The Czech Spy Who Stole a Son | The Prodigal Son | 2
Episode Date: June 2, 2026After years of preparation, Czech deep-cover spy Václav Jelínek is in London and living as Erwin Van Haarlem. But now, the Dutch mother of th...
These are stories you were never meant to hear. The invisible but vital work of the world’s intelligence services: secret operatives playing to very different rules. The Spy Who, hosted by Indira Varma and Raza Jaffrey, takes you deep inside that shadow world to meet spies who risked everything in the national interest – or, sometimes, their own.Listen to The Spy Who ad-free on Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/the-spy-who now.
121 episodes transcribedAfter years of preparation, Czech deep-cover spy Václav Jelínek is in London and living as Erwin Van Haarlem. But now, the Dutch mother of th...
When a teenager is made to give up her baby, Czechoslovak secret police service the StB spot a chance to create a rock-solid fake identity fo...
Is what’s happening on OnlyFans real? Or is it only a fantasy?In this provocative investigation into OnlyFans—the adult platform where subscr...
Not many people can say they helped dismantle the most dangerous nuclear weapons network in history. Then again, not everyone is former CIA o...
With A.Q. Khan now fully rogue and his network working to fast-track Libya’s nuclear weapons program, the CIA and MI6 need to find a way to s...
Dr. A.Q. Khan is making millions selling nuclear secrets but when he decides to sell the nuclear bomb to Libya’s renegade ruler Colonel Gadda...
At a secure lab in Amsterdam, scientists are working on tech that can enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. But when India tests a nuke, employee...
How did someone so essential in war become so expendable in peace? In conversation with Charlie Higson, historian Clare Mulley explores the e...
Frozen out by the Special Operations Executive, Polish countess turned British spy Krystyna Skarbek is now stuck in the Middle East. But she’...
As the Nazis exert control over Continental Europe, British spy Krystyna Skarbek needs to stay one step ahead of the enemy. But she’s about t...
When Hitler invades her beloved homeland, Poland, Countess Krystyna Skarbek signs up to go behind enemy lines as Britain’s first female under...
How did one CIA mole tip the scales of power between two superpowers? Investigative journalist Bethany Allen exposes the hidden world of Chin...
In Washington, D.C., Larry Chin grapples with retirement, but back in Beijing, a new CIA agent is about to set the FBI’s spy hunters on China...
After years of cautious spying, Larry Wu-Tai Chin is about to hit the jackpot. He’s getting a promotion that will give him the inside track o...
With Mao Zedong’s communist army about to take China, desperate U.S. officials in Shanghai hire interpreter Larry Wu-Tai Chin. But little do...
Christopher Boyce was sentenced to 68 years. He was supposed to die behind bars. Instead, in 2002, he walked free after just 23 years - and i...
With drug deals to pay for, Daulton Lee’s desperate to get back into the KGB’s good books. So when Christopher Boyce finds a big new secret t...
Christopher Boyce and Daulton Lee’s plan to sell spy satellite secrets to the Soviets is working. But Lee’s also using his role as the courie...
It’s the 1970s. The Vietnam War, Watergate and the oil crisis are stoking turmoil in America. And in southern California two middle-class reb...
Long before FBI informant David Rupert set foot in Ireland, a hidden web of espionage was already embedded in the North. In this episode, inv...