You know, like in spy and crime shows. Idk why my brain isn’t braining, but can someone please what double and triple agents are? Can there be quintuple agents? How does it all work?
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If you want a real world example – the British ran a successful intelligence campaign in World War II fronted by one agent called GARBO.
Juan Pujol was Spanish by birth and had grown to hate the Axis powers. He offered his services to the British, they were suspicious and turned him down.
He then chose to go freelance. He spoke to German intelligence and was recruited as an agent – even though he had never even been to Britain! Pujol then set about creating a complete network of fictitious spies feeding ‘intelligence’ to Berlin. Despite his complete lack of knowledge of the country and its wartime plans, German intelligence thought he was in a league of his own.
Shortly after, Pujol was finally picked up by the British intelligence services and became an official agent. He was now a double agent – the Germans thought he was working for them, in fact, he was only passing on what the British wanted him to say. What was clever was that they mixed complete fiction aimed at deceiving the Germans with accurate material – but made sure that any factual content was delivered too late to change events – but it made GARBO credible.
Working with Tommy Harris, Pujol created a network of 27 completely fictitious agents supposedly working for German in the UK. They sent hundreds of messages to Berlin – and were so effective the Germans saw no reason to try and send further agents to the UK! The GARBO network was a key part at disguising the Allied operations in North Africa and on D-Day.
And here’s where it gets completely incredible – the Germans thought so much of GARBO’s work that he was awarded an Iron Cross by order of Adolf Hitler! (Obviously he couldn’t pick it up in person).
Pujol was awarded an MBE by the British government in 1944 in recognition of his work.
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