Tag: espionage

China Purges One of Its Top Military Leaders After He Allegedly Leaked Nuclear Secrets to U.S.

A senior figure at the very top of China’s military has been abruptly removed amid allegations he passed highly sensitive nuclear information to the United States.

Zhang Youxia, long regarded as the operational leader of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), was dismissed on Saturday for a “serious violation of discipline.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, the 75-year-old general is accused of sharing classified details relating to China’s nuclear weapons programme with Washington.

The allegations were reportedly laid out during a closed-door briefing attended by senior PLA officers.

The meeting took place only hours before Beijing publicly confirmed that Zhang was under formal investigation.

Officials at the briefing are said to have accused Zhang not only of leaking state secrets, but also of accepting bribes in exchange for promoting a senior officer to the defence minister.

He was further alleged to have formed “political cliques” within the military, a charge that often signals concerns over loyalty rather than corruption alone.

Evidence presented at the meeting was reportedly supplied by Gu Jun, a former executive at China National Nuclear Corporation, which oversees both civilian and military nuclear programmes.

Gu himself is under investigation as part of a sweeping corruption probe targeting China’s defence and nuclear sectors.

Officials told the briefing that the inquiry into Gu had uncovered a major security breach inside the nuclear establishment, to which Zhang was allegedly connected.

Zhang’s downfall is particularly striking given his status within the PLA.

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Former U.S. Navy sailor gets more than 16 years for selling secrets to China

A former U.S. Navy sailor convicted of selling technical and operating manuals for ships and operating systems to an intelligence officer working for China was sentenced Monday to more than 16 years in prison, prosecutors said.

A federal judge in San Diego sentenced Jinchao Wei, also known as Patrick Wei, 25, to 200 months. A federal jury convicted Wei in August of six crimes, including espionage. He was paid more than $12,000 for the information he sold, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

Wei, an engineer for the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, was one of two California-based sailors charged on Aug. 3, 2023, with providing sensitive military information to China. The other, Wenheng Zhao, was sentenced to more than two years in 2024 after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of receiving a bribe in violation of his official duties.

U.S. officials have for years expressed concern about the espionage threat they say the Chinese government poses, bringing criminal cases in recent years against Beijing intelligence operatives who have stolen sensitive government and commercial information, including through illegal hacking.

Wei held a security clearance that gave him access to sensitive national security defense information about the ship’s operations and capabilities.   

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The Real Story of Eric Swalwell and Fang Fang, His Chinese ‘Honey Trap’ Spy

Chinese national Fang Fang, who adopted the Americanized first name “Christine”, was a suspected Chinese intelligence operative who embedded herself in U.S. political circles between 2011 and 2015.

One of the politicians she cultivated was California Congressman Eric Swalwell, now a candidate for governor of California.

Fang arrived in the United States in 2011, enrolling at California State University, East Bay.

Despite appearing around 10 years older than most students, she quickly rose to prominence, becoming president of both the Chinese Student Association and the campus chapter of Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs.

Fang’s activities extended well beyond campus. She spent substantial time attending Democratic Party networking events throughout the Bay Area and elsewhere, placing herself in close proximity to rising political figures.

In October 2012, she was photographed at a political event alongside Eric Swalwell, who at the time was a Dublin City Council member campaigning for Congress.

During that campaign, Fang reportedly brought Swalwell donors, helped raise funds, and recommended at least one intern who ultimately worked in Swalwell’s congressional office.

After his election, Swalwell was appointed to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in January 2015, later serving as the lead Democrat on the CIA oversight subcommittee.

Fang’s political reach was not limited to Swalwell. She was photographed with a Chinese consular official and Russell Lowe, the longtime office director for Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was later revealed to have been a Chinese intelligence agent himself.

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Moment Russian diplomat is ambushed by FSB agents and detained in van for ‘passing secrets to US intelligence’

 A Russian diplomat has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after he was caught selling secrets to US intelligence. 

The moment Arseniy Konovalov was ambushed by Federal Security Service (FSB) agents was captured on video. 

The clip, which was shared today across Russian news outlets, shows a shocked-looking Konovalov being detained while travelling in a van after he was told he was suspected of treason. 

A separate video shows the diplomat behind bars as he awaited his trial. 

A Moscow court on Friday found the former Russian diplomat guilty of treason and sentenced him to 12 years in a maximum-security penal colony.

He was also fined the equivalent of $1,200.  

‘It was established that A.S. Konovalov, an employee of the Russian Foreign Ministry, during a long-term foreign assignment in the United States, proactively transferred secret information to American intelligence for money,’ the FSB said in a statement.

Konovalov was first detained by the FSB, which leads Russian counter-intelligence, in March 2024. 

The FSB did not say what information Konovalov had passed to US intelligence, or which US agency he was accused of working with. There was no immediate comment from US spy agencies.

Russia’s Kommersant newspaper said Konovalov had served as second secretary of the Russian Consulate General in Houston. 

He worked in the United States from 2014 to 2017, Kommersant said.

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HEAVENLY SPIES? Pope Leo XIV Urges Italian Secret Agents To Work Ethically, Not to Blackmail Politicians, Journalists or the Church

The Italian 007’s got a Papal warning.

Whether or not you agree with Pope Leo XIV in the multiple statements he has issued lately, one thing seems certain: he deals more and more in issues outside the scope of his mission as Pontifex.

Leo meddles in US immigration policies – with the usual leftist slant; he urges Donald J. Trump not to depose Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro by force – but only smother him with economic sanctions; and now he chastises the Italian secret service agents.

Yes, you read it right.

Maybe, like me, you wonder why Leo doesn’t take care of spiritual welfare of the Christendom, instead of going around ‘blessing the ice’ for Global Warming Cultists, and ‘thrashing ICE’ with the demented pro-immigration mob.

Leo met Friday (12) with officers from Italian intelligence services – and ‘warned them not to use confidential information for blackmailing or other nefarious purposes’.

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How the MI5 ‘allowed Britain’s top agent inside IRA to get away with murder’… these are the damning findings of a report into mole ‘Stakeknife’

Britain’s top spy inside the IRA was effectively allowed to get away with murder because the security services felt ‘a perverse sense of loyalty’ to him, a damning report has concluded.

The Daily Mail can reveal that the double agent codenamed ‘Stakeknife’ was even taken on holiday by his handlers to evade arrest when he was wanted by police.

The extraordinary revelation was contained in MI5 files disclosed to Operation Kenova, the nine-year police investigation into the man unmasked in 2003 as Freddie Scappaticci.

Once celebrated as Britain’s most prized asset in the intelligence war with the IRA, he is now thought to have cost more lives than he saved.

Directly linked to at least 13 murders, Stakeknife was a senior member of the terror group’s internal security unit, known as the ‘Nutting Squad’, which abducted, tortured and killed suspected informers.

Operation Kenova – led by Sir Iain Livingstone, the former Chief Constable of Police Scotland – slams MI5, accusing it of ‘serious organisational failure’ for trying to restrict the investigation. 

Sir Iain’s report, leaked to the Daily Mail, takes issue with a former head of MI5 for stating that the agency had ‘limited knowledge’ of Stakeknife’s activities. In fact, it says, MI5 was involved in running him ‘throughout the entirety of his operation as an agent’.

Astonishingly, the report reveals Stakeknife’s Army handlers ‘took him out of Northern Ireland on holiday when they knew he was wanted by [police] for murder’.

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Poland Announces Foreign Spy Plot Busted, Involved Photographing Secretive Facilities 

Poland’s National Prosecutor’s Office announced Friday that five individuals have been charged with working on behalf of a foreign intelligence service, following coordinated arrests which spanned November Tuesday through Wednesday of this week by the Internal Security Agency and police.

Those taken into custody include two Ukrainian nationals – identified only as Oleksandr S. and a minor, Sofia Ch. – and in addition three Belarusian citizens identified as Viktoryia M., Anton M., and Uladzimir U.

The group is accused of targeting the Polish state for espionage purposes, with prosecutors alleging that throughout much of 2024 the team collected information on sensitive locations.

“The suspects’ activities involved establishing contact with foreign intelligence representatives via Telegram and carrying out assigned tasks, including the creation and transmission of photographic documentation of critical infrastructure facilities and locations crucial to national security,” a press release translated from Polish to English read.

“For these tasks, the suspects were paid in cryptocurrencies,” it added. Likely Warsaw believes Russian intelligence was ultimately behind the plot. In some instances, Moscow is believed to have used pro-Russian Ukrainian nationals as assets in Europe.

Poland’s investigation comes amid a wider probe into espionage activities carried out by individuals of different nationalities in Rzeszów, Warszawa, Łódź – among some other regions – between March 2024 and February 2025.

But in some instances the activities seem minor, given prosecutors have cited activities as simple as putting up posters and producing graffiti, supposedly associated with foreign operations.

If convicted under Poland’s national laws, acts of espionage can result in five to thirty years in prison.

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Trump Stands by Huckabee After Unannounced Pollard Meeting

n 1987, Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison for selling national secrets to Israel. Last July, nearly a decade after his parole, the disgraced former Naval intelligence analyst met with U.S. Ambassador to Mike Huckabee at the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.

The meeting was his first with U.S. officials since his release and immigration to Israel. A break with precedent, the move by Huckabee, even all these years after the crime, still alarmed intelligence officials.

The Trump administration was left in the dark. “The White House was not aware of that meeting,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told RealClearPolitics. It was reportedly left off the public schedule of the ambassador. And yet, the administration still condoned the actions of the U.S. envoy to Israel.  

“The president stands by our ambassador, Mike Huckabee,” Leavitt added, “and all that he’s doing for the United States and Israel.”

The case sent shockwaves through both Washington and Tel Aviv at the time of the conviction. The rare spy who offered his services to an ally, Pollard pled guilty, confessing to selling thousands of pages of secret documents to the Israelis for cash, vacations to Europe, and promised future payments to be wired to a Swiss bank account. A federal judge dismissed pleas for mercy even after Pollard’s cooperation led to the indictment of an Israeli air force officer.

The episode came at the height of the Cold War when the CIA was on the lookout for Soviet, not Israeli, spies. The press had dubbed 1985 the “Year of the Spy” as President Ronald Reagan vowed to combat espionage wherever it might fester. “We’ve added resources, people, and top-level attention to this task,” Reagan said during a November radio address that year. “We will not hesitate to root out and prosecute the spies of any nation.”

The FBI nabbed Pollard two years later outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., during a failed attempt to gain asylum.

Pollard was released from prison in 2015 during the Obama administration. After his parole restrictions expired in December of 2020, at the tail end of the first Trump administration, the former spy emigrated to Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted him on the tarmac, telling Pollard “You’re home.”

The private jet that flew him there was reportedly owned by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a Republican megadonor who was a benefactor of both Netanyahu and Trump.

Pollard has no regrets for his actions. He told the New York Times, who first broke the news of his meeting with Huckabee, that it was necessary because the U.S. had cut Israel out of intelligence sharing. During that interview, the former spy, who was granted Israeli citizenship while incarcerated, reportedly called Trump a “madman who has literally sold us down the drain for Saudi gold.”

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Trump Ambassador Mike Huckabee Held Secret Meeting With Traitor Who Sold American Secrets to Israel

President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, held a secret meeting in July with traitor Jonathan Pollard, who served 30 years in prison for selling American secrets to Israel.

According to a report from the New York Times, Pollard met with Huckabee at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in July for a discussion that was “kept off Mr. Huckabee’s official schedule,” and revealed for the first time on Thursday.

Pollard confirmed the rendezvous in an interview with the Times, telling the newspaper “it was a friendly meeting” and that “a lot of things that came up in conversation.”

In his interview with the Times, Pollard also attacked President Trump, calling him a “madman who has literally sold us down the drain, for Saudi gold.”

Huckabee’s senior advisor David Milstein – the stepson of Fox News host Mike Levin – was reportedly present at the meeting.

Three unnamed officials told the New York Times that the meeting “alarmed the Central Intelligence Agency’s station chief in Israel.” The White House was also reportedly unaware that the secret meeting was taking place.

“The White House was not aware of the meeting in advance, according to a White House official and two people briefed on the matter,” reported the Times. “The White House official also said that senior officials there were alarmed when they learned it had taken place.”

Pollard, a former U.S. intelligence analyst, was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 after it was discovered that he had been selling American secrets to Israel, including the names of thousands of U.S. intelligence agency sources.

Pollard was released from prison in 2015 and moved to Israel in 2020 – flying on a private jet owned by top Trump donor Sheldon Adelson to Tel Aviv, where he was given a hero’s welcome by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Behind Israel’s Wars Lies a Global Spy Machine

In the aftermath of the devastating Twelve-Day War in June 2025, Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib made a striking claim that captured international attention: more than fifty foreign intelligence services had provided direct support to Israel during the conflict. Speaking during an official visit to Iran’s southwestern Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province in October 2025, Khatib characterized this coalition as an “intelligence NATO” that coordinated efforts to destabilize Iran through hybrid warfare encompassing military attacks, psychological operations, cyber warfare, and media campaigns.

His statement came against the backdrop of the Twelve Day War that began on June 13, 2025, when Israel launched surprise attacks on Iranian military and nuclear facilities, killing over 1,000 Iranians. Iran responded with “Operation True Promise 3,” involving twenty-two waves of missile strikes and over 550 ballistic missiles targeting Israeli territory. The United States intervened on June 22 with B-2 bomber strikes on Iranian nuclear sites before a ceasefire was brokered on June 24.

Khatib’s claims, while potentially inflated, align remarkably well with patterns this author previously documented in “The Illusion of Israeli Self-Sufficiency in Intelligence,” which exposed how Israel’s most celebrated operations relied on cooperation with the CIA, NSA cyberwarfare expertise, European intelligence networks, and covert collaboration with Arab regimes. As that analysis demonstrated, Israel’s intelligence empire survives not through independence but through reliance on Western logistics, intelligence sharing, and political approval.

The foundation of this multinational intelligence cooperation traces back decades. According to research covered by Israeli investigative journalists, the Berne Club—a secret European intelligence alliance founded in 1969—provided crucial support for Israel’s assassination campaign following the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. Through an encrypted communication system called “Kilowatt,” thousands of cables were exchanged among eighteen Western intelligence services, functioning as a secret clearinghouse for raw intelligence containing the locations of safe houses, vehicle registrations, the movements of high-value targets, and analytical assessments.

The core of Israel’s intelligence support network begins with the United States and extends through the Five Eyes alliance. The CIA-Mossad relationship dates to the early 1950s, with leaked documents revealing that the NSA shares intelligence with Israel’s Unit 8200 through a formal agreement. Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, “US intelligence dispatched a special unit to assist the IDF in the war in Gaza and established intelligence-sharing channels with Israel to help locate top Hamas commanders,” according to a report by The Conversation. During Israel’s June 2025 strikes on Iran, the United States joined the operation directly with B-2 bomber strikes.

The United Kingdom maintains similarly close cooperation. GCHQ documents reveal Britain “cooperating very closely with Israel.’ DeClassified UK reported that between 2023-2024, “the RAF conducted 518 surveillance flights over Gaza from Cyprus’s RAF Akrotiri, supplying real-time intelligence to Israeli forces.”

European nations have provided extensive intelligence infrastructure supporting Israeli operations. Germany announced this past summer plans to strengthen cooperation on cyber defense, with Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt outlining a five-point plan for establishing a “Cyber Dome” including “establishing a joint German-Israel cyber research center.”

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