The Dangerous Business of Exfiltrating Spies – Part Two

Man posing in the dark with a fedora hat and a trench coat, 1950s noir film style character

When someone decides to spy on their own country for the U.S., they know they’re taking a risk.  But when news broke recently that the U.S. had extracted a high-level Russian official in 2017 with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, it highlighted not only the value of human intelligence, but also the ongoing risks that a spy faces if they choose to defect.

The New York Times described the Russian asset’s role as important in helping U.S. officials trace the source of election tampering by Russia in the 2016 election, all the way back to Putin himself. 

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