The Team House - Why Someone Chooses to Spy on Their Country | EYES ON | Ep. 8

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

Today the guys talk about cases where military and intelligence community members choose to spy on the US for foreign governments.Support the show here:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseCheck out Andy Milburn here:https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8https://amilburn.substack.com/Todays Sponsor:Aura ⬇️Go to https://aura.com/teamhouse to get a 14 day FREE trial and see if your personal information has been leaked online.https://aura.com/teamhouse#espionage #spying #ciaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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That'sora.com slash team house to get two weeks for free. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Eyes-on. I'm Andy Milburn, former Marine Infantry and Special Operations Officer, now working for a franchise of the Team House. Jason over to you. Thanks, Andy. I'm Jason Lyons, former Marine, former CIA officer. I used to work with Soft Rep, which turned with Jack over to the Team House, and I'm happy to be here. Over to you, Dee. Yeah, guys, thanks a lot. I'm excited about that. we had a great show the other day with each all together live at the studio which was awesome um yeah i'm excited about this i'm excited about you know the story you got lined up and like

your perspective on it and like what goes into like actually a foreign country recruiting a person in the military or in uh you know agency to spy yeah and before we kick off on that deal i just want to say just for the benefit of everyone from the eight episode last time. There were some comments and I think that fair comments that, you know, it was really just from an Israeli perspective and that certainly is not our intent. You know, the problem here is, of course, we're all, you know, we're all dudes who are deeply steeped in U.S. military background. So our access to the Palestinian side is, you know, is a little more limited. Having said that, I've reached out and will continue to do so and would love to also be able to tell the story

from the, you know, from the Palestinian side. But the last piece I'll say is it's not the purpose of the book necessarily to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian issue. It's discussing the wider issue, the threat from Iran, and in rational, pragmatic terms, because someone did accuse me of conspiracy theories to talking about the Iranian threat network. Anyway, just to, yeah, absolutely. Andy, you're not an agent of the Israelis? I didn't know that.

No, absolutely fair point. It's why we hired you. But it was a perspective. It was not by any means. And here the real deal, and like, to put it in context, like, you just got back from Israel. And like, right? And I'm sure, like, if Hamas or whoever was in. Hosted me?

Yeah, it was honestly, was in the West Bank or in Gaza. And they were like, hey, come and right. Yeah, look, you know, the real, the deal is here, the three of us here, Jack and Dave, I don't care who you are. If we had grown up in the West Bank, we would probably be activists there. And the same thing is if we've grown up in Kiriattramona or, you know, one of the borderline kibbutzies or even in Israel, we would have a very different perspective. And we would be activists because that's the type of person with people we are. And I think we just have to accept that and try and explain perception on both sides. But my goal here is to understand militarily, operationally, two through strategically,

what the lessons learned were. And prospects for a, yeah, for a solution, political solution, but also security solution, the two-the-type. No, yeah, I appreciate you saying that. I mean, again, Guys. But to all our, you know, seriously, I mean, if you, if you're watching this and you do have Palestinian contacts, I would be delighted to speak to them. So far, I've, you know, I've written to about a dozen and got zero response, which I get it.

You know, they Google me and I'm like, no. So I'm not talking to this dude. But it would be nice to break through that, right? For sure. Sure. Yeah, we're all about walking a straight line, which is not what the, what a whole host of young sailors have been doing recently. No, I'm not about to talk about a longer poet gain.

Dee, if this show is very successful, Jason and I will buy you a round trip ticket there. But I digress. This is absolutely Jason's area, not treachery, but I meant, you know, Intel, counterintel. But I'm going to turn over to him for his insights on the latest Petuccini. And I want to begin with why, you know, the U.S. government has no problem about fingering, for instance, Chinese foreign intelligence services, right, as manipulating or recruiting spies. But here, Mr. Petuccini is, you know, who is also, I believe, a senior chief, right? If you want to read, it's just the chief, petty officer. Oh, yeah, their chief, okay.

50% of the Navy's in that category. But in any case, you know, long-term career sailor, not with, with obvious connections. But it is strange. What are your thoughts? Why the mystery here? Yeah, that's, so first, let me just give a little background about what we're talking about. Recently, a maybe chief petty officer, fire controlman, Bryce Petty-Chie. was charged with espionage specifically passing classified material to a foreign government.

That nation, which is what Andy was alluding to, which nation is not being disclosed right now? I think I've just guessed that. Yeah. Yeah. There's a trend here, right? Absolutely. Yeah, and I will definitely talk about that. He's one of at least three within the last year who have been arrested on similar charges.

So this Petty Officer was assigned to the USS Higgins, which is an Arley Burke class destroyer, DDG 76. And so allegedly, I'm going to say allegedly a lot because the trial is not over. I believe it just started, it's court martial between November 22 and January 2020 or February 2023 in and around both Hampton Roads, Virginia and Yucca, Japan. where his ship had been ported, he passed information to include, let's see, multiple documents of an exact nature we don't know or it hasn't been disclosed, as well as photos of a classified Cipernet computer screen. So you pass these things to a foreign agent. He was also charged with failing to report a foreign contact, which we will talk about why that is, seems trivial, but is important and taking a personal device into a secured space. So let's go back to the foreign entity

that he passed this information to. Yeah, like you said, I mean, normally it's blasted out. Hey, this was China. Hey, this was Russia, whatever, almost immediately. But I am not for those who are not familiar with how it works with the federal government. I am not an FBI agent. I had as a CI officer, I had no law enforcement jurisdiction or powers, no arrest powers whatsoever. So what I like to candidate to people is the agency. We will, we have counterintelligence who is looking at this sort of thing. But our main goal is to collect information, collect intelligence. FBI's main job is to criminal prosecution.

And I've worked hand in hand within the U.S. and overseas with FBI on just that. While I'm collecting the intel, FBI is working in coordination with me to form a case against whoever it could be the asset, depending on what's going on. So this gentleman, I'm going to say he's a kid. I don't even know how old he is. It, you know, people ask the question, why? you know, why does somebody do something like this?

Only he knows that. And probably the prosecutors now, counterintel and FBI know, but you'll have to forgive me for looking at my notes here. But people do things for, we'll do these things for different reasons. There's an acronym MICE, M-I-C-E, there's money. People, I mean, it's the classic, hey, I'm down on my luck and I need money. there's ideology, you know, whether it's extremists, you know, on one end or the other, depending on what it is. There's extremism ideology.

There is coercion, which I think we talked about it on the team house episode. Coercion is can be anything from a honeypot, you know, operation where a male or female is put up against that target to try to entice them sexually. I believe D has a background in doing that. How'd you go that? Listen, we all have to make... My past life. We all make ends meet how we make them meet.

So... Richie banging on the door. Go ahead, Jason. You're good. So there's coercion. I just mentioned. And then how did I just blank on the last one? I just blank on the last.

What's the C.D? extortion? I don't think that's right. That's just me. Somebody is going to... They'll be fine. So either way, anyway, people have the reasons for doing it. There are, at least here in the U.S., I can't speak to other foreign entities, but at least

in the U.S., there are parameters that are set that makes someone an actual recruited asset. I'm kind of paraphrasing and, you know, just going, being a broad term here. But if they're taking money for what they're doing and they're providing information, they're a paid asset just by, you know, virtue of the name. Some will choose. Some will say, you know what? I don't want your money. We will always push that, you know, but some will just don't want it.

In which case, the money will just be held in like an escrow or need it. But the other question is, was this person, was this chief petty officer approached or did he approach the foreign government? That has happened before. Some, Robert Hanson, he went to the Soviets and offered his services. I believe Aldrich Gaines did as well. I want to say at the level that they were at, Ames and Hansen, that they're approached because they are. and it would be known that they are higher ranking intelligence officers.

And I'm not saying that a chief head officer is not an awesome rate rank. I think it's changed now. It's no longer rates or rank, whatever. It's not an awesome rate or rank, but it's low at if he was approached that whoever that foreign intel services were or is, they decided that, hey, it's safe to approach him. because at higher levels, senior officers, they've probably been approached more than once in their career, depending on how long their career is. And there is a set playbook for when you're approach, which I won't go into, but when you're approach, how you're supposed to respond.

Can I ask a question real quick? So you were talking about the fact that the higher you are in rank, the assumption is that you know more. So you're under kind of the converse argument to that, that I would argue these cases are bringing to the light is what we talked about the other day, which is need to know. And it seems as though certainly when you look at it, we can talk about this, but in a case of Toby, in a case of this guy, I'm speculating. But he's a, you know, he's on an ageist. He's an envious, uh, bruiser, but he doesn't have access. I'm sorry. But he doesn't have access to what the Chinese would really want, which is, you know, the counterbilis. missile measures on that ship. He's a finance, whatever, you know,

the second. Well, the thing is, though, he's a fire controlman, which means he does. Yeah, okay. I'm just, yeah, yeah. So he worked. It's understood. Yeah, no problem. No, it's, it's easy to, uh, I'm still jetline to, to mix that up. But yeah, he, um, he does have access and the fact that he does have access and he's, uh, of a mid, middle rank, you know, basically.

Makes some, make some perfect target. Exactly. And if it is the Chinese, and even if it is the Russians, we talked about this, they play the long game. So even if he didn't have the exact access they're looking for, he gets, they get their foot in the door by, I mean, look at, oh gosh, I don't know what's going on in my brain today. I work last night. There was a family, the walkers, I believe it was, who were spying. And what that was is one was, was, was, approach or one made the approach to a foreign intelligence service and then bought in, I believe it was a son and then an uncle or a best friend. So even if you're not getting right

off the bat, the keys to the kingdom, if you can get your foot in the door as an intel officer and you can ascertain that hey, there's others in this guy's network who are susceptible to it. Well, I mean, that's what you want. Again, if you're playing the long

game, especially if it's, you know, at the and into Pacific region. I mean, God forbid that it kick off tomorrow, but it doesn't look like it will. So right now they're willing to play the long game and get their foot in the door. This guy's a, you know, Chief Petty House Fire Controlman. So he probably knows more than the average, you know,

lower enlisted sailor, but a little less than a senior officer. But he actually may know more than a senior officer, you know, depending on what the job is because a senior officer may not need to know. Usually judged by how much he was getting paid. Yeah. So at the lower end of the spectrum, you know, we're talking about a run of guys being arrested recently. Two sailors last year arrested.

I think they were just sentenced in January. And one of them, I'm going to mispronounce his name. But Wang Hang Zal. Yep. He was only paid $15,000. Yeah. You know, but then you look at, I mean, it doesn't matter. I mean, he's only going to jail for two years.

Yeah, 27 months. But what he what he gave them was pretty, I mean, honestly, pretty low level, pictures, videos. Yep. I mean, of SIPA screens. So we know SIPA, I mean, this is a different kind, the same stuff. A SIPA, you know, technical manuals. Yeah, he gave like a blueprint for a radar system that was on Okinawa. But again, just like getting your foot in the door as far as that initial recruitment is concerned,

a good intelligence and service will take. bits and pieces. Sure. And aggregate it. And aggregate it, put it all together and say, okay, now we have a little bit bigger picture of what's going on. So. And you'll run down.

You'll run down of the motivation of, you know, the normal motivations for agents. That was really, you know, that was really clearly done. I think that when people fall into, when you look at these guys, they often fall into more than one of those areas, right? I'm trying to think I think Tobby Navy he was a Navy veteran nuclear

engineer arrested a couple years ago and he was like he had something like a quarter of a million dollars in debt I mean he was he was not at a while ideologically motivated but he was

kind of the exception um Zao there was a guy who's arrested Zao Wei was talked into it by his mother who lives in Wisconsin which actually brings up this whole thing about Wisconsin

and people there cannot be trusted Oh, and at the same I mean, so he was a he was a very clever approach from his mother. And then of course, I mean, what more deeply suited ideology can be bled into. Absolutely.

And especially, you know, in that culture. Yeah. And by the way, the last, the E is ego. Ego, which is kind of threaded as far as from what I've seen, you know, and what I've been taught is threaded into all of the other ones. If it's not initially there, eventually it will be because as you start to pass the information, make, you know, whatever, however you do it, dead drops, when you're doing those operational acts, you start to gain that confidence. And if you didn't already have a big ego, well, now you're going to start to get one

because now it's like, oh, I didn't get caught. I'm a fucking spy. Yeah, I'm James Bond. Yeah. You're smarter than your adversaries. Exactly. And so. Hey, just real quick, another interesting point in that one, Toby, I'm going to mispronounce his name.

The one in 2021. He got 19 years in jail. His wife, Diana, got 22 years. What does that suggest? she was handler yeah obviously she knew so probably her level of involvement in

his his espionage you know that could have been support she could have driven him to the meeting she could have set them up she could have acted as a cutout more than likely probably and again I am not law enforcement so I can't I'm only speculating here

she probably hindered the investigation in some way shape or form but she gets more more than him, but I suppose he struck a plea bargain that perhaps she was not. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the good news for him, he's going to be out three years. You know, he's got three years to look for a new wife. I was going to say he's got three years to get on Tinder or whatever that was. I'm just joking. Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. We would really appreciate it if you guys went

and reviewed us on Apple or Spotify. Those reviews really help people find the podcast and help it get recognized. And, you know, if you've been enjoying the show, we really appreciate your support. Another thing that you can do to support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad-free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House channel and podcast if you'd like to and we really appreciate that so go it and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house Jason I got a question about um why not announce who the what

country it was um possible that it was an ally oh absolutely I I'm probably going to get hammered for it but the Israelis have done it historically to us um yeah Jonathan Pollo. Yep. I mean, they've done it. France has done it. You know, there's a bunch. And could it be because of that possibly,

but we've outed them before. So I think my speculation is that is because it's an ongoing court martial, they don't want to throw it out there yet. So they're, in everything, when it comes to espionage, when it comes to intelligence, Everything is trying to protect sources and methods.

So it could be a little bit of that. Hey, we don't want to reveal it yet. I mean, obviously, if it made the news that this guy got caught, the country that he was spying for knows, you know, oh shit, you know. But they may be holding on to that, maybe trying to make them sweat. It could be any number of things. And it also could be that something came out of the investigation that is leading them to someone else. so they don't want to start tipping off these, you know, sort of thing.

Because people have worked for more than one country at once, you know, three different countries passing information. So it could be any number of things about why. So I want to talk real quick about the failing to report a foreign contact and taking a personal device in a secured space. Those are two of his charges. The personal device in a secured space, that's kind of a no-brainer. You know, you have skiffs, the secured compartmented facilities. When I was at the agency, when you're at headquarters, you're not even bringing your phone into the building, much less sticking it in a cubby somewhere. Now, there were exceptions to that.

You know, there are operational phones that are Blackberries, which only certain people have. I never even saw one, which they were able to bring in with certain caveats. but as far as we were concerned, and I can say this because it's the stupidest and most outdated thing in the world, but we were told we had to turn our cell phone off and take the battery out like a mile or so before you got to headquarters, which just clued anybody tracking you in, you know, you were going to where you were going to. But yeah, so you had to leave all that in your car. So at other at stations that I was at, you usually had like a set of cubbies that you write outside the

gift that you would turn off your phone and take the battery out, put it in to that cubby with either your name on it or a number or whatever. And it wasn't supposed to be in there. Having said that, I was actually in a station, um, sitting actually in a meeting and someone's cell phone went off. They forgot to,

you know, so. Oh my God. What's, stat like? So it was kind of like a little bit embarrassing. Oh, you know, so we everybody looked around, you know, figured out, they figured out who it was and that person, nothing was said. They just ran out, turned their phone off, you know, took the battery out, stuck in the cubby when they came back in. The meeting just continued as normal. Afterwards, I don't know what happened.

I'm going to guess that probably they had to sit with the security chief and figure out what happened why they missed it. And I'm going to say probably didn't go in their record because, you know, especially if it was a one-off. And depending on the type of meeting we were having, which I, you know, I don't even remember what it was. It might not have been a big deal. If it was something that was, but it was noted, I'm sure it was noted because if it becomes a pattern along with other things, well, that's a CI issue and with something that would be reported. So the failing to report a foreign contact thing, that starts from day one, from the time that you apply to, I'm just going to speak for the supposes with any agency where you need a clearance. You are not asked, you are told to report any and all foreign contacts to include family members.

On your SF 86, you'll put it down, which is this big long, like 50 page, basically it's your whole life. you'll put those foreign contacts down and then they will become what's called close and continuing. So close and continuing contacts, but these are all my foreign contacts, but out of those, these five are the ones that I have continuing contact with. I go visit them. I talk with them on the phone. We email, we are friends on social media, whatever it is. And those foreign contacts will be investigated.

Now that that's the official foreign context. Even if you're out somewhere, like you're in Japan, you're close to Japan, like this guy, this chief was, you're in a foreign country. So you're going to meet foreign foreigners, you know, they don't care that you go into a shop and you say, Ohio, because I'ma to the shop owner every day, you know, that you go to get your coffee at or whatever it is on your way to work. What they care about is if you've struck up a friendship with that shop owner, you're having dinner at his house, you've met his family, or whatever it is, that kind of stuff is what they want to know. I would venture to guess that most military folks don't report that because that's not, unless you're in the intel part of the, you know,

it doesn't meet the intent of the, unless it goes beyond that, it doesn't really need the intent. Doesn't really, exactly. It doesn't mean the intent. So common sense, there's common sense involved a little bit, but you can't devolve the common sense too much if you're given clearances, to brand new E5s and E6s. Exactly.

And they would rather you come in every two weeks and say, hey, I met this, you know, Japanese girl or this Korean girl or whatever and then say, hey, listen, don't worry about it. You're fine. Then either this happens, what happened with this chief, or you go for your review, your security clearance review, and then you keep hitting on a poly or, you know, you're acting funny when they ask about foreign contacts and all of a sudden you're like, well, a month ago there was. Well, now it's, it might not have been a big deal then, but now the fact that you didn't say anything becomes a big deal. So it's better to err on the side of caution and let them say,

all right, dude, you're getting annoying than to not reported at all. And I'm going to say, I'm going to guess in this case, again, I don't know the full story, but I'm going to guess in this case, he was probably if he was approached and did not approach them, if he was approached, it was probably very innocuous, where at first he was like, you know, I don't need to report this. But eventually it became pretty evident, especially when you're passing at the point of passing information, whether it's verbally or physically, that's when you know you should have reported it. And that's usually where, depending on the service, the coercion comes in, the ideology, and most certainly the ego comes in.

because at some point when you're handing that over or your mouth opens and you're giving that information, some part of your animal brain is saying you're not supposed to be doing this. And you can either then say, I'm not doing this, go back and report it, or the ego kicks in and you say, you know what, screw them, you know, screw my senior who passed me over or screw my wife or whatever it is, I'm doing it. Or it's just one time. I'll do it this one. And you may verbally say it. I'm just going to do it this one time. I'm never going to do it again. But that intel officer on the other side that you're giving it to is like,

you okay. Yep. You never going to do it again. No problem. You know, I'll see you next month. Exactly, because they know how it works. So, yeah, that failing to report a foreign contact at the very beginning of your career

can, number one, derail your career. Just you're never getting the job because they're going to find out. Or later on in your career, this is what's going to happen. You're going to be court-martial or you're going to be court-martial or you're going to prison or whatever is going to happen. So let's see. So the approach, does you guys have any questions before I make it sound like I'm doing a damn TED talk? No, no, no.

It's just great. So the approach, again, we don't know whether he was approached or they approached him. So if he was approached, I'm going to say that all of that animal brain common sense stuff went out to window in the beginning. He decided he planned like like Robert Hansen had this I believe he walked into the Soviet embassy if I'm not mistaken. One of them did walked right in and I'm an intelligence officer. I need to speak to your resident resident or whatever they call it. You know, some people are that bold. Other people and I'm going to say he's a chief, you know, chief petty officer. He's probably intelligent, but if he approached them, somehow, some way, he had to find out where are the

foreign intel officers hanging out? You know, where can I go to get this information to somebody? So it needs to be, it has to be planned out in some way, shape, or form. So he can't plead in my book. He can't plead. I was ignorant. I didn't know that this person was a foreign intelligence officer. even if that person's not a foreign intelligence officer even if it's a you know it could be an ally it could be a Japanese sailor

that he goes to and says hey man I've got this information blah blah blah you don't know who that person is working for and even if you do you're not supposed to be given that information very interestingly that guy Toby we keep going back to the way he was caught was

whichever country he sent that stuff to so obviously it was not solicited, they turned it into the FBI. There you go. I mean, yeah, extraordinary. That's the first time I've heard of that happening. And that could, I don't know. I'm not familiar with who it was, what country, but that could be China. That could be Russia.

If that person is passing to them is so low level that, not that they don't need it, but it's like, okay, let's turn this guy in so that we can get something bigger later on. You know, we want our guy back that you caught or whatever it is. They'll do it. They'll give him $15,000. There's no such thing as a favor. Absolutely. Yeah, there's no honor among, you know, among thieves in this case.

So if they approached him, that's a pretty nuanced thing. Jack and I talked about, quote unquote, Madam Butterfly on the podcast, on the team house. those sorts of things are set up not well in advance but they're set up pretty intricately it may look like hey there's this you know beautiful woman or this good looking guys approaching you know hey there's something fishy about them but they're giving me time a day so maybe that fishy thing is they like me exactly you know and that's it can't be true what a woman likes me what yeah it's like what the hell and again that number one it gauges that person's willingness to engage with you.

And number two, it creates a layer where if, you know, you approach, the woman approaches me and I'm like, wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense. You know, I'm ass ugly. This is too easy.

This is too easy. She can back off. If you find yourself getting unbelievably lucky, it's probably unbelievable. If it's too good to be true, it's probably the case. So, yeah, and they can back off then.

If you are pushing back, why me, why me, why me? And it's just getting too hokey, they can always back off. So there's that, there is the coercion. There is, especially in the case of governments and societies like in China where, you know, they just tell you, hey, we know that your mom and your dad and your little brother are still back in China. They may not make overt threats. It's just mom, dad, little brother are still in China. Understood.

Yep, and they'll just sit back, hold their arms. Yeah, what are we going to do now? And that happens not just with, you know, military personnel or intelligence officer. That happens with their citizens as well over here. They're average citizen. It's like, hey, you, yeah, you might be a housekeeper or a dentist or whatever it is, but you have access to clients that we don't.

All you got to do is tell us what they talk about, you know, that sort of thing. I've actually even heard a rumor and I don't know how true. this is in the intel world that the Chinese are actually not getting into the or they're already into but really ramping up their real estate agents as far as getting them trained and things like that because of smart houses you know in order to when you set up these smart houses you're putting your personal information into these homes unlocked doors safes turn off the lights whatever it is that's still your personal information some people and I've actually been told this by an actual real estate agent.

And someone correct me in the comments if I'm wrong. But some people actually sell the house and leave and never wipe their personal information. So now you have someone who was an ambassador or, you know, it works for Raytheon or something like that. You have, you know, you have that asset who is a real estate agent. They can come into the house. They have run of the house now, you know, while they're showing it. Wow.

All that kind of stuff. So, you know, we all know real estate agents are fucking scumbags. So they'll pass over the fucking, they'll pass over the info, no, no problem. Particularly susceptible to black money. It's called the commission first of all. Yeah. So they play, they'll play that long game. So they may be able to collect information that way.

And then take it, let's just say that ex-ambasseter or whatever it is, leaves, sells their house. They're gone. They're somewhere else. They're retired, long retired. Well, they take that information now. created dossier, slide it across the table, hey, you know, this is what we have. What are you going to do for us? Now, if we take that from the perspective of an intel officer who's being approached in that

manner, nine times out of 10, an Intel officer, and I'm saying nine times because it does happen, most Intel officers are going to say, go screw you. I don't care. Take whatever you got, you know, do whatever you got to do and go report it. but we now we're looking at a chief petty officer you know again more than likely intelligent he's chief um and he's a fire controlman so but as i like the used to like to say and still say um to my kids uh intelligence and common sense are not the same thing you can have all the uh book knowledge you want but your street if your street knowledge sucks well you're going to get got

So it happens. So if they approach him, if they approached him, I'm going to guess that it could have been a cold pitch, meaning they just said, hey, this guy's wearing a uniform. I'm going to side love to him in the bar, buy him a drink and see what happens, which is a cold pitch. Or they've created a target package on this guy because somehow, some way, it was known what he did. And the fact that they were able to put, he was a fire controlman in the articles I've read, it means that it's probably somewhere in the public anyway. So they put together a target package, however big or small it is, and they plan their approach.

And, you know, sometimes it works. It's spitballing. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. It all just depends on the mark to use a, you know. Could it be like Japan doing it? I mean, it could be. Yeah.

I mean, let's think about the world situation as it. is right now. Would it be in Japan's best different interests to do something like that? Probably not because our ships are going to be part of what's defending them. So probably not. And we'd probably be more apt. And I would venture to say some of our tech, that technology is probably on their ships anyway. So probably not. Could it be? Yes. You know, anything is possible. But more than likely, I would say, based on

where this took place, I would say it's probably the Chinese more than likely. You know, but could be wrong. Because more use to our allies, those who might be prompted to spy on us, more use to them is strategic level intentions. You know, what's the U.S. government's contingency plan for? Or do you think that the president's going to decide X or why?

Those are, that's important. Whereas the kind of the run-of-the-mill military secrets is, you know, they can gain the benefit of that either directly by being provided it through FMS or through partnership with US, you know, and we as intelligence officers, we are always taught, you're taught that you're always collecting. So yes, if I was talking to an Australian partner, you know, if I was liaison, I'm talking to an Australian partner and he says, you know, I'm not going to dig, but if he says something that I think might be of interest, I'm going to go back and, and chop it up with my, you know,

ops chief and deputy chief and say, you know, this is what they said, you know, what do you think? And then it could be, nah, that's nothing. We already know that. Or it could be write it up, you know, get that cable out. You get it out. Headquarters could come back and say, don't talk about it anymore because they don't want to ruffle feathers, you know.

But you're always collecting. You're always, you know, trying to get that next piece of information. the key is you don't when it comes to a partner nation you don't want to burn that bridge yeah so unless you're specifically directed to do it yeah um it's usually half because then you have one on them you know they they know they know vitals of the game and they're doing the same to you they're you know so you know what to say and whatnot say so yeah i'd really like to get somebody on who's like a expert on like the mss uh the chinese absolutely you know like how they go about it what they do because it kind of sounds like they cast a pretty wide net

because there's so many like, you know, Chinese people living here that have family back home that. They have resources in place. Yeah, they have resources in place between, you know, nationals here and, you know, abroad in other countries and traditional, you know, their traditional methods and things like that. They have a huge net that they can call on. We do as well, but I think most of that net,

and we talked about this again on Teamhouse, is technology-wise. and it's we we got a talking part of it um and and there's different reasons for that um from my some of them are mistakes in the past exactly that's what i was going to say that's caused the political control of that intelligence collection to get tighter and tighter so you know and i said kind of jokingly on whenever we met on monday we make humans so painful but it yes it has to be that way. You know, there has to, there have to be certain steps to recruit a source and you have to go through those steps and you can't call them a source until X. It's very, um,

absolutely. Yeah. And you can't play on some motivations. Yes. Coercion, for instance. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and, and part of it too is I keep saying, you know, human, you know, that face-to-face thing, but a good portion of human is not face-to-face. It's covert communication. you know, signaling, things like that. Those things are all subject to breaking down. And they did. We've seen that in the last probably 10 years or more where our communications, covert communications.

I'm not saying anything that's not open source that have been compromised and used to walk back to find our assets and then push other assets against us. So we had to take a pause, had to take a step back and figure out what broke, why did it break, and what is our next step. So we need to catch up, plain and simple. And I really, you were speaking, D, about bringing on, you know, expert on MSS. I would really like to get, and I have a few names in mind, senior officers who have retired, some who just did it for a lot longer than I did, whether they retired or resigned,

who are just amazing. And I will, once we have those secured, I'll get you those names. And they're just incredible wealth of doing things that I've done things that I think are pretty cool. And it's absolutely nothing compared to what some of these men and women that I'm talking about have done. Yeah, that'd be great.

Awesome. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Yeah. So, yeah. So the last thing I wanted to hit on was the why. of why did they approach this person if we're going to go with the fact that he was approached, which we don't know yet. If this, why was this petty officer approach?

Why is any asset approach or target approach? The reason, number one is access. We believe that that person has access to the information that we want or they have peripheral access, meaning they are connected, whether it's familial or, you know, you know, professionally to the person that has the actual access that we want. So they're a step to get our foot into the, in the door. But the second reason is why they were approaches a vulnerability, a bad marriage, finances, disgruntled work, you know, things like that.

And all this stuff is easier to find out because of social media. people, I've said it from the beginning, people make social media their personal diary and it's not personal. So, you know, a good intelligence officer, maybe not themselves, but they have targeters who will be strolling through social media and be able to say, okay, you know what? They made these posts in the last month and the month before they were flying high. Now they're talking shit about their job and their boss and all this other stuff. there might be something here. These are all things that go into a target package and will be a part of the approach to that person. Of course, it's not like in the movies where they side left to you and hey, I hear your boss is an asshole. I think we can help you out. But it'll be, you know, at some point it will be a sympathetic thing. You know, you as the intelligence officer, my boss is to get on my damn nerves. And you try to what we call you, me same, same. I share your pain, brother, or I share your. pain, sister, gain their confidence, and then it could take a month. It could take six years, whatever. Eventually, that person is deep in your confidence, and you've stroked their ego at the

same time. You've stoked that fire saying, you know what? This is what I did, you know, in order to get back at my boss. You know, maybe this will help you out or something like that. There's also the traditional sick relative, a child, a parent, something like that. From what I was taught, we try not to approach based, at least we don't, based on ideology as far as stoking that ideology. Oh, you hate the U.S.? I hate the U.S. too. You're pushing into dangerous territory during that, doing that kind of thing. You can play on their sympathies as far as, you know, what's happening in Gaza. you know, the loss of life, it's horrible, you know, those sorts of things, but you want to be

careful about taking a side, especially if that side is an extremist side. And I'm not saying that's the case in Gaza, except for the Hamas part of it. But you want to be very careful about that sort of thing. But they will know your vulnerabilities, and we will know their vulnerabilities before we walk into it. Unless it's like you just met this person at an embassy party or a party, then you have to backtrack, get that information that you do get, a business card or whatever, back to headquarters, then it will be passed to a targeter who will do open searches and classified searches on this person and will, they'll move forward. So the takeaway from that is, is I'm not saying don't be on social media. I'm saying if you are in a job that you know

works with classified information or you're even on the periphery of it, your husband, your spouse, your girlfriend, boyfriend, does that sort of thing? You need to be very careful. about what you're posting on social media and even the things you're saying. I just saw something on Instagram the other day. I can't remember the name of the security group. Really great one where she was talking about a woman had approached her. I guess she's a client about she was in an airport or she was at a conference or in an airport. Or she was in an airport.

I'm sorry. And she was talking to someone else. Well, apparently she was either talking too loud. or wasn't aware of her surroundings, whatever it was. And she was approached at a conference, the conference that she was flying to by a gentleman, and he called her by her airline seat name. 19B, I think it was.

Hey, 19B, good to see you, that sort of thing. She was like, what the hell? Then she found out he came to her hotel room. He was able to dig and find out what hotel she was in, probably got some information from, you know, the conference, found out and was looking for her. I believe he called her room or something like that. So that was a that was a creeper stalker type thing, which is bad enough.

Yeah. But put that on an espionage level. What you can find out just by listening to people, you know, just talking, you know, at a party or whatever it is, you can gain that information. So you just got to be very careful about what it is you're saying and where you're saying it. I'm sure like us, you know, we don't recognize it yet, but I'm sure. that for the Chinese they're getting a huge amount, if not most of their intel from open source. You know, it's so just like little snippets of information in their, in their aggregate. Well, you know, they, and they're making substantial discoveries.

Yeah, absolutely. I wonder, I wonder how it was like 30 years ago or 15 years ago pre-internet where like everyone basically, you know, journals their lives publicly how they chose people to target like who was kind of disgruntled who had maybe like how they figured the angles then the second one war is illegal to certainly in the British army I know that because not because I was there thank you Dee um it was illegal in British armed forces to keep a diary during the wall oh wow okay there was no oh hey listen I'm just keep you up no because you know everyone then you're carrying it around and who gets killed or wounded and who knows what you've written in that tiring. So it was a very sensible precaution.

Absolutely. And also too that if you're you're in a position where you're dealing with sensitive, I mean, just even going to say classified information, you need to be aware of what your spouse knows and is putting out there, your children, all those sorts of things. Because I think it was, I don't know, probably 10 years ago now, probably more. I believe it was MI6, the newly appointed head of MI6 or MI5, one of them, wife posted on social media, picture of their new house, you know, something about the perks of I remember that, you know, your husband being appointed. What the hell?

You know, so you, those are all things. It's a huge responsibility to have this, that kind of information, access to that kind of information. So, you know, this is the result of a combination of having that access and having some sort of issue in your life that made you approachable and amenable, you know, to, because that's two different things. You might be approachable, but doesn't mean you're amenable to right, giving the information. But he was both. And now he's paying the price for it. I personally think 27 months is light, but it all depends on exactly what he gave and what deal he worked out. 27 months. Is that what he got?

I believe that's what they're looking at. I know that. Okay. I'm going to butcher his name. I know that Wenhang Zhao was given 27 months. Oh, okay. For, you know, for what? $15,000, you know? So, yeah, we can definitely go into that more. See, like my instinct, because I'm like a street rat from New York, I always think it's like it's money. Yeah. Always. It's money. Like, I want money. How much do Chief Petty officers make? Literally.

Yeah. Like, who knows what he's like into or whatever? Like, you know, maybe he's got a lot of expenses. Like, it's easy to just take 50 Gs. Yep. Pass over something you see every day. And like kind of rationalize it too as you do it, you know? And that's part of the ego. You rationalize doing what you're doing. So it's the money, right? Like you said, every part of that acronym is like goes back to ego. Yep. Absolutely. It's all intertwined. find. Yeah. And when you think that the big spies, you know, post-war, Philby, McLean, Ames, you know, up to Walker, it's two or three of those, you know, I mean, Philby was homosexual at the time when it was illegal in the UK,

but he was also pro-Soviet. Ames was an alcoholic. He was pissed off at his lack of career progression. I wonder if there's a link there. And he was deeply in debt, you know, so. Hanson, too. I think Hanson was doing it largely for the money because his wife was splurging. Yeah.

See, it's always, it seems it's the trend here, the wives. Yeah. And I mean, like you said, this one kid's mom approached him. So sometimes it's, it's, you know, your own family or own friends. When your mom is your handler, that, that compulates things. Yeah. it doesn't look that cool, you know. No, it doesn't.

You're probably not going to make a movie about it. It doesn't. Yeah. When you're getting, when you're being handcuffed and walked out right next to your mom. Yeah. She's creating you. She's making you a peanut butter.

Yeah. Ask you if you brush your teeth with a code in it. Yeah. Oh, dear. Yeah, this is great. Yeah. We definitely can go into it more because I,

we will for sure. Can I give you, just give you guys just one bullet before we go to chew on? Yeah. So in the light, So, Dee, you were tracking this that the Ukrainians shut down, you know, Russian AWACs basically in 850. Russians only have nine of those and the Ukrainians now are shot down two.

No, they only had seven left. Oh, really? And now this is there's six left. Oh, excellent. Okay. So, so, but the point is, the point is this, do you remember a couple weeks ago I was talking about how the Ukrainians are extending the range on Patriots? They right up to the, to the front line fire.

And as soon as those, you know, as soon as the rockets are out of the tubes, they're moving back. And the trick, you know, there's a lot of things that make that difficult. It sounds easy, but it's not. It's getting, you know, rapid target data. It is, it's also the ability to transmit that target data in time, you know, to fire the rockets. So it doesn't explain that very well. But getting target data, you know, a really rapidly moving target and transmit it to a, you know, battery that's moving, blah, blah, blah, all these things is apparently complicated, as you can

guess. The Ukrainians have cracked the code on that. And I know that there are GUR, you know, we've talked about the GUR and a Boudanov, particularly capable part of the Ukrainian military. They are feeding and targeting data. And the result, I think, I don't want to speak too soon, but it's clearly evident. Six, the Ukrainians have shut down six aircraft in three days. including

something about that. Yeah, including four SU34s which is again, they've got limited number

and a high performance aircraft. So they figured out something, you know, and then they shut down the A50 this week.

So I would say we're probably going to learn some tricks of the trade from the Ukrainians about air defense. Yeah.

I mean, they ran a very capable air defense with a, well, not ancient, but a 35-year-old system.

Yeah. and they protected their infrastructure. It was a close-front thing, but they managed it. And now they're using Patriots in a way that we haven't. By the way, the 850, though, they shot that down over the Sea of Vizov. It might have been through a Patriot, you know, by pushing their Patriots up. But actually, they could have reached it. I think the range on a pack two is 90 miles or something.

So they could have reached it from there, from behind their lines. Yeah. Awesome. Cool, guys. This is great. Yeah. That is it, everyone. And we will see you again in a few days.

Don't forget. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over to D. Don't forget to like and subscribe. If you're listening to us on audio, rating, reviewed five stars, it helps us out big time. Check out any of these substack.

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