All language subtitles for The.Honey.Trap.A.True.Story.Of.Love.Lies.And.The.FBI.2024.1080p.WEB.H264-SCENE

♪ Intense music plays ♪

Good
evening, my fellow Americans.

First, I should like
to express my gratitude

to the radio and
television networks

for the opportunities they
have given me over the years

to bring reports and
messages to our nation.

We annually spend
on military security alone,

more than the net income of
all United States corporations.

In the councils of government,

we must guard against

the acquisition of
unwarranted influence,

whether sought or unsought

by the military-industrial
complex.

President
Eisenhower used the term

military-industrial complex
in his farewell address,

and what that referred to
is this increasing alliance

between our industrial capacity

in the United States
and the military.

War is fought
on the battlefields

with kinetic energy
and kinetic weapons,

but also, it's
fought in the mind.

It's fought in public opinion.

It's fought through public
relations and propaganda.

The military-entertainment
complex,

as a term, is
playing off of that.

It's suggesting that a similar
kind of alliance is forming,

not with industrial powers,
but with entertainment powers.

The really powerful
storytelling mechanism

that is Hollywood,

speaks to a
different part of us.

It speaks to an
emotional register.

It is the most powerful
storytelling mechanism

ever devised by human beings.

In the invasion of Iraq,

we found out a lot about
how the military massages

and manipulates those industries

to get its message out.

We must stop the terror.

Now, watch this drive.

Do you
trust this person?

Yes, I do.

Combat
boots and fatigues,

mingled with
stilettos and bling.

Good evening, Achmed.

Good evening... infidel.

But, if you
can get history written

in Hollywood celluloid,

then you've really done your
job in selling the public

on the story that
you wanna tell.

In
the battle of Iraq,

the United States and our
allies have prevailed.

There are large dominant

military-entertainment
complexes out there,

but there's a lot
of small ones too

that are vying for
attention and brain space.

And ISIS is one of them.

ISIS has released

a new propaganda video.

This production
displays glossy camera work

and high-level
production techniques.

The ISIS PR machine

is constantly making sure

the world is aware.

Denis
Cuspert is his real name,

a former German rapper,

a notorious ISIS
fighter and recruiter.

Allahu Akbar.

He was the face of ISIS.

There were no celebrities
in ISIS except for him.

They would put him on YouTube.

They would put him
everywhere, all the time.

They were constantly
broadcasting Denis.

Denis Cuspert had,
you know, basically

rock star status in ISIS.

This individual had
a relative free rein

to encourage and
recruit others online.

When I met
Denis the first time,

I could see he was
very charismatic.

I could clearly see
this is somebody

who was gonna become a leader.

Denis Cuspert having
his own social media accounts,

creating propaganda, and
just trying to make it

more personalized
for people back home.

If I'm the FBI,
they've seen the videos.

They know he's a player.

It makes sense to target Denis.

Daniela Greene
was hired by the FBI,

as an FBI linguist,

a skill set they
desperately needed.

Allahu Akbar.

Allahu Akbar.

Allahu Akbar.

The FBI thought, "Let's
take this young woman

and let's put her
up against him."

But communicating
gives you their thoughts

and their motivations,

and it gives you kind of
a window into their soul.

Honey Trap operations,
they come with risks.

Humans all have vulnerabilities,

and there's no greater
vulnerability than sex,

and romance, and love.

Allahu Akbar. Allahu.

Allahu Akbar.

I had heard of Denis
during my teenage years.

He was a figure who hung out
with people from my high school.

He was very charming.

There were girls who
had a crush on Denis,

but he was well-known as
someone who had a spectacular

kind of criminal past in
terms of very violent crimes

that he'd gone to
jail for repeatedly.

Denis came out of
prison from a longer stint,

and he came out and decided

that he was gonna
do gangster rap.

In Kreuzberg, the
kind of most famous gang

was "36 Boys,"

which was a gang
of mostly Turkish

and Arab and Kurdish youth.

Denis was a member of the gang.

He hung with them.

Denis grew
up in West Berlin,

which was occupied
by American soldiers.

In 1945, the
US liberates Germany

from Nazi rule.

Liberated, occupied.

It's important to
always add that.

When the US Army
occupied Germany,

the US Army was
still segregated.

Black American
soldiers were fighting

in a segregated US Army,

and occupying a country
where they were told,

"This is an enemy population."

There were
non-fraternization rules.

But they were starving

and living in bombed-out cities.

Black American G.I.s
were particularly

friendly and generous.

Within a year, you have children

born who are biracial kids.

So, that was part of
what was associated

with Blackness, was America.

Denis' mom was a
young woman in the 70s.

She was living in
Kreuzberg at the time

in an unheated apartment

with no warm water,
that kind of thing.

She would go to night clubs

where American G.I.s
would hang out.

Then she met this DJ one
night at a night club

from Ghana, who
was playing there.

Denis' biological father
was deported back to Ghana.

And she never saw him again.

She said she had one
photo of him somewhere.

Denis was born
then, very premature.

Denis had no relationship
to his biological father.

She actually showed
me an outfit,

the first outfit that
she dressed him in.

She had it pinned to the
wall in her apartment.

It was a Woolworth teddy
bear that she dressed him

in the... in the teddy
bear's like overalls.

They were really very tiny.

A couple of years later,
when Denis was three or four,

she met Benjamin Cuspert

who was an American
soldier in Berlin,

and they married, and had
a second son, Jermaine.

It's kind of interesting
that Germany's

most well-known terrorist

carries the name of
an American soldier.

The media, which
contains journalism,

which contains Hollywood,
and entertainment,

people have called that the
fourth branch of government.

Part of the storytelling
is how Muslims

are understood by Hollywood

and the American
political system.

Frequently, it's
so hard to get away

from the casting
of the characters

like Denis as the
Muslim boogeyman.

Now, what I find interesting
is how that story

can open us up to
talking about stories

that operate as propaganda

to consent to military action.

From the
earliest films,

there's been quite
a long history

of representing Arabs,

the Middle East, Muslims
in a certain kind of way.

In terms of
the representations

of Middle East...

If you went to the Middle
East, you will find

incredible diversity,
like all human beings.

And yet, if you looked
at Hollywood films,

which for a long time
was the main propaganda

that was representing
American state power

and American corporate power,

you'd find a very,
very narrow range.

You'd better be able
to pay for that.

Do you know what the
penalty is for stealing?

There is a scholar
called Jack Shaheen.

He went through Hollywood
films and documented

how Arabs were represented.

Very, very dehumanizing.

So you're sitting like
I am, for example,

watching Back To The Future...

Why does Hollywood inject Arabs

and/or slurs demeaning Arabs

in movies having nothing
to do with the Middle East?

Who? Who?

Who do you think?

The Libyans!

We have thrillers,
we have True Lies,

we have Executive Decision.

In some of these
Hollywood films,

you see a white
woman stripped down,

her clothes taken off, tied up,

and she's being sold
at an auction block.

You have a series of films

called The Delta Forces.

American marines killed
many of my friends

when they bombed Beirut.

This also
coincides with the obsession

around the alleged proliferation

of Arab hijackings of planes,

which happens decontextualized,

with these absurd
cartoonish characters

instilling fear in white
female stewardesses.

We even have these benign films

that have nothing to do
with Muslims or Arabs

portray cartoonish characters.

- What key?
- That key.

Who's taken the key?

The negative
portrayal of Muslims

in Western countries and
how Muslims are treated,

it's "us against them."

Muslims are unfortunately
viewed as a monolith

by people who may
not understand,

and their only exposure might
be through shows like 24.

Stories
are at the center

of social cohesion.

We're gonna have to come
up with an alternative.

This is alternative.

Hollywood
doesn't happen

or create images in isolation.

There is a triangle of politics,
pop culture, and public opinion

that are at work.

They have dynamic relationships.

We better wake up and
smell the falafel.

Islam is taking
over our country.

No, ma'am. No, ma'am.

He's a... he's...

he's a decent, family man.

You see,

there's no shades of gray
in this war against terror.

Either you're with
the United States

or you're not with
the United States.

When you decide
to destroy Iraq,

for example, then you've
got to prime a population.

If you look at the
propaganda following 9/11,

there is two years

of intense propaganda

trying to convince people

that 9/11 was connected
to Saddam Hussein.

So that by the time the
Iraq invasion happens,

you have something like
83% of the population

in support of the war.

With horrible disastrous results

and a power vacuum created

into which ISIS was thrust.

If you look at the propaganda,
you pick on the most powerless

people in the society

and you turn them
into scapegoats.

"These people
aren't really human.

They don't love their
kids like we love them. "

If you believe that, then
these are not real people.

These are not real human beings.

And therefore, you can
do anything to them.

♪ Dramatic music plays ♪

The invisibilized dominant power

is the American military.

It's the American empire,

how it pervades and influences

every part of his

and his community's
understanding

of what is just and unjust.

In 2006, he
was meant to tour

with DMX in the US

after touring with him
in Germany and Europe.

So whoever the fuck gets
on this stage tonight,

real dudes, we're doing
real fucking things, baby.

Denis flew to LA
to perform there with him,

but he wasn't allowed to fly in.

He thought they
didn't let him in

because he had like a kind
of knockoff Adidas shoe

with a plane flying in,

that was supposed to look
like the Twin Towers.

♪ Dramatic music plays ♪

Denis kind
of jumped around

from subculture to
subculture in a way.

He went from rap to trying
to be an MMA fighter.

♪ Dramatic music plays ♪

Denis challenged
Ismail Cetinkaya.

He sort of very
publicly challenged him.

Fight!

The main guy
in the German context

who was recruiting Germans

to join the Salafist movement,

and many of them went to ISIS,

was this guy called
Pierre Vogel,

who's a white German guy,

who was a boxing champion.

I do think that there
was a correlation

between Denis losing

and being humiliated
in that fight,

and then having this
meeting with Pierre Vogel,

where he was given an out.

There's a video of Pierre Vogel

where he's sitting with Denis,

and it's the video where he
convinces Denis to give up rap.

Denis is very
humble and moved.

♪ Dramatic music plays ♪

People thought it
was kind of ridiculous,

but he was serious about it.

♪ Dramatic music plays ♪

Do you wanna
just introduce yourself?

Mm-hm. My name is
Souad Mekhennet.

I'm the international
security correspondent

for the Washington Post.

For nearly 20 years,

journalist Souad Mekhennet

had... has covered
some of the world's

most dangerous conflicts.

She's gained rare access
to the inner circles

of groups like the Taliban,
Al-Qaeda, and ISIS.

In 2015, she co-wrote the
blockbuster Washington Post

article that unmasked
ISIS killer Jihadi John

as British citizen,
Mohammed Emwazi.

Her latest book,
recounts some of her

most dangerous
reporting assignments.

The last book
I published is called

I Was Told To Come Alone:

My Journey Behind
the Lines of Jihad,

where I also wrote
about Denis Cuspert.

I met Denis Cuspert
before he joined ISIS.

A young imam from Berlin
contacted me one day and said,

"Souad, there is somebody

who I think you should meet.

He's someone who
comes to my mosque

and I'm a bit
worried about him."

I went to Berlin

and I entered the
office of the imam,

and there was this
young man sitting

who then stood up when
I entered the office,

which I found very interesting,
to show his respect.

And we greeted each
other in Arabic

with, you know,
As-salamu alaykum,

and that was Denis Cuspert.

We had a very long conversation

where we spoke about
how he felt as a child

growing up with, you know,

a lot of discrimination
and racism.

I could relate to
that a little bit

because I grew up
in Germany as well

as the child of
so-called guest workers.

He was looking for
an identity like,

"Who am I? Where do I
belong? Where's my home?"

He felt like somebody who was
really looking for a path,

but he was also looking for

being able to talk to somebody.

Now, you have to understand,

in Germany or in Europe,

very often when young men
want to discuss these things,

imams feel a bit...
they're very careful

about having such
political debates

in their mosques
because they are afraid

that the intelligence
services would say,

"Wait a second, you're
allowing these...

this is extremism.

You're allowing people
to talk... discuss this

and to have anti-Western
views there."

This is where
recruiters understand

they can actually step
in and recruit somebody.

When I met Cuspert
in... Cuspert in...

at the mosque in Berlin,

he was still
somebody where I felt

there could have been a
chance to not lose him

into the hands of extremism,

but there was no one there

who would have these
conversations with him.

A gunman fired shots

at US military
personnel on a bus

outside Frankfurt
Airport, Wednesday.

Two Air Force airmen are
dead and two more wounded.

I'm saddened
and I'm outraged by this attack

that took the lives
of two Americans.

I want everybody to understand

that we will spare no effort

in learning how this
outrageous act took place.

And in working with
German authorities

to ensure that all
of the perpetrators

are brought to justice.

US and
German officials say

they have a better idea now

who the suspected gunman

Arid Uka might be.

He apparently was a
prolific Facebook poster.

He visited a lot
of Jihadi websites.

When asked about the shooting
of the airmen, he said, simply,

"They're at war with us."

Which tells us something about

his mindset and possible motive.

I learned that there
was an attack in Frankfurt.

I went to see Arid's family
after the attack happened.

I asked them if they
would speak to me,

and they said he was a quiet

but sometimes also very
depressed young man

who had also issues

trying to find his
way in the world.

His brother told me,

Arid told him that he
was following on Facebook

somebody who posted a video.

The video showed an Iraqi woman

was raped by US soldiers.

We're searching for evidence.

We're looking for, what?

Weapons of mass destruction.

You ready? Here you go.

Here you go. Come here, Salazar.

Come here. Take
her fucking hand.

And a message from
the person who posted it,

"We need to defend the
honor of our sisters."

And I asked him,

"Do you remember who
posted the video?

Like, who was the person
your brother was following?"

He said, "I think
it was somebody,

something like
Dogg, Deso, Deso."

And I said, "Deso Dogg?

You mean the former rapper?"

And he said, "Yes, yes.
He was a former rapper."

And I was actually in shock.

We see here is a
video he posted.

This young man, followed
him, watched the video,

and was emotionally
so upset about this,

thinking it was reality.

We know now today it wasn't.

I spoke to
Cuspert about it later.

I said, "Did you know that
the video was not reality,

that it was actually
from a movie?"

And he didn't know that,

but he actually felt

that what Arid
Uka did was right.

And he congratulated
"the brother"

as he called him and said,

"Because you know, those..."
he said, "Those servicemen,

they were on their
way to... you know,

they were killing... they
would have killed Muslims,

so they were not innocent."

When the thing with
the video happened,

I understood, "Okay.

He actually crossed that bridge

into the extremism."

My name is
Kevin Gallagher.

I'm a special agent
with the FBI's

Washington Field Office.

My particular squad

focused primarily
on what we refer to

as terrorist use
of the internet,

which heavily relies
on investigations

into terrorist
media organizations

and their radicalization
and recruitment

of people in the United States.

Denis Cuspert was an individual

who I was aware of
probably in about 2011,

2012 timeframe.

Yes, he was a terrorist,

but he was also a
cult of personality.

This is an individual
who's had contact

with, you know,
American rappers.

The types of rappers that
I grew up in high school

and college listening to.

The FBI
is interested in...

what are his communications

with people in
the United States?

Does he have followers here

who might have a
sleeper cell here?

At the FBI,
we broke up the world

into various areas
of responsibility.

The German language
radicalization movement

was one of those efforts,

and that is why the
Detroit Field Office

had the investigation
of Denis Cuspert.

Daniela Greene was assigned
to the Detroit Field office

as a contract linguist.

Her job was to accurately
translate information

as it was recovered
related to communications

that Denis Cuspert was having,

not only with people
in the United States,

but all across the world.

In the FBI, our
translators' perspective

and their professional
opinions is highly important

to the investigative team.

So she was part of that
investigative team,

and her information
and her input was vital

to tracking Denis Cuspert.

Tracking is just
following their online chatter,

looking at their
propaganda releases

in various online spaces,

and also just observing,

kind of just being
like a fly on the wall.

She was assigned to the
case involving Deso Dogg.

Her goal was to lure him
out of Syria into Turkey

so he would be
subject to arrest.

But I have seen situations
in ISIS chat rooms

where individuals seem
to begin to very strongly

emotionally bond
with one another.

And it does recall more
normal circumstances

like online dating.

I have seen that
type of relationship

resulting in people
being willing

to make really bad,
awful decisions

because of the social bond
that they create online.

I've seen
the tabloids that

lend to Daniela Greene
being a honeypot.

That couldn't be
further from the truth.

To say that
Daniela was not a traditional

honeypot operation is very true.

But the reality is,

I think it was very deliberate

to use Daniela

to communicate
with Denis Cuspert.

When people are running
intelligence operations,

they're always thinking about

what is gonna be
the best tactic.

And I think that in
this particular case,

they recognized that
maybe Denis Cuspert

had a weakness for women.

♪ Upbeat music plays ♪

He's likely
to respond to her

and wanna chat with
her, and Skype with her,

and maybe send her pictures
and tell her secrets.

He's not gonna do
that with a dude.

It's just human nature.

Everybody conducts
honeypot operations.

The FBI, the CIA,

the Russian Intelligence
Services, the Mossad.

Now, I should be clear
about that, because the...

often, there's confusion about
what a honeypot operation is.

A honeypot operation is one

where typically a woman

targets a man,

plays upon his male
vulnerabilities,

flirts with him, seduces him.

♪ With nothing
but a piece of rope ♪

And gets him
to tell her secrets.

♪ Dreaming
every night of you ♪

As an operative,
it was easy for me

to go up and talk
to a foreign man

and to express interest.

It is strictly forbidden for
CIA officers or FBI agents

to have romantic relationships
with their targets.

But that does happen.

It's happened
throughout history.

This was not the
first time it happened

and it certainly
won't be the last.

But we have to keep
in mind that Daniela

was not a trained CIA operative,

not a trained recruiter,

nor was she a trained FBI agent.

She was really conscripted
as a translator.

This is an FBI contract employee

with a top secret
security clearance.

There's a lot of trust
that the government puts

in the people that it hires.

These individuals
are granted access

to some of the United States
government's biggest secrets.

What is always the
risk in that case

is that there's going
to be some real romance

that emerges from that.

So the investigative team

was aware of two Skype accounts

that were being utilized
by Denis Cuspert

to communicate with
his associates.

Daniela Greene created
a third Skype account

and had direct communication
with Denis Cuspert

that was unknown to
the investigative team

and that's where she
went off the rails.

It's probably...

the most concerning
part of that case

is how do we defend
ourselves from our own?

You know, other aspects
to think about in this case,

her marriage to
her first husband

who was a US military officer.

How does someone go
from an FBI linguist,

to a military wife,

to joining a foreign
terrorist organization?

That's a hell of a
radicalization path.

I first met Daniela
when she was a student

here at Cameron in
Lawton, Oklahoma.

She was extremely
intelligent, a hard-worker,

and kinda quiet and
very attractive,

which I normally
wouldn't mention,

but I think, you know,
she seemed out of...

this guy that she
hooked up with,

she was way out of his league.

I'm an Air Force wife.

And Daniela
was an army wife.

She is married to my
brother-in-law, Matt.

Being married to a
military man, in my view,

that's like an honor, you know?

Matthew got married to Daniela,

who was from Germany,
because Matthew was stationed

over in Germany, in
the army at the time.

Got this American
soldier stationed in Germany,

meets a German girl, and
I hope it was true love,

but he must've been her
ticket out of Germany.

And I don't mean to be
critical or negative of him.

That was just an
impression I had.

She's young but she's
already married.

She's not from around here.

So she gets here
not knowing anyone.

I'm sure it
was still hard on her,

for her to leave her family.

The military life for
the wife, you know,

it's not an easy lifestyle.

Not everybody can handle it.

I met Matt
when she graduated.

It didn't seem like
a happy couple.

There was kind of a
sadness about her.

She just didn't seem happy.

We didn't know what
happened to her after that.

And, of course,
we found out later

she'd gotten hired by the FBI.

I don't think they cared
about her master's degree.

They liked the fact that
she was fluent in German.

They had her talking
to this recruiter of ISIS.

And with her talking to him,
I think she may have started

getting feelings for him.

Because that happens
to people, you know?

When you talk to people online,

you hear about it all the time.

I don't know if
she's having problems

with my brother-in-law,

but I think just with
her talking to him,

she may have seen him
in a different light

than what we see him.

I would never have imagined
her doing something like this.

I think she's a
traitor to our country.

After the terror
attack in Frankfurt,

Denis took part
in a demonstration

against the Danish cartoons.

Demonstrations that got violent.

And a policeman
was stabbed there.

But it's a very well-filmed

and well-produced video.

And Denis is sort of
like the star of it.

That was the
last thing that happened.

And because a
policeman was injured,

he disappeared then.

One of the interesting aspects

of the German
state's role in ISIS

is that German intelligence
encouraged German Salafists

to go to Syria for a while.

They encouraged and
they facilitated it.

So they encouraged
people to leave,

sort of to export the
problem of these people

like, "Oh, they're gone now.

Let them terrorize
people somewhere else."

And he, in fact,
resurfaced in Syria.

Which was, I think,
surprised a lot of people

because he'd always
basically been in Berlin.

He was this boy from
Berlin, this guy from Berlin

who we've all known about

through these various
episodes of his life.

When he joined ISIS,

they wanted you to do something.

You could either be a soldier

or you became a member
of the propaganda team.

He became a member of
the propaganda team.

Denis Cuspert
becomes one of the most

prominent ISIS influencers.

But something
happened over time.

The propagandists of ISIS

were deeply influenced
by Hollywood.

Isis had been
producing these videos

terrifying people.

Their videos got more
and more extravagant,

better production values.

You see a kind of
cinematic creativity.

What ISIS did was
a totally different level.

I mean, ISIS created videos

that really looked like

professionally-made
Hollywood movies.

ISIS has released
a new propaganda video.

This new and very
glossy recruitment video

which looks professionally shot

and edited as though
ISIS were taking cues

from Hollywood films
such as Zero Dark Thirty

and The Hurt Locker to
maximize the terror.

ISIS' media
production facilities

take a direct cue from
what has been going on

in the United States
for a long time.

They've watched
all the war movies.

They view the military
entertainment complex

as kind of the tail end
or the final maturation

of what scholars call "the
mediatization of war."

The US government
is into our media sphere

in every possible way.

The DOD, in 1949, set up

the Entertainment Media
Production Office.

And if you wanna make a movie
that involves military equipment

or personnel, there's
only one place to get it.

You have to
hand in your script.

Have them look it
over. Review it.

And the Pentagon responds
with script change requests.

You make those
changes and you get

a sort of clean bill of
health from the military

and you get access to the stuff.

And that's the core
of this relationship.

But, you know, this is
sort of industry-wide.

Really, when we
started digging in,

we had to make official
requests to the US government.

You do this through the
Freedom of Information Act.

And so we started doing
this by the hundreds.

It's happened, by our account,

2,500 to 3,000 times
that we can confirm.

My expectation was it's gonna
be a bunch of war films.

And it's not. Maybe 10%.

Pitch Perfect 3,

the military gave
them access to bases

and access to troops

and pretty much gave
them the whole set.

The military went into sci-fi.

So you see a lot of
Transformers and Iron Man.

There are, you know, some
hardcore representations

in Iron Man of
Afghani terrorists

who are antagonizing Iron Man

and killing children
and things like that,

that are, you know,
DOD-sponsored.

Iron Man and Transformers
become this way of talking

about the war, but not
really being a war movie.

My turn.

There's an
entire apparatus at work.

Not just one individual
pulling the strings,

an interaction between
two large institutions.

You know, Hollywood's
driven by money

and they want the biggest
bang for their buck,

and obviously, they're gonna
go for this relationship.

And the US government is in it

to fill the recruitment quotas.

The military
entertainment complex

is going to wanna
maximize recruitment.

Top Gun is a good place to go

if you wanna talk
about recruitment.

Top Gun completely
turned the set of images

about what the military
is on its head.

You know, it's not wading
through the jungle muck

and watching your friend die.

It's about being encased

in this high-tech tube of steel

and rocketing through
the atmosphere

and high-fiving your friends.

And ISIS' very powerful and
high-production value...

image making factory,

they very well understand
that, you know,

this empire over here is
doing that very, very well.

Our little empire
might try to, you know,

take a cue from them
and try it as well.

ISIS' military equipment,
it's not F-22s,

it's little white pickups
with a bunch of AK-47s.

But they've got stuff.

They're using
established genres,

they're using
established storylines.

Even though
they were against the West,

they were, in many ways,

deeply influenced by the West.

So you'll see an ISIS
video, if you look at,

like, there's a bunch of horses,

and you slow the video
down and you broaden up,

and you see that they're
the Riders of Rohan

from Lord of the Rings.

Almost you can say
that they were fans.

You can say they're
wannabe Tarantinos,

taking this all in,

having it influence them,

and then wanting to put it back

in their own variation

of what they were
taking from the West.

But obviously, doing things
that Hollywood can't do,

which is actually
killing people on-screen.

I spoke to one
of the people who...

he was responsible
for ISIS' media.

He said sometimes,
when they were planning

a beheading, and I'm sorry
I have to speak about this,

but I mean, it was unbelievable

that even when they had
planned a beheading,

they would bring
in the camera team.

And the camera team, while
this person was kneeling,

while this man was kneeling
in front of the person

who was supposed to behead
him, they would tell this guy,

"Okay. You have to hold
the knife this way.

You have to, you know,
wait, turn this way

because the sun is better,
the lighting is there."

ISIS propaganda
films evolved to a place

where they had a
story and a plot.

In some films, they would
force their captives

to be actors. They would
perform reenactments.

And the prisoners
would play themselves

right up to their execution.

ISIS realized that

"media is more than
half the battle."

You have these incredible videos

released before
the fall of Mosul.

You could say an extensive
propaganda campaign,

kind of information
operations by ISIS,

to prepare the ground

for the taking of
the city of Mosul.

And we know for example
that the ISIS force

that took Mosul was
outnumbered ten to one or more.

They just melted away

in terror that these
guys were in the city

and that they were
coming to get them.

The ISIS
propaganda apparatus

saw that you wanted
not one approach,

but many approaches.

So, you know, for example,
we in the West often focus

on "the slaughter videos"

and those certainly
got a lot of eyeballs,

a lot of attention,
a lot of controversy.

But actually, the
slaughter videos

are only a small part
of what ISIS produced.

ISIS produced lots of
other types of videos.

The utopian
version of ISIS,

the version they put
on their propaganda

and things like that,
is they're basically

pitching an American
dream, ISIS version.

We'll give you a white
picket fence and the house,

and we'll build
this great society.

Fifty-three thousand
men, women, and children

joined the Islamic State
from over 80 countries.

That's a big number.

ISIS' real goal

was this state-building project.

They took over large
swaths of territory

in Syria and Iraq.

A lot of their propaganda
that they were doing,

their videos, their magazines,

was a lot of
state-building propaganda.

They collected taxes,
they ran the police force.

Come to
Syria and Iraq,

we're gonna build a society

and we need you to join.

And you had these
charismatic leaders.

Denis is a great
example of that.

I don't know what
was going on in her head.

I don't know if it
was part of her job

to pretend that
she was interested

in that part of the
messaging of the caliphate.

It was definitely something

Daniela was fascinated by,

how equal everything was.

That's what I was told

by somebody who
was close to her.

Daniela Greene
knew what ISIS was.

She knew what ISIS
was trying to achieve

and perhaps part of it had to do

with her relationship
with Denis Cuspert

and her wanting to explore that.

But there's wanting
to explore that,

and there's wanting
to travel to Syria

to join the Islamic State to
explore that with someone.

June 11, 2014,
Greene told her supervisor

her intentions to
travel to Germany

to visit her mother.

There's a normal
form that the FBI requires

everyone who's traveling
with a top secret clearance

to fill out.

She fills out the form, says
she's gonna go to Germany

to see her family,
and clearly doesn't.

Daniela
Greene fell for him

and really wanted to go
and live there in Syria.

The FBI had not realized
that she had gone rogue.

I was at home with my
family and I received

a phone call from my
supervisor at the time.

He informed me
that Daniela Greene

had never had any intention
to travel to Germany,

but in fact to travel to Syria.

So at the time we started
the investigation,

we didn't really
understand why she left.

When the investigation
really got into it

and we were able to review
the Skype conversations

that she was having
with Denis Cuspert,

what we saw was not
just the communications

between one individual
and a terrorist,

but the communications between
Daniela and another human.

There were pet names
that were provided

to one another throughout
these conversations.

We don't know if she was, like,
genuinely in love with him

or just kind of lost and decided

that she would
take certain risks.

And maybe she was a rogue agent

who thought she was
gonna get a promotion

for doing really dangerous work

of being a honey trap.

At that time when Daniela
went to meet Denis in Syria,

Turkey was the obvious
place to go as a conduit.

You get to Istanbul,

you go down to the border towns,

you kind of wait until
someone vouches for you.

In this case, she
already had an in.

She had Denis to vouch for her.

So that pulls a lot of weight.

And so instead of
waiting weeks at a time,

which we saw a number of cases,

you know, she was able
to cross very quickly.

Daniela Greene
traveled over to Syria

and married Denis Cuspert
within a matter of days.

Daniela came to Syria
the same day I arrived.

My name is Kim

and I went to Syria

from 2014 until 2020.

And I just got out
of jail in August...

the 1st August, this year.

The first time I met Deso,
so it was here in Germany.

He was handsome and the
people knew about him,

everybody knew about him.

I didn't see it like,
"Oh, I know Deso Dogg.

I talked with him."

So I was not like, "Oh, my God.

Deso Dogg is in town..."

Throwing my bra at him. No.

But the men were,
like, groupies on him.

It was very weird.

I don't know why.

I was over there in ISIS area

with my ex-husband because...
problems in Germany.

Here, we have only a lot of
problems and shit around,

and the people called
my ex-husband also

and told him, "It's great here.

Come over. You'll get houses

and everything will be fine."

They talked about it like
it's a fairytale over there,

so it made the
decision very easy.

And it wasn't... it
wasn't the real life.

So when I arrived over there,
I was completely shocked

because it wasn't like this.

The foreign people,

they were more harsh
than Arabic people.

German people,

yes, they were very
harsh to the...

to the local people.

They were weird people
with not a lot of friends.

In Syria, they got power.

In the beginning
when I met Daniela,

she seemed like a
nice, polite person,

very quiet and calm.

But also a little bit weird

because I asked her about
how long she is in Islam

and she said, "Not that long.
Maybe few weeks, few months."

And she doesn't
know how to pray.

Daniela, she was doing a lot
of stupid shit, dumb shit,

and she was putting
her ass in danger.

ISIS was at
the height of its power

when Daniela Greene
showed up in Syria

to marry Denis.

But it's not like a
stable environment

to have a honeymoon
with your boyfriend.

People like Denis were
going back and forth

between the front in Iraq
and then back to Syria.

And so she's left with
a bunch of other women

who aren't particularly
well-inclined toward her

because she's sketchy.

She wanted to know
everything about everybody

and she was checking
on the window.

She was looking
inside of the room,

in the cupboards, and she
was, like, spying around.

It got very dangerous for her.

I don't understand why she
put herself in more trouble.

He helped her because
I think he didn't want

to get her killed
if ISIS catches her.

The fact
that Daniela Greene

was able to leave is
very, very interesting.

If the version of
what the people

who were close to him...

what they told me is true,

he was able to get her out

even though so many people
were suspicious of her.

People say that he
loved her as well,

which is why after she
told him, supposedly,

that she worked for the FBI,
he still allowed her to...

or helped her to... to return

to Turkey... to
cross into Turkey

because he didn't want
her to get killed.

My name
is Volkmar Kabisch.

I am working for the German
public broadcaster, NDR,

and I was quite
often in Syria, Iraq

since 2014.

I was interested
in what happened

to people joining ISIS.

I made films about this.

Fared Saal
was pretty much involved

in the German Islamist
scene for quite a long time

before joining ISIS.

And Denis Cuspert did the
same and they met in Syria.

And Denis was,
like, the big shot

and Fared was

not that famous as Denis.

But Denis wanted him
to be more famous,

so Denis planned

a public relation act,

which was filming very
brutal ISIS video.

There was a video
full of dead bodies,

Syrian bodies.

And Fared Saal was
standing just next to them,

and he was there
together with Denis

who filmed him.

So he was the director.

And it was all about
public relation.

Denis was
still important.

The propaganda team had
quite a lot of power.

They were seen as important
as the fighters for ISIS.

But it didn't mean that
you wouldn't have to also

kill somebody if
they asked you to.

I believe the fact that he
stayed there for so long

is that he... if they
would've asked him

to kill somebody, he
would've killed somebody.

Yeah.

I've had a lot of
FBI cases come across my desk

and I've seen quite
a lot in the 15 years

that I've worked at the FBI.

But I had never seen
something like this.

I remember meeting
her at Dulles Airport

upon her arrival

and her being placed in custody.

I introduced myself to her,

said, "My name is
Kevin Gallagher.

I'm a special agent
with the FBI."

And she looked me in the eye
and she said, "I know you."

I came to learn that her and I

are actually in a
training course in 2012.

My name is Shawn Moore.

I was the attorney
for Daniela Greene.

I was a public defender

doing cases here in DC,

and it was in the courtroom
that I first met her.

They kept her at a
hotel near Dulles

for a couple of days,
interviewing her.

It wasn't as if I met her
immediately upon her arrival.

The prosecutors
approached me and said,

"Look, she's facing a
considerable amount of time,

she could help herself
if she could help us."

The charges against Daniela,

it involved making
a false statement

to the government, but
there was an enhancement

because the false statements
also involved terrorism.

Initially, when she started
doing the translating,

she was following the line

in trying to help
lure him to a place

where he could be arrested.

Now, aside from the romantic
conversations with Cuspert,

I don't know too much about that

and whether that was
true or false or what.

But my impression was that

because it wasn't working,

she became frustrated

and she decided to take
things into her own hands

and she got into something
way, way over her head.

You have a
high-ranking FBI employee

who had knowledge that
would've been restricted

and that right there is
enough to be criminal

in terms of the Espionage Act.

That law was passed

for the sake of
chomping down on people

who walk away with secrets.

The Espionage Act
does not require you

to go online and
distribute information.

It's enough to make
information available.

And her knowing information

and going to ISIS-held Syria

would've been a slam
dunk court case.

And these are, like,
stiff sentences.

It's, like, ten years per count.

After she was
arraigned and brought to jail,

we immediately
went to an offsite.

We spent with her
over the course

of the next 24 hours,
probably about 12 hours,

interviewing her,

triaging that with focusing
on any potential threats

to the United States.

At no point did we feel that
she withheld information

from the United
States government.

And based on the
information that we received

in the sentencing memo,

the Assistant United
States Attorney

identifies that Daniela
Greene came very close

to skirting the line of
far more serious charges.

Ultimately, she pleaded guilty

and was given a
sentence of two years.

She was obviously relieved.

But it's almost as if she was

still kind of in
a state of shock

about what everything
that had happened.

But that said, throughout
this, she was always concerned

about how much of this
was going to get out

and if so, when.

I've been in
the hotel business

for approximately 30 years

and there was a
great opportunity

for me to transfer to
a big brand new hotel

in downtown Syracuse as
director of sales and marketing.

Each night after work,

I would go to the
concierge lounge

and kind of unwind a little bit,

have a nice cold beer
and eat some dim sum.

And Daniela was
the hostess there.

When I first met Daniela,

she was quite an
attractive woman

with European characteristics,
straight blonde hair

and a slight little
German tint of an accent

to her voice.

She was well-poised and was
obviously in quite command

of the job that she was doing.

She was a person that I saw
as immediately overqualified

for the position she had.

So right away, I
started thinking,

"Gee, where can she fit?
Where does she want to go?"

I walked into the lounge one day

and Daniela was obviously upset

and she was really very shaken.

I knew that she was
previously married.

She was separated from
her husband, Matt.

It was really very tough.

She was going... obviously going
through a transitional period

in her life.

I asked her what the problem was

and she just blew it off
a little bit and said,

"Gee, it's just
something that happened

in my previous life that
I'm really sorry about

and I really regret."

It's preposterous
to me that she only spent

two years in prison.

The fact that she went
rogue in this fashion,

that they had no
idea where she was,

that she was essentially

operating against the Bureau

without their knowledge of it,

it's very embarrassing
for the FBI.

The US government and the FBI,

they don't want the press
questioning Daniela.

They don't want her side
of the story to get out.

The FBI would have preferred
if no one knew about this case,

if it just kind of got
brushed under the carpet.

A bizarre story that really
does sound like something

straight out of Homeland
or a terrorism movie.

It's an FBI translator

who was investigating
an ISIS fighter in 2014

and then fled the
United States for Syria

and married him.

Love can make
us do strange things.

The story of an FBI translator

who married an ISIS terrorist.

It's a story almost
too preposterous to be true.

The FBI translator who
runs off to the Middle East

to marry the terrorist
she was tracking

from the Detroit
FBI Field Office.

Drew, this is an
incredible story.

What's the FBI saying
about how it happened?

Greene, who still
had an American husband

at the time, wrote an email...

You know, was having an
affair with an ISIS operative.

Given that Cuspert knew
she worked for the FBI.

The case got zero
publicity for months

because the records
were sealed by the court

and critics say Greene got
off with a light sentence,

two years and probation,

because she cooperated
with the FBI.

And like we said in our
report, most people facing

these type of
charges are getting

much more severe sentences
than this former FBI employee.

Daniela got a great deal.

It seems that the government
is protecting itself

by protecting her.

She's back in the US
with her ex-husband,

Sergeant Matthew Greene,

and after serving
a short sentence,

she's now working
at the Home Depot.

So in 2014,
you have to remember,

our intelligence
on ISIS was good,

but it wasn't great.

We knew the top leadership.

We could have a general
sense of the structure,

but anyone who could
light up the network,

who goes where, what
do you do in there,

that is immensely valuable.

Her cooperation
was extensive.

It provided
information about ISIS

that we hadn't seen to date

and we had eyes on the ground.

While that was
not our intention,

it was a byproduct
of the situation

that we were presented.

Maybe she's
savvier than we all think

and she was able to
negotiate that deal

by providing very
specific information.

The FBI agents,
they were very interested

in locations of houses,
where he stayed.

She provided as much
information as she could

about what Cuspert was doing,

led me to believe
that they were trying

to get information
to target him.

Last night on my orders,

America's armed
forces began strikes

against ISIL targets in Syria.

Wars succeed by this
drumbeat of propaganda,

to feel people encouraged,

to inspire, and to
terrify, has real meaning.

To move the heart is power.

Thank you.

Thank you too.

- That's good?
- That's great. Yes.

- Thank you.
- Thank you. Thank you.