Probably the two oldest professions in the history of humanity deal with sex and spying.
In the world of espionage, among other manipulation techniques, the old standby — sex — can serve more than one purpose.
It can bring about the opening of mouths and the spilling of secrets, so that intelligence gathering operations may prove successful.
The use of sex as an entrapment and blackmail device can coerce conversation out of an agent. Or it can be an incentive to keep information flowing. That makes it highly effective, but sometimes it can backfire.
So, in the exploration of espionage and ‘sexpionage’ let’s look through the keyhole and see what might be going on.
Most people have heard of Mata Hari, the stage name for a stripper that supposedly spied for Germany in World War I. Whether the accusations against were true or not, she was executed by a firing squad, and her operation backfired, which caused her to be front fired.
Let’s get more recent.
The year is 1986, and our target of a honey trap is an Israeli nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu. He decides to go to the Brits, and spill the beans to the Sunday Times about the Israeli nuclear program — a major no-no.
The paper had him under wraps, but Mordechai, who had a romantic interest in a woman he met in London, wanted to pay her a visit in romantic Rome.
But things don’t get all that romantic, because Mossad agents embrace him with a shot of drugs and sneak him out of the country and back to the Promised Land. It seems that his girlfriend wasn’t his friend, but a friend of the state of Israel. More specifically, a girl friend of an Israeli security officer.
Vanunu received an eighteen-year sentence and a lesson in love.[1]
In 2019, Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, caught an Indian officer in a honey trap. The Indian army has issued an advisory that ‘Pakistani intelligence agencies are targeting Indian security personnel, especially Indian Army personnel, who are deployed in sensitive areas.’[2]
In an article in the Indian Express in 2019, it was revealed:
‘Pakistan-based agencies operate a large number of fake Facebook and Twitter accounts and also infiltrate social media groups or contact individuals in the name of young girls. Their aim is to actively try and befriend serving and retired officials and subsequently try to nurture, allure, blackmail and coerce them into parting with sensitive information.’[3]
The Pakistani intelligence boys are still at it. In 2024, in an Economic Times article, it revealed some of the techniques used by ISI on social media by Indian authorities:
‘One method is direct, where a talkative and sweet-sounding girl initiates contact, claiming that the connection was accidental, but prolongs the chat with hints of friendship. Indirect contact is where the honey trapper first befriends the target’s friend on a social media platform. After establishing trust through this intermediary friendship over several months, the honey trapper then approaches the target.’[4]
Now, not all honey traps in history involved heterosexual relationships.
Obviously, in the days when there was zero tolerance in society and especially in spying for homosexuals, setting up a gay man to reveal more than he should — with respect to information — was potentially a powerhouse technique in turning someone into your agent.
Let’s take a look at a homosexual British journalist from the sixties who got his hand caught in the honey jar — Jeremy Wolfenden. He was a star student, a foreign correspondent based in Moscow for The Daily Telegraph, and an asset of the British Secret Intelligence Service, (their version of the CIA).
Besides liking men, Wolfenden liked his booze. The combination of the two was to prove his undoing. It’s no surprise that he was targeted by the KGB and set up in a honey trap with what is called in the business, a Raven, or a male used as a sexual blackmail device — a woman is called a Swallow.
KGB agents had photographed him having sex with another man. Moscow was notorious for having ‘wired’ hotel rooms whereby Boris or Piotr, or Ivan, could set up his target for blackmail.
Wolfenden was torn between the SIS and the KGB, with the Brits trying to double him, and the Russians wanting him to spy for them. Apparently, the pressure got a bit too much for Wolfenden who was found at the age of 31, dead in his bathroom, apparently having slipped and hit his head on the sink.[5]
Yeah, okay.
Okay, let’s go from the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli, and take a look at what happened to some U.S. Marine guards who got involved in a honey trap.
In 1987, the rather appropriately named Marine, Clayton Lonetree, was serving as a security guard for the U.S. embassy in Moscow. He became involved with ‘Violetta Sanni, a Soviet of Ukrainian ethnicity, who worked in the Embassy’s government services office.’
They became intimate, and in furtherance of the relationship, Violetta introduces Lonetree to her ‘Uncle’ who in reality was not her uncle, but a KGB agent named Alexei Yefimov. He desired a close relationship with Lonetree, but not the kind enjoyed by Violetta.
Over the course of his relationship with the two, Lonetree provided low level classified information, but when he was transferred to the U.S. embassy in Vienna, and transferred over to being managed by another KGB agent, Lonetree turned over a phonebook and a list of U.S. spies in the city.
He was paid $1,800.00 for it, and spent a grand of it getting his girl a new gown.
He also provided photos of three agents, and a floor plan of the embassy.
Now here’s where we could talk about his discovery by some dedicated brilliant U.S. counterintelligence officer, but since this isn’t fiction, we’ll tell what really happened.
Lonetree turned himself in to the Chief of Station at a Christmas party, ensuring that he did not get any presents, other than a thirty-year jail sentence. That was eventually reduced to nine years.
Why You Should Care
Every citizen should be concerned about potential intelligence leaks to foreign intelligence services that don’t exactly wish us a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Because instead of that, they’re doing their level best to destroy the United States internally and, if they ever can, externally.
[1] The History of the Honey Trap Foreign Policy 3/12/10 https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/03/12/the-history-of-the-honey-trap/#cookie_message_anchor
[2] Pakistan Using Honeytrap To Target Indian Army Officers, Says Minister Indo-Asian News Service 12/9/19 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/pakistan-using-honeytrap-to-target-indian-army-officers-says-minister-shripad-naik-2145995
[4] Pakistan's ISI honey traps get hyperactive on Indian social media https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/pakistans-isi-honey-traps-get-hyperactive-on-indian-social-media/articleshow/111063967.cms?from=mdr
[5] Wikipedia article on Jeremy Wolfenden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Wolfenden