he met with her in a hotel.

And as proof, he brought a video from Anwar al-Awlaki.

[in Arabic] May peace and blessings of God be upon you.

This recording is done specifically for Sister Aminah at her request,

and…

the brother who's carrying this recording is a trustworthy brother,

the brother that is communicating with you. So…

She thought about it, said, "I'd like you to tape my reply."

She has her head dresses on, and she says, "I'm very nervous.

I understand, and yes,

but I'd also like to send you a private message."

She asks Morten to leave the room, and then she takes off her headscarf.

Brother, this is me without the headscarf,

so you can see my hair, I described it to you before.

So now you see me without it and I hope you will be pleased with it.

[in Arabic] God willing.

[narrator] Al-Awlaki's bride was eager to meet her new husband.

She packed her most precious belongings for her trip to Yemen.

Little did she know, the CIA had outfitted her suitcase

with a special tracking device.

The digital tracker transmitted the exact location of the suitcase.

The minute al-Awlaki met his new bride, the CIA would know his exact whereabouts.

Tracking devices are a spy's best friend.

Today, global positioning systems, or GPS,

use information from orbiting satellites

to determine the exact longitude and latitude of a receiving device

to compute and track a person's every move on Earth.

Tracking devices can easily be concealed in everything from your cell phone

to air fresheners and stickers placed in everyday objects,

including someone's suitcase.

Al-Awlaki's bride flew to Yemen,

and then walked into a hotel carrying the specially outfitted suitcase.

Just as she expected, al-Awlaki's men greeted her.

And then, a sudden change of plans.

When the sheik's men came for her in the hotel,

they made her discard all of her luggage, and all of her electronics,

and she could only take items of clothing in a clear plastic bag.

And so she went on and ultimately joined him.

[narrator] The suitcase, and the tracker inside, were discarded.

The plan failed.

Or did it?

One year later, a drone strike blew up a truck al-Awlaki was traveling in,

killing him instantly.

To this day, Morten maintains that it was his work as a matchmaker

that led the CIA to al-Awlaki, a claim the Americans reject.

As for al-Awlaki's bride,

she remained in Yemen and kept up with her late husband's work,

spreading terror across the globe.

She stayed in Yemen and became the editor

for the English language terrorist magazine, Inspire.

And it's this magazine that published the famous article,

How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mother,

that served as the instruction manual for the Boston bombers,

and the steam cooker bomb that they designed there.

[people screaming]

[narrator] From ancient times to the present day…

from the far reaches of the planet…

to centers of western power,

and from the briefing room to the bedroom,

sexpionage remains and will always be the simplest

and most enduring method of spycraft.

Sexpionage…

is neutral.

It can be used by and against men or women.

Each has vulnerabilities,

and a very clever intelligence service can exploit it.

[atmospheric music playing]