Former CIA Spies (NEW): Leave the USA Before 2030! The CIA Tried To Ban This Story!

When this story hits the airwaves, it's. going to transform people's opinion. about CIA and the depths to which CIA. will dive to collect intelligence that. protects Americans. So, one of its own. officers became a spy reporting our. secrets to a foreign adversary. My wife. and I were included in an operation to. bait the mole to make a mistake so that. the mole could be found and disclosed. Your wife is here today and you've never. told this story before, have you? No. And your curiosity right now is a major. issue with CIA because they don't want.

the world to know who those people are. It's a dangerous game. Well, obviously my research team tried. to figure out who it was. So, was this the mole? Married CIA spies Andrew and Jeehi. Bustamante were tasked with unraveling. one of the greatest intelligence. operations in modern history. Their. untold story shows you how to build. trust, manipulate, and thrive under. pressure. What actually happened? A foreign ally contacted CIA and said,

"You have somebody inside your. organization sharing information on. operations, officers, assets to an enemy. country." They deployed us to the. country and crafted a new identities, new aliases so that we could build new. sources of intelligence and try to find. the mole. And we were really successful. in doing that. Nobody felt like they. were in imminent danger, but then that. changed. My presence in the enemy. country became known. I called Jeehi and. said, "I'm coming home early." And from. that, I knew that something was wrong. because it is very real that you can be. disappeared by a foreign adversary.

Or worse, being captured and the. president can plausibly deny that you're. CIA. So, I had to try to escape the. country, but everything went wrong. And. what happens next? A horrible story. So, this is the first time I'm setting you. at home a challenge when you listen to. this episode. Can you figure out which. country Andrew and Jeehi were undercover. in as spies from what they say, but also. our team here figured out that the mole.

in the CIA was one of these three. people. Can you figure out from what they say. which person was the mole? It might make. sense for you at this moment to. screenshot these three faces and the. details below so you can remember their. profiles. And by the end of the. conversation, I want you to comment. below which country you thought Andrew. was undercover as a spy and which one of. these people was the mole within the. CIA? Let's do this. Listen, to my regular.

listeners, I know you don't like it when. I ask you to subscribe at the start of. these conversations. I don't like saying. I don't like it being in there. None of. us like it. It's frustrating. Do you know what's. also frustrating? It's also frustrating. when I go into the back end of the. YouTube channel and I see that 56% of. you that listen frequently to this. podcast haven't yet subscribed. And so. many of you don't even know that you. haven't subscribed because I see in the. comment section you say to me, you got I. didn't even realize I didn't subscribe. And that actually fuels the show. It's. basically like you're making a donation. to the show. So that's why I ask all the. time because it enables us to build and. build and build and build. And we're.

going for the long term here. So all I'd. ask you is if you've seen the show. before and you like it, help me, help my. team here, hit the subscribe button and. we'll continue to build this show for. you. That's my promise. Thank you to all. of you guys that do subscribe. Means the. world to me. Let's get on with the show. Andrew, you've never told this story before, have you? No. I have never told the story of my own. operational background. It's been It's. been something that CIA has forbidden.

for a long time. And what's written in this book has. taken you a long time to get approved by. the CIA. Correct. So all CIA officers. sign a lifetime secrecy agreement. And. that secrecy agreement gives CIA the. right to to approve or disapprove any. operational elements of our background. that are still classified and that fit. under this very kind of narrow rubric of. sources and methods, sources and methods.

of active intelligence collection. Because of my time at CIA, my work at. CIA, and the sensitivity of that work, I. just kind of assumed I would never be. able to talk about it. And then all that. changed with the first Trump. administration. What was the CIA's. response when you said that you wanted. to talk about what you're going to talk. about today? Well, that's what's interesting. They. had two different responses. When I. first submitted the request in 2019 to. CIA to write about my operational. background, we went through kind of some. normal bureaucratic back and forth and. they ultimately said, "Yes, you can.

write about it in in detail." And then. in 2021, when we submitted the manuscript and it. was complete, the world started to. change. In 2022, uh multiple major issues uh erupted. between major adversaries of the United. States and CIA came back and and removed. their previous permission. Uh they. basically said that in light of current. geopolitics, everything in the book was. now reclassified. How did you get the. CIA to change their mind so that you. could release this book and talk about.

what you're going to talk about today? We engaged with an attorney, one of the. top attorneys in the space of classified. information and publishing information. So, the attorney believed that because. of the effort that my wife and I had put. into the book, CIA would back off. And. ultimately, that is what they did. When. we threatened them with a First. Amendment lawsuit, they came back and. said, "We don't want to go down that. road. We think we can collaborate on. this. We'll approve your book and you. can move forward.". Why do you think they didn't want you to. publish this book and the story to get. out? When this story hits the airwaves,

it's going to transform people's opinion. about CIA in two big ways. First, they'll understand that CIA is. not what the movies portray it to be. It's not superhuman spies who go out. there like James Bond or Jason Bourne. who are one man against the world. That's not how espionage works. Espionage is a team sport. You have. wins, you have losses. The second thing. is they'll actually they'll start to. understand the depths to which CIA will. dive to collect intelligence that. protects Americans. Inside this book we. talk about a mole that actually. penetrated CIA that CIA has never.

acknowledged. Inside this book we talk. about new tactics that CIA learned from. terrorism and then used against our own. most strategic adversaries. I don't. think people recognize that CIA is. morally ambivalent to how it executes. espionage operations. The goal is to. keep Americans safe. When you say in. this book. you disclose that there was a mole. within the CIA. What does that mean for. someone that doesn't know what a mole in. the CIA is? One of the worst things that.

can happen to an intelligence service is. that one of its own officers. becomes a spy for a foreign adversary. That is what I'm referring to when I. talk about a mole. And you were involved in that operation. to find the mole within the CIA. Correct. More specifically, my wife and. I were included in in an operation to. kind of ferret out the mole, to bait and. and tempt the mole to make a mistake so. that the mole could be found and.

disclosed. And your wife is here today. Correct. >> And we're going to bring her in and talk. to her as well. But for that for anyone. that doesn't know your backstory, which. would be pretty remarkable thing as. you've been on this channel now a few. times. Um could you give me a a. whistle-stop tour of your professional. background up until the point that you. met Chee Hee. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm. from a rural place in in Pennsylvania. Uh I was like the only brown kid in a. white high school, but I ended up going. to an air a military academy. I went to. the Air Force Academy. And from the Air. Force Academy I go into the Air Force. The Air Force teaches me how to fly.

They teach me a foreign language and. then they teach me about nuclear weapons. and nuclear missiles and I serve as a. nuclear missile officer in the Air. Force. So CIA picked me up uh and in my. first my first day on the job in CIA is. the day that I met my wife. Um, she was. sitting in the back of the classroom. I. of course worked my way to the front of. the classroom. And uh, and from there. our training just kind of overlapped and. we we became close. Well, G is here. So, I'd like to hear his version of events.

Was there any inconsistency in the story. he told? What was your perspective? There's. always another perspective. Are you. allowed to date in the CIA? Oh, yeah. It's encouraged um, because. it's really hard when you're. keeping so many secrets. to date somebody outside of the CIA and. not be able to tell that cuz we had. friends who did that who did that. You. have to keep your whole life secret. So, you're lying to them about where you're. going and what you do and. >> day. Day to day. Every single day. So, you're building a relationship.

and lying all the time. And it's really. difficult. So, if you date within the. CIA, you know, if you're in different divisions or. whatever, like maybe you can't talk. about everything in detail, but you at. least know what's going on. You know why. somebody's going TDY or where they're. going for a training um, session or We. can explain to each other. Like, "Hey, I'm going to go work with the Spanish. I'm going to go work with the with the. Canadians." Mhm. But, when you're dating. somebody on the outside, you can't say. those things. So, it becomes I'm going.

on a business meeting. I'm going on a. trip. Crazy. And we've had many friends. who have had relationships explode or. melt down because the the partner starts. to ask very logical questions. We had. one good friend of ours who was an. outsider who was dating one of our good. friends who was an insider. And she. pulled me aside one day and she was. like, "You know, he goes on all these. business trips, but he never takes any. suits.". She's like, "I think he's cheating on. me." And I was like, "No, he's actually. going to a tactical training course. where you don't need to wear anything. except BDUs, but I can see your.

concerns." So, you have to walk your. like there's a lot of walking people off. a cliff because they start to come to. the wrong conclusion. about what their actual partner is. doing. What's your journey into the CIA? Mine. was kind of an unexpected journey. because I went into social work working. with survivors of torture from other. countries, with refugees, with. assignees. But before I got that job, I'd actually I'd spent my entire last. year of grad school going to job fairs.

And I wanted what I really wanted was to. work for the federal government for like. the larger mission for the United. States, for like the people of the. United States. But then nobody was. calling me back. And I was like, okay. I. was like, I'll just submit an. application, like an online application. to CIA, which I thought was funny. And. then a few months later I got a call. back. She was like, come to the. information session. So I went in like a. random hotel with these like nondescript. signs outside. And you walk in and. you're like, I don't know if I'm in the. in the right place. And then they close. the door and they're like, welcome to. the CIA recruiting session. And you're.

like, oh, this is so bizarre. And um Did. they tell you what your role is? Cuz I. know there's several different roles in. in the CIA. Mhm. Targeters began. uh during the war on terror. And because what they initially did was. target individuals for capture or kill. for the military. Okay. So, what what. does that mean? They targeted people for. capture or kill for the military. So you. would Yeah. find the person to capture or kill. >> Yes. in a foreign country. Yes.

And so, because, you know, everybody. else is doing their job of. you know, logistics or weapons or. fighting or strategy. So the targeter. position was really important because it. takes time to to go through all this. data to piece together this puzzle of. who is important, who is important to. capture, who's important to kill, and. how do you get to them? The how do you. get to them is the piece that like. everybody else wants to know, but they. don't really have time to do that in.

their other jobs. So, they carved out. this targeter role so one person can do. all this research and identify in the. you know, terrorists. were really fascinating because they had. how their organizations were structured. And so, you really needed somebody who. could look I mean it's like a like. targeting the mafia, right? Like. everybody has a role. Like there's a big. organization, everybody has a role. It. is in your favor if you're target if. you're going after them to find out who.

who's who. Who's who, who's connected to. who, how can you get to different people. cuz you're never going to be able to. just get the top person right away. So, how do you get there, right? And you. became a targeter. Yes. So, your job was. to figure out who to capture and kill. Or capture or. >> Or kill. And what was your role in the CIA? How. is your role different? Can you explain. it for a layman? Yeah, so where Gihi was. trying to find the individuals that were. of interest, my job was to learn what to. do after a targeter identified those.

individuals. How do you actually meet. the person? How do you befriend the. person? How do you win their trust? How. do you collect their secrets? What's. known as a a field officer, an. operations officer, a case officer. Those are the different terminologies. that we use internally. But you. essentially have every case is kind of. handed over from person to person. So, raw information, sometimes open source. information is handed to a targeter who. creates a profile, a dossier, a. targeting package who hands it to an. operations officer who goes out and. actually makes that first contact. And.

then when first contact is made, we pass. all the information back and it goes. back to all the same people to build the. next package for the next target. So, Gihi would identify the individual and. then your job was to. fly overseas, go undercover, and make. first contact with that individual to. extract intelligence from them. And not. at first. By the time that CIA started. utilizing us as a tandem couple. A. tandem couple is a term that means a. married, truly married, CIA trained.

couple. When we started becoming a. tandem couple, that's how we were a. one-two punch in for operations. Prior. to that, we were in separate offices and. separate divisions doing separate work. So, we got along and we were. complementary because I understood the. challenges of her job and she understood. the challenges of my job, which made. both of us better. working with our counterparts in our. different offices. So, where where does. the story begin? Andy. You know, you you wrote this book to. tell a story. So, I'm asking you the.

question. We usually I'd I'd I'd hazard. a guess where to start, but where does. this story begin? From my perspective, the story really. starts on uh on I think it was a winter. day when we were both called in to a. counterintelligence office. that was a massive. oak table. It was a It was a senior. executive leadership type of room. But, there were only three people there. It was she, it was me, and it was the. leader of what's known as Falcon House,

which is this group of specialists. inside of CIA focused on one particular. adversary, an adversary that we've had. to code name Falcon to maintain. confidentiality with CIA. And so, Falcon. is a country, basically. >> Falcon is a country, correct. And that. leader. revealed to us that they believed there. was a penetration, a mole, that was inside of Falcon House, inside. of CIA, and that they needed us to agree to do. an operation so that the mole will make.

a mistake here. Cuz if the mole makes a. mistake here, we'll find him. But, we. can't have you be here cuz if you're. here, the mole will find you. And then. we don't know what happens if the mole. finds you. So, we're going to send you. across the world. to go work in this other country, Falcon. being the country, while we here as the. experts in Washington D.C. try to find. the mole. And that was privileged information that. neither of us as junior officers ever. thought we would hear. And I think that I know for me, I was.

kind of giddy with excitement and G, he. was a little bit more apprehensive with. this can't be real. But that was for me, that's where the. story starts is when these two people. her and with her anxiety disorder and. and me with my kind of lackluster CIA. career. when we got pulled into this office that. was clearly outside of our league and. invited to do this operation um. without that first meeting, Shadow Cell. would have never happened. So, from that moment onwards, how long. was it before you flew to the foreign.

country in question? And what was your objective when you got. to that foreign foreign country? So, I. guess it's like a sub-objective to find. the mole. And there was another main. objective which was going to help find. the mole. You got it. Yeah, I mean. you're using great terminology. There. were primary objectives and secondary. objectives. And the primary objective. was to build a new set of reporting. assets, a new source of intelligence. Several new sources of intelligence in. Falcon, the actual country. And to to.

help you frame what Falcon is, there's. only a handful of countries that are. true stark adversaries to the United. States. Every one of those countries has. limited to no diplomatic relationship. with the United States. That's how. hostile they are. Any one of those countries could be. Falcon. The reason that we have to code. name the country is because CIA in. today's geopolitical world has has. demanded we don't disclose the name of. the country. So, we call it Falcon. What. are the United States adversaries where. we don't have any.

relationship with them? There's. obviously like North Korea, there's. Russia, there's Iran we know of. Are. there any others? Cuba. Cuba. Mhm. Yeah, there's and those are. um there's a mix there of countries that. we do have a relationship with, but it's. not a warm relationship versus countries. we have no relationship with. So, we. have no relationship with North Korea. We have a cold relationship with Russia, right? We have a cold relationship with. China. We have no relationship with. Iran. So, they're all considered hard.

targets, but at various levels. Okay. So, this the objective is the primary. objective is to build a new team in this. country. But, the sub objective is in building. the team, you're going to find out, hopefully, who the mole is because the. mole is going to make a mistake. The. mole's going to try to find us because. the mole's job is to prevent CIA from. collecting secrets about Falcon cuz the. mole is working for Falcon intelligence.

The mole is working for that country. Right. The mole is part of the CIA, but. working for the adversarial country. Bingo, which is the worst combination. you can have. Um so, some of the most. famous moles in history are Aldrich. Ames. Aldrich Ames was a CIA penetration. that worked for the Russians. Robert. Hanssen. Robert Hanssen was an FBI. penetration that worked for the. Russians. So, these are famous moles in. history. We were essentially being told. that these earth-shattering 1990s era. moles. were were still relevant, but now in.

2010-ish, there was a new one. that had made its way into CIA. And And. that's a big deal. So, it was a very. exciting reveal for me because it meant. that we were not just doing something. that was relevant and interesting inside. of CIA. We're doing something that is. quite possibly the most important work. that can be done inside CIA at this. moment in time. How did the CIA know. there was a mole? There's a lot of complexity there that.

is part of why they didn't want us to. write this book. But, what they have. allowed us to disclose is that a foreign. ally. contacted CIA and said, "We have. collected intelligence that suggests you. have a mole. You have somebody inside. your organization who's a turncoat, a. spy for somebody else. So, a foreign. ally warned CIA. Otherwise, CIA would. have had no idea. Okay, and foreign. allies are people like the the United. Kingdom, Canada, Canada, Australia,

Australia. So, you can imagine the disruption that. that would make. Not only did we did CIA. proper not know they had a mole. It took. an ally to tell us. And then when the ally told us, we have. to assume that the ally is sharing as. much biographical detail as possible. So, they're telling you the name. Hey, Bob is a spy in your organization. But. now that CIA officer is an American. citizen protected by American rights and. privileges. And CIA obviously has no information to.

show that that person's a spy except for. the word of some foreign ally, which is. still in the law in the eyes of the US. government, a foreigner is a foreigner, ally or not. So, even if it is the UK or. Canadians telling us so-and-so is a spy, until we have our own body of evidence, we can't prosecute. That person can't be. fired, that person can't be discharged, that person can't be sued, that person. can't be arrested. So, now CIA has this. mess. where they are actively losing. information, actively losing.

intel because of this mole. >> Because of a mole, but they can't take. any action because they have to now. build a legal case against the mole to. prove that that person's actually. breaking the law. So, the ally that. calls the CIA and says you've got a mole. in your ranks, they named to the person. Most likely. Most likely they would have never made. the the notification without also. sharing the name, which is a courtesy we. do to others as well. If we come across. information that we know an MI6 officer. has been compromised or a Canadian's.

CSIS officer has been compromised or an. ASIS officer in in Australia, we will. share as many biographical details as. possible. And did you share the name. Did when you were called into the room. that day, did they share the name with. you? No. It's hard for people to wrap their minds. around the culture at CIA, and I get it. because how do you wrap your mind around. an organization you don't know? And the. only exact the only insight is from. movies. So, culturally CIA is a is a. group of. people who value secrets.

And that need to know is very important. inside those walls. It's just something. we toss around like movie jargon. outside, but inside CIA need to know is. very, very real. And you are only briefed to the minimum. that you need to know. So, inside of this tiny group of of spy. hunters, which is known as the the um. counterespionage group, CEG, inside this. very small group, they have the need to. know basically everything. And then as. you go out in rings from that group,

they reduce the information they share. So, they might know the name, but then. when they share it to the next ring, they just say, "Hey, there's an officer. who's in this office." And then it goes. to the next ring, "There's an officer in. this division." And then it goes to the. next ring. So, the the people talking to. us as senior leaders, the people talking. to us knew the minimum we needed to know. was that we were going to build new. operations, but we were also going to be most likely. targeted by an own threat inside CIA. That was why it mattered to us. Interestingly, that decision is why we.

had a First Amendment case with this. book at all because CIA was knowingly. putting our lives in danger of a foreign. adversary. by intentionally creating operations. that would tempt that mole to disclose. our identities. That was one of the. things I was thinking when I was reading. the book is you knew that you were being. sent to a adversarial country, and you. also had the knowledge that. working amongst you was a mole who was. revealing secrets about the CIA and. potentially yourselves to that foreign.

country. Correct. So that foreign. country could have. pop. could have killed you. Absolutely. And. and that's the second kind of cultural. element that people don't understand. about CIA. You don't really turn down an operation. If you're invited. to take part in an operation, you have the right to say no. But if you. say no, you're committing career. suicide. Gihi and anybody who reads the book will. find this out. Gihi was.

a stellar officer on a phenomenal. trajectory, doing incredible things. Kind of really charting the course for. what targeters have become today. For me, I proved to be a not very good. case officer. And if there was anything I was really. hoping for, it was a second chance. So. when we were pulled into this meeting. and they said, "Hey, here's this. exciting opportunity. Here's an. operation that we're. we're literally inviting you to this. executive suite to invite you to this. operation. And we're going to put you.

together and we need you to do this.". That's not That's not a situation that I. was going to say no to. I think you considered saying no, but. for me, it was it was a they knew me well enough. to know I was not going to turn that. down. Yeah, I mean, I think when you. have anxiety, you consider saying no to. everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> You're always thinking about the risk, but I think that What was the risk that. you were thinking about? It is very real. that you can be disappeared by a foreign. adversary, that you can be. you know, killed by them with no. explanation, that you can be just.

put in jail and then you never get out. because the government's not necessarily. going to come to your aid. And if they. do, it might be still maybe 20 years. before you're out of their prison. Every. sworn officer has plausible deniability, meaning the president can plausibly deny. that you don't belong to whatever. organization you are claiming to belong. to. So a CIA officer. arrested in a Russian prison. can can avoid all questioning and say, "Hold on guys, I'm actually CIA. You.

caught me. Good job. Now please send me. home. Don't have a diplomatic incident.". The president has the right to say that. person is not CIA. Yeah. That person has. never worked for me. I don't know who. that person is. Uh that their American. passport might be verified, but but they. are. legally in your possession of of uh. you know, legal requirements. So, we we. don't really know who they are. So, so. just to clarify then, you. were being told you were going to be.

flown, both of you, to a foreign. country. Mhm. An adversarial foreign. country. And you were told that there. was a mole amongst your your ranks that. was feeding information to the foreign. country that you were being flown to. So, we they actually stationed us. in a neighboring country that was. friendly. But we knew that Andy and anybody we. worked with would have to go into. Falcon. So, they flew us to a country. >> Falcon being the adversarial country. the adversarial country. So, we actually. lived in a third country called Wolf.

But we were operating in both Wolf and. in Falcon. So, the danger was still. there. And then that's when Jihi's. targeter mind set in. And that's when. she started thinking through, "Well, how. could our operation be reverse. engineered by Falcon. and actually find us? And if we can. think like the enemy, we can stay one. step ahead of the enemy." So, the whole. idea of going to Wolf and building our. team from the very beginning, Jihi. started to architect how we could do. that in a way that would foil the.

foil our aggressors from being able to. even discover our existence. And what. was the objective when you So, you've. got this sub-objective, which I. understand, which is to find the mole. But the main objective is just to spy as. usual and collect information on this. adversarial country. Yes and no. The. main objective was to collect. information, but the spying as usual is. the part that was a no. CIA specifically told us they didn't. want us to do. the standard spy MO. Mhm. Spying has. really been the same since the days of.

Egypt, the ancient Egypt, right? You. find somebody who gives you information. about something that they have access to. and that's it and that's spying. Then. you turn it into a report and you pass. it up to somebody who reads it and they. make a decision. They wanted a new a new kind of. mousetrap. They they wanted a new way of. doing espionage. And when they deployed us to the. friendly country, that was their only. request was whatever you do there, coordinate it with the local leadership. and then don't tell us because we have.

to make sure that the mole doesn't learn. what you're doing. That's going to be how we tempt the mole. to start probing around and asking. questions that are outside of the norm. That's how we're going to reverse. engineer this and find the mole. So we. need you to go do something new and we. need it not to be standard. And don't. tell us. And don't tell us but tell your. leadership in the friendly country. The. the CIA leadership in the friendly. friendly country. >> Correct. Yes. Okay. >> Because the And he's going to tell or. she's going to tell them. No, so it's.

completely compartmentalized. So. >> Need to know. Right. Because if we kept. all of our operations. um centered in Wolf, then in our in our. friendly country, then the mole would. never know what we were doing. So we. would be gathering intelligence which. would then be further compartmentalized. to maybe a specific office where like. one or two people at headquarters might. know about one particular operation and. then one or two people might know about. another operation. But it's because not.

all of Falcon House would know, the mole would not have access to any of. these new inform any of these new. intelligence sources and that's what was. really important. That's why they wanted. us to rebuild because he currently had. access to all of the legacy intelligence. sources. Okay. >> So if he wanted to, you know, pass any. information to Falcon from all of our. legacy sources, he could. But, if he. doesn't have access to our new sources, he can't pass any of that new. information on. And now, here we are, we're able to gather more intelligence,

and then hopefully, if we're lucky, we, you know, we strike gold on finding out. who he is or who he's working with or. other things. But, yeah, compartmentalization was the is the key. So, we were really very, um, you know, uh, kind of siloed in Wolf. I'm trying to understand how you doing. what you were doing was going to help. the CIA discover who the mole was. One of the things in in. double agent operations, which is what. you're talking about when you talk about. a mole or a penetration, a double agent,

meaning I'm a sworn officer of CIA, but then I've also agreed to work with. the Russians, the Chinese, the North. Koreans, the Cubans, whatever. That's a. double a double agent. Double agent operations are very. difficult to maintain in long term. because if my information isn't relevant. to my foreign adversary anymore, if the. if I'm collecting secrets on Cuba, but I'm being paid by the Russians, the Russians may not care that I keep. collecting secrets on Cuba. So, they. might cut me off. And then all of a.

sudden I'm a double agent, culpable of. crime, but without protection from. another country. So, when you think of. your Edward Snowdens, when you think of. some of your famous turncoats from the. United States, they flee to the country. that they were working for, ultimately. So, if you don't have that escape path, then it becomes very, very stressful and. scary for for a double agent. So, what CIA was counting on is. the mole who was reporting our secrets. to Falcon,

if we could create new operations, and. that mole didn't have access to those. new operations, then the mole would. start to stretch. They would start to. make mistakes, ask questions they shouldn't ask, steal. information, try to hack onto systems. they shouldn't get onto. And that's all. stuff that CIA can use to build a legal. case to arrest that person. But without. knowing, without having something that. that person has to stretch to collect, they're not going to make a mistake. So. our job was to create something new so.

that the mole would make a mistake that. CIA could track and that would build a. legal case that would allow CIA to. arrest an American citizen for. espionage. Did the CIA have access to the. information the mole was sending back to. the enemy country? No. That's one of the most dangerous parts. about double agent operations. We often. We have a lot of nicknames, a lot of. inside terminology, but we usually call. it the keys to the kingdom. When you have a foreign penetration,

you have the keys to everything in that. foreign country's. um all of their secrets because you have. access to an intelligence officer who. can pull anything. So our double agent, our mole, had access to essentially. everything related to Falcon that CIA. had. So CIA didn't know what he was. sharing, what he wasn't sharing, how. much he had been sharing, or even how. long he had been sharing it. But they suspected he was sharing. something. Because there was something.

that our ally picked up on. Something that allowed them to identify. the person and communicated back. So you. land in this friendly country next to. the enemy country. And do you have to adopt new aliases, new names, new new stories? Do you have. to pretend that you're normal people. living a normal life? You do. Um there's different ways that. you can craft it. So. um. Geehee's job as the targeter was to find. our targets in Falcon. A big part of. what we had to do when we got to Wolf,

our friendly country, was do whatever. the leadership there told us to do. So. CIA crafted everything for us to land in. the friendly country. Once we were in. the friendly country, then we had to. start crafting new identities, new. aliases, so that we could travel out of. the friendly country and into Falcon. Into the enemy country. Mhm. But while. living in Falcon, we were, you know, Chewie and Andrew Bustamante, newlywed. couple. Where we worked was covered. Where did you work? It's under cover. We we still can't.

disclose it. >> Yeah. Like as far as this enemy did you. like run a when you were in the enemy. country working. were you like running like a like a. coffee shop? Or is it Yeah, when going into Falcon, there were different um you had to have. a a different cover and a different. cutout. And we would use what's what. you're referring to is called commercial. cover or commercial activity. Meaning we. would act as if we were part of. commercial business going into and out. of the country. But you'd use your. normal names? No. No. We This is one of the other things.

that's really fascinating about the book. and one of the reasons that CIA pushed. back is we get to disclose whole new. levels of tradecraft that have never. been talked about in previous books. So the tradecraft that we use here is is. something that the Brits actually call. um dry cleaning. And what that means is we would clear. our path before we would go into Falcon. So we're in a friendly country and we. need to go into a hostile country. In. order to go from the friendly country to. the hostile country, you can't go. directly. Because if you go directly,

the hostile country can track you back. to your friendly country. And then they. can send a team to to hurt you if they. need to in the friendly country. So. instead what you do is you create a. cleansing route. So you travel from the. friendly country to a neutral country. And in that neutral country, you'll. change identities and then travel into. your target country. So now if the. hostile country tracks you, they track. you back to a neutral country and they. have no idea that you originated from a. friendly country. But if you go from a.

friendly country to a neutral country, when you get to the neutral country, do you need like a new passport and. stuff? Because that neutral country, presumably they they don't know that. you're spies. Correct. So, do you have. to have a new passport to then get on a. plane to fly into the Yes, and it's what. we would call a passport swap. And. there's different ways of doing a swap. You can carry your own swap. You can. have somebody meet you to do a swap. You. can have a cachet where you hide a swap. But that's the benefit of always using a. consistent. cleansing route because you can always.

go back to the same neutral country. And. from the hostile country's point of. view, every time they track you, you. always go back to the same place. So, they start to build a pattern of life, what we call a pattern of life, where. they believe you're originating from. this country. When in fact, you're not. So, you you you land in this friendly. country. You're making your way into the. hostile country. What was your objective? What were you. trying to do in that hostile country? The first thing we were trying to do was. find targets. Okay. And.

we knew that as we found targets and. built targets, we would also need to. support the operations against those. targets. And there's a logistical. element to espionage where you need to. have encrypted phones. You need to have. satellite satellite phones or SIM cards. You need to have money. You need to have. specialized gifts. Like there's there's. a there's a logistical supply chain that. needs to be built. Specialized gifts. So, um things that are appealing to a. target that they may not be able to get. themselves. Gold bullion, high-end.

liquors, child pornography, uh foreign currency, whatever they need, your job is to make sure they have a way. of getting it. Child pornography? Some. some targets, especially in the in the. world of drugs and uh and terrorism and. weapons, they they feed off of the strangest. things. So, the CIA CIA would supply that. pornography? In a way, um we would more. like facilitate the transfer. Some other.

friendly country might actually be who. acquires it. So, for example, Germany. might actually uh have a raid where they. where they carry out a raid against a. pornographer and they have. terabytes of porn, right? And then the. UK might have a case where they need. porn to pay an Iranian. So, now they can trade with BND, so the. BND can use this cachet of porn and they. can give it to the Brits who give it to. the Iranians and that can be a currency.

of types. Again, morally ambivalent, the goal is. to protect your people at the end of the. day, right? So, when it comes down to it, that's the same way CIA works. If we're. giving gold if we're giving. minted American gold coins. to an evil person in North Korea, do we really care if it's keeping. Americans safe? There are some people who would say, yes, and there are other people who. would say, whatever the price is, let's. keep Americans safe.

So, tell me about what you did then. So, you what was your what did you. accomplish while you were there and what. is the you talk in the book about using. terrorist tactics to build your. operation there. Can you you run me. through what is it what it is you. accomplished there and the role that. both of you played? So, I'll start it. and I'll let you take it over. But, the. the the book's title, Shadow Cell, is. really about the cell model and the. terrorist cell model that we recreated. in our friendly country so that we could.

execute operations against our hostile. country. that mirrored tactics and techniques. that terrorists had used to foil. Americans for the last 20 years in the. global war on terror. So, what Ji and I learned is that CIA was. not very good at beating terrorists. America was not very good at beating. terrorists. That's why after 20 years of. fighting in Afghanistan, we left and we. gave it back to the same terrorist group. that we went in there to fight. We had learned a lot from fighting that. adversary, but we were the only country.

in the world fighting the global war on. terror. The Russians, the Iranians, the. Chinese, the Cubans, the North Koreans, none of them engaged in the war on. terror. So everything we had learned. from Al-Qaeda, we were the only ones that learned it. So we found that to be kind of a. competitive advantage. So we started. building our operations modeling our. operations off of the way the terrorists. structured their cells. And we called our cell in Wolf the. shadow cell. And we had to find the people, recruit.

the people, and train the people inside. our cell. Our actual CIA peers, we had. to get them to learn how to run the same. model. That's really what the book. explains is how we built that and what. those people did. Because espionage is. not about one superhero overseas, it's. about a team of people doing incredible. things. And were those people on the. ground in the friendly country next to. the hostile country? Yes. And so did you. when you recruited these people to build. this team,

did you recruit them from America or. were you recruiting them within side. that friendly country? Inside of Wolf. Everybody who was in the cell was. already working in Wolf. And the word. cell basically means team. Team. Right. Team. So you built this team it in the. friendly country next door to the enemy. country and this team consisted of how. many people? Right. So James was our. senior most Yeah. case officer. Tasha, Luke, and Beverly were our second. tour case officers. So they were more. junior. That's why they were hungry but.

but still kind of uh. flexible. Whereas James was in James was. at a place in his career where if this. didn't work, his career would be tanked. Mhm. And then Jihee and I were not case. officers. We were kind of the I was the. the mission planner if you will and. Jihee was the targeter. And then uh. Diana was our linguist, Will was our. tech support. And we had that was our. that was our cell. That was our little. group of people that would sit in the. bullpen. Now, it's important to note. that. none of them and. this was their primary mission. It was.

our primary mission. For all of them, helping us was just something they were. doing because they believed that if we. were successful, it would be good for. them. They had primary missions to do. all sorts of other things. Oh, okay. And were these people locals? They're all Americans. and they're all Americans assigned to. Wolf. So, they're all American CIA. officers, all sworn officers that are. assigned to our friendly country in. various different covers to do various. different primary missions. Okay.

And how did you guys like communicate? Did you like meet up for like dinner? Like this stuff. How does it work? Yeah, I mean all of our communication. and hangouts were in the office because. we couldn't really be seen outside. together. We had a. we had what's known as a SCIF, a. specialized compartmented. information facility. So, it was a it was a hardened. soundproof office that we could have. meetings in. Couldn't the adversarial country like. watch you walking in there in the. morning? The adversarial country arguably didn't.

even know we were in Wolf because every. time they tracked anybody's travel, it. would take them to a different country. Oh, so you were just people going to an. office. Yes. So, you could be doing. anything in there. Correct. >> Yeah, and it's an office in a large. office building. So, we could really be. going anywhere. Okay, fine. So, it's. hard to track. So, what was your what was your first. mission together as a as a team? Like. what were you what were you doing in the. enemy country? What was your objective? To you were finding you were working as. a targeter to find interesting. individuals and then Andrew you were.

predominantly trying to make contact. with those individuals. Sort of what my. because I couldn't as the node of the. of the cell, the node is a term that. we're using to say, I was the piece that. was exposed to CIA. So, the mole, if the. mole went hunting, the mole would find. me. I was the one that was exposed. Okay. So, for me, it was important that. I actually didn't meet with any of the. targets that we had in Falcon. My job. was to go to Falcon to start sourcing. the information that she would use to.

identify those individuals. Like, what. does that mean? So, uh whether it's. something stupid like a phone book or a. thumb drive, uh whether you're picking. up a dead drop from somebody else. So, consider in Falcon, we would have. already had other case officers carrying. out operations. Yeah. So, we might have a case officer who was. able to extract information from a. military database. And that military. database has all the weapons engineers. for Falcon's Air Force. That case officer That spy. That spy.

Mhm. That spy can collect a thumb drive. Yeah. And then they can put that thumb. drive in what's known as a dead drop. A. dead drop would be something that you. hide anywhere in the in the country, in. a city, wherever. >> Also, like in a bush. Yeah, like in a. bush. I would then go into Falcon, and I would. go to that dead drop site, the bush. >> So, you're going to the enemy country. Right. >> You'd go to the the bush. And take the. thumb drive and bring it back by our. cleansing route to Wolf, where I could. give it to Jihi. Jihi could then extract. the information from the thumb drive, and now she has a list of all the.

engineers who are part of the. enemy country's Air Force. And then from there, she has a starting. point for her information to start. finding targets. Now, as she finds. targets, that's when we tap on our case. officers. James, Tasha, Luke, Beverly, and we say, here's. somebody that we think would be. susceptible to you because you're a. middle-aged woman, you're an older man, you're a younger man, you're a younger. woman. Right? We think that these people. might be susceptible to your interests,

your backgrounds, your voice, who knows. what. And we need you to target them. And then we would send those. those spies into Falcon to meet the. targets that Jihi found. Okay. Uh okay, got you. So, the game of. espionage is not an easy game. It's a. fun game, but it's a it's a chess game, not a checkers game. So, there's a lot. of moving pieces and a lot of moving. parts, and um for me it was always very. exciting, but I also understand that it. can be very difficult to to express it. well. Was there ever a time when you felt most.

at risk? When you were in that hostile country? At some point, it. my presence in Falcon, in the enemy. country, became known. to the local government in the enemy. country, and they dispatched a. surveillance team to track me. It was a. major turning point in our operation. We. kind of went from a place where we felt. like we were winning to a place where we. wondered if we were losing. We went from. a place where I felt very safe to a. place where I felt like I could.

immediately be apprehended, and then all. the worst thoughts start to creep in. Not necessarily about being shot. Oftentimes a CIA officer being shot in a. foreign country is a welcome. experience, because being shot at least. means everything ends. The worst is being captured and being. interrogated and being used for. diplomatic leverage and being used for. policy leverage and being being forced. to do. uh you know, into brainwashing and. propaganda videos. Like, that's a much. worse experience than than a clean.

death. You said earlier that it would have been. the mole that was exposed to your. presence and that knew that you were in. this enemy country. So, was it the mole. that told the enemy country? That's what. we believe. We don't have the evidence. to prove it, um but what CIA's. conclusion as well as the conclusion. inside of our own shadow cell is that. our operations had reached the place. where they were significant enough that. the mole took a risk. to find out that I was the exposed.

member of the cell, and then the mole. reported my name to the hostile. country's police force. So, you're now inside that hostile. country, the enemy country, and they. know that you're a US spy. Was there a day when you realized that. they knew that you were a spy? Yes. Well, there wasn't a day that I realized. that they were. that they knew I was CIA. There was a. day that I realized they were. surveilling me. as if I was a threat.

When you travel, when any business. person travels to a hostile country, they're almost always surveilled. Their. hotel rooms can be rifled through. There's There's people called bumbling. surveillance or watchers who will. usually follow you. I'm not sure what your travel looks. like, but I can almost assure you that. if you travel to Russia, if you travel. to China, if you travel to Cuba, you had. a watcher. You had a surveillance team. Really? that was watching you. >> Me? Yeah. Why? Because you're wealthy, you're successful, you're an influencer, you're of significance. At the very. least, they want to make sure that some. petty criminal doesn't hurt you in their.

country cuz that could be a big deal. >> Thank you. But. Please continue to surveil me. But at. worst, they could also be scraping your. cell phone to pull all of your contacts. off the cell phone so that they could. then reach out to any of the contacts. that you have on your cell phone. They. could scan and duplicate your hard drive. as you go through secondary or go. through immigration in a foreign. country. They can scan my hard drive as. I go through immigration? Absolutely. We can do that here in the United. States, too. What? So, if I land in the United. States, like they How do they do How. would they do that? So, there's a.

There's. There's different authorities that exist. for different agencies. So, here inside. the United States, one of the. authorities that we give to our border. patrol is the authority to essentially. scrape data off of all of your. electronic devices. So, if you're uh. deemed a target of interest, and if. you're moved into what's known as a. secondary screening, they will separate. you from your bags. They'll actually. open your your bags. They might even. tell you to unlock your cell phone or. unlock your laptop. And then from there. with with technology that's proprietary.

and technology that's also currently. commercially available, they can scrape. and scan your hard drive. Cuz I've been. through security before in various. countries and sometimes when I get to. the other end, there's a letter in my. suitcase. And the letter in my suitcase. says, "Hey, we had to go through your. bags for some reason.". >> If you had a technical If you had a. technical device in your bag along with. that letter, there's a good chance that. it was cloned. But I didn't give them my password. Sometimes they don't need your password. Really? Oh, yeah.

How are they going to get into my my. laptop without my password? There's. ways. So, yeah, there's password generators, there's password cracking codes. Your. password is the I mean, I have somebody. I could call right now and within about. 30 minutes we would probably have all of. your passwords that you use for all of. your devices in your personal home. That's the end of the podcast, isn't it? Good luck WITH THE BOOK. CUZ I'M GOING TO HAVE TO ASK HIM FOR MY. PHONE.

AND THIS IS A BIT OF A TANGENT, BUT IT'S. AN IMPORTANT ONE. SO, WHAT devices do. you guys use if you have that knowledge. that it's really easy to break into. devices? Do you use the same devices. that I use? Yeah, I mean, for me I. assume that once you If you become a. target of interest, there's nothing you. can do to protect yourself. So, I use. devices that are actually easy to crack. and clone because I don't want my device. to get broken. So, that when. the Chinese or the Russians choose to go. through some backdoor on my Android. system, my Android doesn't shut down.

Whereas, there are more complex systems. like a Glacier phone, where if somebody. penetrates your Glacier phone, this the. whole phone will shut down and you'll be. without a phone. Is there any phone or. device that's safe? I would argue the answer is no. No. I. would say no, also. Because anything. that you create that claims to be safe. becomes priority number one for all the. adversaries out there cuz they know if. they can be the first ones to crack that. phone or crack that hard drive or crack. that operating system, then they have. the competitive advantage over everybody.

else. Yeah, it's possible for something. to be safe for a short period of time, but eventually it's going to get. cracked. They'll find a back door or. they'll figure out how to open it. And. it's not just foreign intelligence that. wants to do that, it's also all of your. criminal syndicates, it's all of your. dark web syndicates, everybody wants to. do it. So, whenever I see anybody come. out and promise that they have got the. new hardest device, I just I don't believe it. It might be. hard, but that doesn't mean it's. impossible. Yeah, there are levels of. security, but nothing is 100% secure, at. least when it comes to technology. And.

so, we just assume. that it's not secure. And so, you just. treat your device in that way. You know, with whatever level of security is. convenient and makes you feel secure, but knowing that at any point somebody. could just hack in from, you know, they. could hack in remotely, they could, you. know, scrape your drive when you're. going through immigration or if you're. in a hotel room, somebody comes in. I. mean, it's always possible. >> steal your encryption key from somebody. else that you are having an encrypted. chat with. They didn't have to target. you. Do you use like cold storage? I.e.,

do you use like a a hard drive that's. not connected to the internet or. something? We will air gap. With what? >> Air gap. Air gapping is cold storage, like what you're talking about, where. you take something off the actual cloud, take something off the internet, and it. just lives in a stand-alone server. Whether that's a We have drives that we. save our information to that are that. are air gaps, they're not connected to. the internet, not connected to a cloud. They're only connected whenever we. choose to transfer information. Um so, we'll do things like that to keep our. information safe. But, the I think the. most important thing is that. if you. if you show, if you make yourself easy.

to be hacked, then you'll actually get hacked less, because you're not a risk. They can see. what you have, they understand that. you're not important, and they move on. to the next target that's more more uh. clandestine or trying to hide. Okay, so you you out, going back to the. story, you figure out that you're being. surveilled. How? Just like the the whole idea of a. cleansing route through a third country, that's a a piece of tradecraft that has. never been exposed before. I actually.

get to teach a number of people, I get. to teach in the story how we do what's. known as a surveillance detection route. So, the the core of surveillance. detection is understanding something. that we call multiple sites, multiple. sightings over a period of time. So, I. need to see the same person, the same. vehicle, the same face, the same. profile. Profile meaning, you know, tall. tall Caucasian male, mid-50s. I need to. see the same profile several times over. a period of time where I'm changing. locations.

So, what happens inside Shadow Cell is I. identify one car. that follows me through multiple turns. and then falls off, only to come back on. later on. That's kind of my first. indicator that there might be something. going on. So, then I go through this. route, a predetermined, preplanned route. through a city. And the only reason I'm. doing that route is so that I can drag. people along with me to see if they're. going to behave like surveillance. And.

from that route, I find that it's not. just one car, it's actually two other. cars. And when I get out of my own. vehicle to walk on foot, there are very. specific people who then follow me on. foot. And then in the third part of the. surveillance detection route, I find. that same people who are following me on. foot are also the people driving the. cars that are following me inside. vehicles. So, most surveillance. detection routes are executed in this. very prescribed, very specific process. so that you can see who's actually. following you.

And you did that. You discover that. there's multiple people following you in. multiple vehicles. And when you discover that, it's. terrifying. >> Yeah, I was going to say you. >> It's absolutely terrifying. But, it's. comforting. because you know they're following you, but they don't know that you know that. yet. So, they still think that they are. discreet. They still think that that. you're operationally active, meaning. they're following you because they. expect you to commit espionage. They're. following you because they expect you to.

meet with a source, do a dead drop, acquire some kind of equipment that you. shouldn't have, right? They're waiting. for that. If they don't see that, then. they don't get the evidence that they. need. They don't win. >> So, you go straight to a strip club or. something. >> Exactly right. You go to a strip club, you go to a library. I went to an arcade. in this book, and you go somewhere to. just waste their time. Because as long. as I'm collecting their information when. I come back to my friendly country, and. I meet with my shadow cell teammates, I. can now tell them this license plate is.

a surveillance vehicle, this profile is. a surveillance vehicle. If you see a. woman or a man wearing these types of. clothing, this is a surveillant, right? And we can. now we can build a database back in Wolf. that shares the surveillance team. members in Falcon. Were you scared when. you figured out that you were being. followed? I was terrified. I was. terrified because I had so many thoughts. going through my head from how did I. [ __ ] up. to what if I don't go home? I'm trying. to think about what they're going to do. as their next step. How long are they.

going to follow me before they just say. [ __ ] it and just wrap me up? Are they even going to wrap me up? Wrap. me up meaning meaning apprehend me, capture me. Do they already have. evidence that shows that I'm committing. espionage, right? I haven't committed. espionage on this trip yet, but have. they seen me on a previous trip doing a. dead drop, retrieving a dead drop, dropping a cell phone, taking a battery? Like. what what do they know? I don't know. what they know. And then you've got all this panic, and. at the same time you have to recall. 3 and 1/2 hours of very specific.

activity across a city to run an SDR. An. SDR? A surveillance detection route. You. have to recall I turn left on Front. Street. I go two blocks, I turn right on. 22nd North, and then I turn left on an. alley. You have to recall this thing. that you memorized, that you work. through, and at the same time that you. have this spike of adrenaline panic. And. you were on your own? I was on my own. for that operation. So, you you go. through this route through the city that. you is predetermined for you to go down, and presumably this particular route is.

designed in such a way where. it gives you opportunities to expose. them. You realize that you are being followed. What do you do in that exact moment? The. first moment that I realized it was. true, I had this. realization, this moment of fear and. vulnerability. where I just it was a very it was a. moment of self-loathing, where you just. you realize that you're not as good as. you think you are. And you realize that.

however this happened, you're the only one to blame for what. comes next. In that kind of moment of humility, I actually called Jihi. In our alias identities that we had. built for these operations, we had. what's known as a throwaway phone or a. disposable telecommunications. And I. called her. and I gave her a coded message to let. her know. that. something was wrong. Cuz I wanted her to.

know that something was wrong so that. she could take it back to the cell so. that they could start their systems on. their end to protect me if I did get. arrested, if I did get wrapped up, if I. did get shot. You gave her a coded. message? Via cell phone. What is that. coded message? Um the I think I just. called you and said I'm coming home. early. >> Mhm. You said you you called her and said I'm. coming home early. Yeah, which is a bad. sign because you would never come home. early from an operation ever. So, as soon as I heard he was coming. home early, I knew that something was. wrong.

>> Take me into your world at that time. The phone rings. I get the call on my. phone, my burner phone, and which was. unusual anyways. I mean, I always had it. because that was part of our like. communication plan was for us to do that. when we were apart. So, a burner phone. is a secondary phone that you just use. for these kind of things. >> That's just for this. It's never used. for anything else. It's not connected to. a name. Um and that's what keeps it anonymous. for us. And so, he calls and he says, you know, "Hey, I'm coming home early.". And I'm like,

"Okay." Because you can't like if if the. line's being tapped, you can't be like, "Oh my god, what's going on? Like, are. you okay?" because somebody's listening. to it. It has to sound like we knew that. his alias had a fiance. I was the. fiance. So, you know, it was totally natural for. anybody listening in to to hear him say, "Hey, I'm coming home early." So, then I. had to be like, "Oh, that's really. exciting. That's great. You know, I. can't wait to see you." And he's like, "Okay, I love you." And then that's the. end of the conversation. And that's all. I get. And so, after that's all I get from.

Andy, I go back to the office. I'm. starting to look like scour all of our. cables. I go talk to James. Like, have. you heard anything? Like, is anything. happening? You started to scour all of. your cables. Yeah, so, you know, we have. our all of our databases, uh you know, all the CIA databases. So, you know, there's reporting that comes in all the. time um that you're, you know, especially regional reporting that. you're privy to. And so, you know, I. talked to James because he was he had. more access than I did to things all. things Falcon. And so, I was like, "Have.

you heard anything? Is there anything. weird going on?" And he said, "No." And. so, I started just kind of looking. through all of my stuff to see, you. know, was there any reporting that was. of somebody being captured or somebody, you know, something going wrong? And. there was nothing. Um and so, Andy and I. have um. we created on our own just a it's called. a combo plan, a communication plan, where you know, if anything ever. happens, you know, whether natural. disaster or, you know, espionage faux. pas, like we had a system of.

communication where. you know, I wait 8 hours and you know, check this. fake email that we share that's not. attributable and then he gives me a sign. of life and then we have these timings 8. hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours. where all I need from him is a sign of. life to know that he's okay. And then. that also gives us the opportunity if it. were a natural disaster for example, to. put, you know, I meet me at this. location. So that that's an email. address that Andy emails. Yeah, so.

>> Close. It's an email address that we. both have a login to and you create a. draft email inside of it. Oh, okay. >> Also learned from terrorism. Also. learned from terrorism. Okay. Oh, is. that what terrorists do? Yeah. So they. create a draft email, they just leave it. there and someone else logs in and looks. at it. Yeah, so there's it's never sent, so it never goes over the internet. really. Yeah, so we had this. communication plan in place, so even. though I was concerned and I couldn't. find anything to discover what was. happening, I knew we had this. communication plan in place. So I knew. that at some point he was going to give.

me a sign of life and I couldn't do. anything. until that point. So you're you've. discovered that you've been discovered. by this adversarial country, you call. Jihi, you let her know that you're. coming home early, then what you do? Then I have to plan my escape. So. another thing that people that movies. don't show you is that. when in the first effort to escape is. always self-rescue. It's always on the. part of the field officer alone to try. to escape. There's no Navy SEAL team,

there's no evacuation helicopter, there's no high-speed. boat or or classy yacht just waiting for. you. You have to get yourself across. the country's border yourself. before you can hope for any kind of. e-back from there or what we call an. exfil. So I knew knew it was on me to come up. with some evacuation plan. And I had to. come up with an evacuation plan that. wasn't going to let the surveillance. team know. that I knew I was under surveillance.

And you're still in the car at this. point? I'm I'm in between the car and on. foot uh. de- depending on where I am in the. surveillance detection route, right? It. was Surveillance Detection Routes. generally break into three phases. It's. in the first phase that you suspect that. you're under surveillance. It's in the. second phase that you confirm it. So, it's in the second phase when I confirm. I am absolutely under surveillance. That's when I contact G and G, and. that's when I start coming up with my. own self-rescue plan. And then the third phase? The third. phase is a collection phase. You know.

what you You know that you're under. surveillance. You know that you've. communicated to somebody that you're. under surveillance. And now the mission. becomes collect as much information as. you can about the surveillance team. before they realize that they're being. collected against. So, you you see this. car behind you, multiple cars behind. you, and the same people following you. on foot. Are you writing this down, or. are you just trying to memorize it? >> At first, it's all memory. Um and we. have a methodology for trying to. memorize this stuff. We actually talk. about this in the book as well. You. start to come up with short codes to.

describe the people. Um and the codes that you come up with. mean something to you, but they wouldn't. mean anything if they were if they came. out in an interrogation, if they came. out in writing. So, like for you, I. might call you black t-shirt. A black t-shirt means something to me. So, if I see black t-shirt behind me. three times in the next 45 minutes in. three different parts of the city, I. know that I have an image for what black. t-shirt means. But when I write down. black t-shirt, nobody else knows what. that means. When I see a woman, it was cold uh the. the season that I was carrying out these.

operations. Um I saw a woman in. earmuffs, so I would call her earmuffs. I saw a guy in a bomber jacket, so I. called him bomber jacket. And you just. recall these people. You You You blue. sedan, yellow SUV, right? White taxi. cab. You You start to come up with these. nicknames that mean something to you but. don't mean anything to anybody else. And. then when you get back to a place where. you can document your notes in detail, you have a reference point to document. in detail. So, I start by memorizing.

When I got towards the end of my third. phase of surveillance detection, I. actually wrote down my notes. in the book it explains I went into a. like a clothing store. and then I started making notes in the. clothing store. Presumably, if somebody. came in and arrested me at that moment, what they would see is a bunch of notes. about clothing. Earmuffs and black. t-shirts inside of a clothing store, that's not espionage. But then when I. was able to actually get back to. to Wolf with my cell, then I was able to. deconstruct what black t-shirt meant.

Black t-shirt meant blackmail. with a goatee. approximately 165 65 lb 5 ft 11 in. 38 years old. So, how do you get from phase two of. your process of figuring out if you're. being followed to the arcade? Like what was the Why did you go to the. arcade? So, I went to the arcade because. I was trying in a surveillance detection. route, one of the things that you're. actually trying to do is called bore or. lull your surveillance.

You never want to In movies, it makes it. look like you're trying to to ditch your. surveillance team. You're trying to lose. your tail. That's not what professionals. do. What professionals do is we drag the. tail. We keep the tail with us for as. long as possible. And one of the things. you do is you make yourself very. predictable. You move very slowly. You. hang out in public places, which makes. it very easy for them to observe you. I. was actually going to the arcade to try. to collect more information about my. surveillance team, but I was trying to. give them time and space so they could.

observe me in a public setting. It It backfired because what actually. ended up happening is that when I went. into the arcade, they lost me. They lost. sight of me, which put them into a. position where they started panicking to. try to find me, even though I was just. sitting inside the arcade. I mean, it doesn't sound like it. backfired if they lost you. That's a. terrible thing when they lose you. because when they lose you, they start. to panic and they start to assume either. they made a mistake or you're a trained. officer.

If you're a trained officer, if that's. the conclusion that they make, they can. come in and arrest you. If they lose. you, then they start to make mistakes. And when a surveillance team starts to. make mistakes, it means that they might. stumble across you. They might have two. different surveillance people find you. at the same time. And for for them, that's a scary thing because for them, they're trying not to be identified. They're trying to be discreet. They're. trying to not be seen. So, when they in. this case in in the story that that we. share in Shadow Cell, when the. surveillance team broke into a. starburst, a starburst means they went.

they broke ranks to try to find me in. the arcade. When they broke ranks to try. to find me, they presented themselves to. me in the arcade face-to-face. And it. was in that moment that I realized. they know that I see them. and I know that they see me. and. this is bad. You locked eyes with them. Which you're never supposed to do. You're never supposed to do. You're. never supposed to lock eyes with your. surveillance. You're never supposed to lock eyes with.

anybody who's a threat, ever. Because that's threatening behavior, right? That's one of the reasons that. people share strong eye contact with. peers is to show is a show of trust. Well, whenever you're locking eyes with. somebody who's a threat, it's a it's a. sign of aggression or dominance. So, whenever you're being surveilled, you. never want to make eye contact with your. surveillance team because your. surveillance team will see that eye. contact as a threat. When you say you. sort of bumped into them in that arcade, what's the distance? 3 ft. 3 ft.

And and how long did you lock eyes with. each other? It felt like an eternity. In. reality, it was probably 2 and 1/2. seconds. I mean two and a half seconds is a long. time. >> Especially when you're trying not to be. seen. So, recreate that moment for me. You're in the arcade pretending you're. playing with games, you turn a corner. It's horrible, man. It's a horrible It's. a horrible story. I'm I'm in the arcade. I I'm I again, I think I'm doing. everything right. I'm like, "Oh, I'm in. the arcade. They watched me come in. This gives They're probably taking a. smoke break outside. They've got nothing.

to worry about." And I'm kind of going. from game to game and spending whatever. credits that I bought in the arcade. And. then I go to this. dinosaur hunting shooting game, right? Almost like Big Buck Hunter or like. Jurassic Park. And I pick up a rifle. and I'm shooting at dinosaurs. And I'm just killing time. And then. the [ __ ] surveillance comes around. the back of the machine looking for me. He comes around the back of the machine. and he sees me. And I'm holding a. [ __ ] gun. And I look at him and he. looks at me.

And that's that's when our two and a. half seconds happened. And I'm sitting. there and I'm like, "What just happened? Why is Why did I just see bomber jacket. come around my video game console and. stare at me in the face?" And that's. when I kind of realized, "Oh my gosh, like the team is in panic. I can see. multiple people in the team. They lost. me. They're trying to find me. Bomber. jacket just found me.". What did bomber jacket do when he looked. at you? His jaw dropped. He went slack. Like he looked at me and he knew that he. had [ __ ] up, too.

And I looked at him and in my mind's. eye, I was just hoping that I didn't. look as stupid as he looked. In that moment. is it true to say that you should have. just looked back at the dinosaur game as. fast as you possibly could? What I. should have done is I should have seen a. person come around the corner and just. kind of stayed in the game. That's what. anybody else would have done. Anybody. else would have just stayed in the game. They're They're focused on the game. They don't even realize there are people. walking around, right? But the fact that. I identified I saw him and then looked. at him and the fact that he saw me and. looked at me as two professionals on.

opposite sides of the of the playing. field, we both made the same mistake. We. both made the mistake of showing our. recognition to our intended target. And before we continue, you as far as. your alias was in that country, you were. called Alex Hernandez, right? >> Correct. >> And you were running a business called. Acme Commercial? Correct. What was Acme Commercial supposed to be. doing as a company? Acme Commercial was a company that was. built to source new disposable goods.

from foreign countries for. uh for uh transport and distribution. across Western countries. And the. intelligence services build. a lot of fake businesses, you said. >> Yes. Yes, it's a it's. the easier it is to build a business, the easier it is to collect information. So, what we've discovered is that just. as anybody with $127 in their pocket can. create an LLC, that's about how much money it takes to. start an intelligence operation. So, is. that um the CIA operates numerous fake.

companies? The The CIA also operates numerous real. companies, too. Not just the CIA. I mean, every intel. organization. has commercial fronts. Every intel. organization. The CIA operates real. companies. What does that mean? There are There are. real companies out there owned and. operated by CIA. In-Q-Tel is one of. those companies. It's a investment. vehicle where CIA invests money and. invests in new technology, and all the. technology that goes through In-Q-Tel.

knows that it's going through the CIA. Okay, that that's a that's that's public. though, right? But the. the ones that aren't public, so the CIA. will create a company. and then they will use that company to. pretend to be doing something in a. foreign foreign land, basically. But the. primary mission is intelligence. This is. one of the most fascinating things, not. only about CIA, but about all of your. first world intelligence organizations. You've heard of what's known as the. black budget. The The budget is the budget of. of um discretionary money that can be.

spent on military and intelligence. operations that isn't tied to the. taxpayer. So, it's a giant pot of money that isn't. tied to tax money. So, where does that. money come from? Part of that money comes from anytime. law enforcement or intelligence agencies. seize assets. We seize cryptocurrency, we seize drugs, we seize child. pornography, right? When we seize that. money. and we use it for other operations, that's part of the black budget. The. other part of the black budget is when.

an intelligence organization creates a. business and that business turns a. profit. When that business turns a profit, where. does the profit go? It can't go to the. case officer, that person's being paid. on the US payroll. So, all that profit. goes into the black budget. Do you think. the CIA has some big profitable. businesses that it set up as fronts that. just like went really, really well? I. know it does. Really? I know it does. The The CIA has businesses that it set. up that have gone wildly CIA also has. officers that built these businesses.

that then were like, "Why the [ __ ] am I. at CIA?" And then they leave CIA and. they go on to run businesses instead. I mean, a a couple of things popped into. my head as you said that. The first was. there's obviously a huge conversation at. the moment around TikTok. because TikTok was started in China, it's become this massive sort of global. success. and I can't think of a better. company to have started than a platform. like TikTok where everybody's putting. their information and data in and it's. tracking your location. So, what what is. your perspective on something like. TikTok? Do you think TikTok's was.

started as. a tool to spy? I don't believe TikTok. individually was started as a tool to. spy. I believe that what happened is. TikTok became wildly popular and the. government in China realized, "Hey, everything in China belongs to the. government anyways. We can step in and. take advantage of this." That is also a. way that CIA and MI6 do business as. well. When a company does very well and. there's an intelligence benefit, they. will approach the company. In a democracy, they can't force the. company to cooperate, but in a country.

like China, they can. So, do you think. the social networks, a lot of the big. social networks, have been approached by. the CIA or the MI6 and asked to give. the information to them? >> I would go a step further and say that. they've all been approached and that the. vast majority of them cooperate. Is that a concern for the average. person? Not for the For the average. person, that's a benefit. The average. person is not being targeted, I promise. you. Like there's zero interest in for. the federal government and for the.

intelligence community, there is. absolutely zero interest in the average. person. >> who's cheating on their spouse or. avoiding $5,000 in taxes or who isn't. paying their parking bills, nobody cares. The federal government doesn't care. about that. >> Well, you were doing some of that. targeting, right? Right. >> So, did you ever work with any existing. company to give you information? So, all of my data, depending on what. country I was working on, had different. sources. And some Some countries had. more sources than others, but they're.

all sources I can't disclose, but. there's tons and tons of data that would. come in to me and then I had I worked on. a number of cases where I had to get. FISA requests. What's a FISA request? >> request is when you want to. um collect information or take. information from somebody who is an. American citizen. And I just want to. remind people that American citizen, most people who complain about, "Oh, they're targeting American citizens.". are thinking about themselves. They're. looking at themselves in the mirror and. thinking, "Oh, they're targeting.

American citizens." They're not thinking. about the Chinese person who just came. over or naturalized. They're not. thinking about the, you know, Iranian. who's been here for a long time and. naturalized, right? Like all of those. They're not thinking about, you know, the the al-Qaeda member Yeah. >> who claimed to be a refugee to get here. to get some sort of green card. Right. So, American citizenship, a lot of people. have that. And some of those people are. doing bad things. And some of those. people are adversaries. who have infiltrated the United States.

and are here to gather intelligence to. get to the our adversaries, you know, or. are here to do bad things within the. country. And so, we have to get FISA. requests to get the data on them. And. what does that mean in in reality, a. FISA request? Does that mean that you. can go into their phone? It means that. you have proven. a link from that person to something. bad. And you've given the you've given the. court enough evidence to say, "Hey, look, this person's doing something bad. and we need to gather more data on. them." So, it just opens the kind of.

data that you can get on that person. >> What kind of data is that? You can get. on their phone. You can get into their. computer. You can get into their private. Google accounts. You can get into their. private Apple accounts. You can get. >> you can get access to. You can now use. it. to target them. So, you could get access. to their private Google accounts, their. private Apple accounts without their. passwords. You would hack their passwords or steal. their passwords or Google retains their. passwords. And Google would give it you the. password? It For many, many For most.

cases, if it comes down to national. security, American companies will share. details. And that's what a FISA request. does is it's a judicial claim. It's a. judicial warrant, essentially, to say, "You will let this service onto that. person's account." You You guys must. think that people like me live in. a certain state of uh. naivety and ignorance as to what's. actually going on. I wouldn't say it's. ignorance or naivety. I would say that. it's it's conditioned into you. You're. conditioned to believe that you have.

privacy. So, the reality that we should. realize is that we we don't have. privacy. It's not real. Privacy's not real. No. I mean, you know, there's a level. Like. >> In in your when you get undressed in a. dark room. like that's yours? Usually, no one's. watching. >> There's a good chance that you're not. being watched by the federal government. If you're getting. There's a good chance. You know, if you're sending, you know,

dirty emails to your girlfriend, that's. essentially I mean, it's private on the. surface. >> Yeah. But not really forever private. Somebody could access those. If you. write her dirty notes, that's way more. private. >> Especially if she crumples them up and. burns them. Burns them. Like people just I think people take put. too much confidence. in technology and feel too confident in. the privacy of technology because. technology there's really nothing. private about it. To an extent, yes, but.

if you think that nobody can ever look. at your stuff, that's wrong. Do you. think the CIA knew you were coming here. today? I think the CIA knew we were coming on. Diary of a CEO, and I think they knew. that we were going to talk to you about. our book. How do you think they knew. that? Because we know that CIA, as well. as other intelligence services, as an. example, the United Arab Emirates, we. know that they have a dedicated person. that sits in their office that watches. us. So, how would they know you were coming. here today? Our emails, I mean, our emails, our. publisher's emails,

um our own text messages back and forth, listening in on phone calls, any number. of things could have happened. Uh like. we've tried to have a very collaborative. relationship with CIA about this book. because we know how scared they are. We. know how nervous this book makes them. So, we're trying to be extra. collaborative to let to give them peace. of mind like, "Hey, we're not about to. go out there and tell the world that. you're a bunch of animals and and. terrible anything." Um they've actually. read the book multiple times and and.

still they're they're afraid that we're. going to somehow. like make them look bad because so many. of their officers have come out to. become authors. who. who make CIA look bad. There was a couple of other things that. we aren't going to get back to the. arcade and what happened next, but. there's a couple of other things that. sprung to mind when you talked about how. people can make real businesses, fake. businesses, have various different. covers. The The next one was you. mentioned Edward Snowden earlier. And in mentioning Edward Snowden, you. used him as an example of someone who. returns to the country that they were.

working for the whole time. So, with Snowden in the Snowden case in in. specific, right? Whenever somebody flees. their own home country, Yeah. nobody gives them. protection for free. Even in the United. States, we don't give anybody protection. for free. You have to earn it. You have. to share some sort of currency. And that. currency may not be cash dollars. That. currency might be information. So, when Snowden leaked to The Guardian,

the. operations at NSA that were collecting. against American citizens, the same. American citizens that G he was just. talking about, right? Nobody cares about. Joe Bob. Everybody cares about, you. know, the person who's pretending to be. an American citizen, but is in fact a. terrorist threat. When Snowden made his escape, his when. he fled the United States, he was. essentially trading classified. information, not just the the details of. the NSA case that he whistle blew, but. other confidential information that he. collected specifically as currency to.

help him basically pay his way through. Hong Kong and into China or into into. Russia. And so, he lives in Russia now? He's a. Russian citizen. I'm pretty sure he's. also received a Russian award for. heroism. And you think he gave secrets to Russia. about the United States to to get that? >> almost guarantee you, yeah. What he. gave, I don't know, but Russia wouldn't. give him that status unless he had given. them something in return. And the other one who sprung to mind as. real business, fake, you know, real.

business, become successful. is the. man on everyone's lips at the moment, Jeffrey Epstein. Mhm. So, Epstein's a fascinating case because. Epstein fits all of the primary. pillars of a foreign intelligence asset. collecting information on American. citizens. Not an American spy. working for someone else. It's funny. because people keep thinking like CIA. killed him or people keep thinking that. he somehow worked for CIA or maybe even.

worked for for Mossad. What I see is the opposite, that he, if. anything, was working independently, maybe even working for several company. or several countries, but collecting. information on US people. Is that what you believe? I think that he could have been that. I. don't know that I necessarily believe. that it's true. Cuz he's a very successful business. person. He had lots of um successful. friends. Actually, I was interviewing. someone the other day and they said that. they met Jeffrey Epstein and Jeffrey.

Epstein was really, really interested in. their physics and science discoveries. and wasn't interested at all in the. financier stuff that he was pretending. to or he was purporting to be involved. in and um this person said to me, it was. just really bizarre because he was only. interested in the the physics and. science discoveries we had at Harvard. He wasn't particularly interested in. finance to me. And that person was was. like really shocked by that. What I've learned working with wealthy. people and successful people is that.

they're often very intelligent and. they're often misunderstood. And part of the reason that they have. grown as successful as they have grown. is because they don't really fit in. anywhere else. If they would have fit in. somewhere else, they would have been. distracted by the area where they fit. in. Instead, they had to carve their own. interest, their own passions, their own. their own drive. In many ways, when I look at Epstein, that's that's what I see. I've also. worked with many wealthy people who have. gone to jail. And when wealthy people go to jail. their whole identity crumbles and they. start to doubt themselves and they start.

to have these irrational thoughts that. sound totally rational to them. I had a. client who was very wealthy, who was. going to jail after being found guilty. of a crime that that. arguably couldn't be proven, but the. court system was set up in such a way. that he was found guilty and he. literally thought that it would be. better if he if he cut off all ties to. his kids and just went to jail and then. even when he got out of jail and never. talked to his kids again. Because that would be better than. shaming his children for the rest of. their life. >> Yeah. with the father who went to jail.

So, there's when I think about the. Epstein case and I think about a wealthy. powerful man who was having parties with. the world's elite and then he goes to. jail and he kills himself. To me, that's not. an unbelievable series of events. The whole thing with the island and the. underage sex and all this stuff and if. people just can't seem to shake the idea. that he wasn't extracting information. and then the fact that they won't. release the flight logs Mhm. or a a list. of the names of people that were. frequenting his.

island or interacting with him also. raises another question mark about why. wouldn't the US government release that? Why isn't Trump very quick to release. that information? There are lots of. secrets that are kept for lots of. reasons. And when we talk about like if there's. anything that we've learned, need to. know, the the need part is the driving part. What is the need to know? There's plenty. of secrets the government has that it. tells the American people it doesn't. know. It's just lying. Of course it knows, but it's working the.

common good to say, "If you knew what we. knew, it could cause panic, it could cause. chaos, it could cause any number of. things." And in the United States, that. is one of the rights and privileges that. the federal government has. So, what do. you both think happened with the Jeffrey. Epstein situation? Cuz it smells fishy. to everybody. The fact that, you know, Trump and uh Kash Patel and various. other White House officials were saying, "We're going to release it the minute we. get in there." And then they get in. there and they say, "There's nothing to. release.".

Mhm. You You must cuz you understand this. much more than I would. You must see. like fingerprints of. what you think is actually going on. there or the real reasons they wouldn't. release it. When I look at it through a lens of. probabilities, the most probable. outcome is that somebody in the prison. was hired to hurt Jeffrey Epstein. That's the most probable outcome. That. somebody outside was watching the. Epstein case and knew that Epstein may. or may not have compromising information.

on them. And that wealthy, well-connected person. paid to have a hit inside the prison. That's just the To me, that's the most. probable result of things happening. That explains the missing evidence, that. explains the videotapes, that explains. the stories inside the prison where. nobody can see what's going on. Also, that's the most vulnerable place. for Epstein to have been neutralized. That's how we would have run an. operation. But what Why wouldn't the. government release that? Why wouldn't. they say a prisoner killed killed him? The government may not know that. Cuz if.

a If a prisoner was paid to do it, they. may have covered their tracks well. enough. Or they may have paid a prisoner. and the guards to also cover the thing. up. Jail's a nasty place. People forget how. nasty a place jail is. And jails are. commercial. They're not federal, for the. most part. So, it's a commercial. business that has all sorts of plausible. deniability that a federal business or. federal organization, federal building. doesn't have. So, that's To me, that's. the most probable series of events. There's still a chance that any number.

of the other conspiracies are true. But. when I think of what what I've seen, what my clients have seen, what what I. would do if I was. in the shoes of a foreign adversary or a. foreign intelligence collection. operation dealing with a Jeffrey Epstein. type of situation, that's how we would clean it up. There was a a a press conference the. other day where the reporters asked the. Trump administration, "Does the. Department of Justice have any. indication that Jeffrey Epstein was. working with the US or a foreign. intelligence agency?

Or was he a spy of some kind?" And Pam. Bondi, um. who works in the Trump administration. said, "To him being an agent, I have no. knowledge about that. We can get back to. you on that." Two really important. things here. If they did have information on that in. an active investigation, she would say, "I have no knowledge on that.". She would lie to the American public. That's what That's what you have to do. if you're trying to build a current. case. Because if they acknowledge, we. actually we have some reason to believe. that he might have been an agent. Now,

all of a sudden, everybody else out. there would start destroying evidence. and start hiding evidence and start and. start making the case much more. difficult. So, if they knew, they would. say they don't know. Do you think he was. an agent? I think he could have been. I. think he fits the model of a very good. reporting asset, but I don't have enough evidence to say. that he was actually one. Do you think. he was? I mean, I think even if he was I don't know that. it matters is what I think. Like even if. he was, that doesn't mean that it's.

connected because he was a lot of. things. So, I I think. I think people are focused on it because. it's interesting because it would be. interesting if he was and it would be. interesting if there was this. conspiracy. I think that's why people. are focused on it, but I don't know that. it really matters because on the grand. scheme of things, I mean, it could be a lot of things that. led, you know. Why are we talking about. a dead guy who's not reporting? I think it's just the allure, right? People want answers. Once the curiosity. gap's open, people need to fill it with.

something. >> Correct. When when what the intelligence. community believes is that in any given. moment, there are two penetrations of. every intelligence service. So, why are we talking about the dead. guy that we don't know about when we're. not talking about the dozens of arrests. and cases that are made every year of. active moles, active penetrations that. are inside of our intelligence. community. Every single one of you watching this. right now has something to offer, whether it's knowledge, or skills, or. experience. And that means you have. value. Stand Store, the platform I.

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getting paid to do it. Stand is. incredibly simple and incredibly easy, and you can link it with a Shopify store. that you're already using if you want. to. I'm on it, and so is my girlfriend, and many of my team. So, if you want to. join, start by launching your own. business with a free 30-day trial. Visit. stevenbartlett.stand.store. and get yours set up within minutes. So, take me back to the arcade. You You. lock eyes with this guy, the guy wearing. the What was he wearing? >> jacket. >> The bomber jacket. What happens next? Once I realized that. we had both made the same mistake,

he darted off in one direction, and I. felt burned. Burned is the term that we. use whenever we are. spotted, identified as trained. intelligence officers. Um but I didn't want to act on being. burned right away cuz our training says. that just just because you believe. something to be true, you can't act on. that truth. If you act on that truth, then you're verifying to anybody. observing that you already know you. screwed up. So, I kind of. ambled around the arcade and played. another couple of games kind of. half-handed, half-hearted just to kill.

some time before I left and finished my. SDR route, and finished my collection, and went back to my back to my hotel for. the night. The whole process that I go. through during the surveillance. detection route, the whole process that. I go through to evacuate the country. safely is all part of the details that. we put inside Shadow Cell. But, the. feeling. that predominated that that dominated my. thought process was just this feeling of. failure. This feeling like.

I was I was a bad spy. I'm bad at what I. do, bad at what I collect. When I think. I'm good, I'm not good. It was just this. humiliating and humbling experience. And. it wasn't helped as I went through the. process of writing the book. Cuz as. when you write a book, it's cathartic in. a way cuz it gets all this stuff out. But, it's also this black and white kind. of stark reminder of all the things that. you've done wrong. What did you do. wrong? Whatever I did that got caught was.

wrong. If they caught me on my own behaviors, if the mole was the one that identified. me to them, then. I lost the ability to operate inside of. Falcon on that day. I could no longer support the rest of. the Shadow Cell. I could no longer. support my team. I had a a role to play, and I couldn't play that role anymore. And. I think that's especially powerful to me. because. I mean, I'm not a case officer. I was. supposed to be a case officer.

But, I'm not because when CIA assessed. me for that job, they determined that I. wouldn't be good enough. Okay, so you already had an insecurity. there. And that was the first year at. CIA. So, even though I built this career. and I had a chance to carry out this. operation, I got to do these amazing. things, all that plays out in the back. of my head is I wasn't good enough then. I'm not good enough now. And one of the. things that the CIA does is they teach. you how to deal with head trash. Mhm. What is head trash? It's funny, actually. So, head trash is.

all the terrible things that you say. about yourself in your head. That's the. the colloquial term that we use is head. trash. I'm not good enough. I'm ugly. I'm fat. I wish my smile was better. Um, you know, my I lost my true love when I. was 14. Whatever, right? My my parents. didn't love me because I wasn't a good. enough kid. Whatever it was. All those. things are head trash. They're they're. subjective. thoughts that you have because of your. experience that don't have any basis in. objective reality.

CIA teaches us how to deal with that to. a point. They teach us how to counter. that when we are operationally active so. that we don't get distracted by the head. trash going on. This is what happened. whenever I first knew I was under. surveillance. They teach you how to handle stress, mitigate uh. um cortisol levels in your bloodstream, lower your heart rate so that you can. get back to the task at hand. How do. they do that? Techniques like box breathing. >> What's that? Uh box breathing is a. process that that's common in anxiety as. well. >> Yeah, breathe in for four counts, hold.

for four counts, breathe out for four. counts, breathe in for you know, just uh. It's breathing the various breathing. techniques where you breathe in for a. certain amount of time, you hold it for. a certain amount of time, you release it. for a certain amount of time. And and. the goal there is to reduce your heart. rate, to reduce your blood flow, to. reduce the speed at which the cortisol. that's being released from your brain. gets spread to the rest of your body. So, you can start to take back your. physiological. movements and actions in a hope that it. also brings back your cognitive. functions and capabilities. So,

the visualization process, just like. when you're meditating and you visualize. a victory if you're a professional. athlete, if you visualize a beach if. you're stressing out at work. Like you. can visualize your way through an. operation, an operational sequence to. get yourself back to a place where. you're in control. So, they teach us how. to deal with that head trash, but what's. really interesting is CIA. relies on loyalty. in its people to keep them at CIA. Because the worst thing for CIA is for a. CIA to realize how capable they actually. are.

Because when that officer realizes how. smart, how capable, how resilient, how. resourceful they really are, that person. can leave CIA and go do amazing things. So, a big part of what CIA does is they. they train you to be operationally. useful, but then they still condition you to be. like loyal and needy of outside. validation, specifically from them. So, it's a very strange flywheel that. exists. A lot of businesses are like that as. well.

It's not a healthy relationship, but. it's a very effective relationship. So, you get back to your hotel. Are you. not at that point when you're back at. your hotel thinking, right, I'm going to. find like how to get through like the. restaurant kitchen door and like out the. back and I'll cycle back to. the front cuz I'd be up all night. thinking about going through that bloody. like restaurant kitchen. A big part of. that is what you do in the second phase. of your SDR. And I had those thoughts. I. thought about I could get on a. motorcycle, I could ride to a local. airfield, I could pay in cash for that. airfield person, like a little private. pilot to just fly me on a puddle hopper.

puddle jumper somewhere where I walk. across on foot and then I can make a. phone call from another place. Like I. thought about all that all that [ __ ]. right? The problem is. if you actually act on that and you're. being watched, what sense does that make? The only. person who would do that kind of crazy. [ __ ] is somebody who's trying to escape. the country. So, what did you do? I went back to the hotel. My plan was to. was to literally just leave. Was to walk. across the border like any other. law-abiding citizen and just evacuate.

Walk across the border? Fly. I. to to leave like anybody else would. leave and just gamble that they're not. going to take me down. Right? The gam-. just gamble that I'm going to be more. boring than they will be confident and. that before they arrest Alex Hernandez. and make some sort of public. international incident, they're going to think twice and they're. going to let me just leave. What actually happened?

So, what actually happened is um I get. back to the hotel. I don't really sleep. at all. I try to use sleep techniques to. get me to sleep because I am certain. that at any given time someone's going. to burst through the door and just take. me down because they already know I'm. changing my flight. They already know. I'm I'm updating my itinerary. I've made. all the phone calls. I've worked it. through my company, right? My cover. company to get me home early. So, I'm just waiting for someone to break. in. They never break in. I go to the. airport the next day and uh on the path.

to the airport, I'm looking for. surveillance and I'm surveillance free. And I get to the airport first thing in. the morning and I'm waiting and and like. every step I'm waiting for someone to. jump out of the dark shadows and take me. down and drag me off to prison. And it just doesn't happen until I get. to the first entry point for the. airport, I show my passport, I show my. ticket, and then they move me into. secondary. Secondary meaning where you try to leave. a country and the border patrol says. that you're not you can't leave through.

the main gate. You have to go through a. second round of interview. So, they pull. me off into a secondary room and I go. through a light interrogation with two. local Falcon officers. at like 7:00 in the morning, first first. flight out, and and they're testing my. story and they're interrogating me to. understand what have I been doing in the. country, why did I change my flight. They're going. through my my cover story. They're going. through my my uh meetings from the day. before. They're going through everything. two and three times, which is an it's an.

interrogation technique to see if. somebody's lying. And I'm sitting there. going through this whole process. watching what almost feels like. like two untrained border patrol agents. trying to crack me. And it's uh it was a. funny feeling because. they were so bad at their job that it. made me feel confident in myself again. Are you trained on how to deal with. those situations in terms of body. language and how you speak and. Absolutely. CIA trains us on how to deal.

with uh interviews, how to deal with. interrogations, and even how to deal. with uh actual. um capture and and strategic almost like. enhanced interrogation, like what you. would call what we do call torture here. in the United States. >> And so you from your training, what were. you implementing at that moment in time? Mirroring is a big piece of what you're. supposed to do in an interrogation. So. So you want to you want to reflect back. to the interrogator what they expect to. see in a person of innocence. So you try. to keep your you keep yourself from.

jittering, you you calm your nerves, you. try to match their curiosity. So if they. lean forward, you actually want to lean. forward, too. And if they lean back, you. want to lean back. And if they're using. their hands to talk, you want to use. your hands to talk. Because you want to. show them that you and them are the. same, that you're not better or worse or. guilty or anything else. So mirroring is. one of the techniques that we're using. We also I also used minimum information. There's a process called elicitation. And you use different elicitation.

techniques to get individuals to share. more information than they're supposed. to share. One of those elicitation techniques is. silence. So often times if you want someone to. speak, all you have to do is sit there. and be quiet because it will force them. to talk. This is something that many interviewers. use, especially when they're Border. Patrol agents or when they're fit like. law enforcement or local law. enforcement. They'll just let somebody. kind of admit their guilt. So I'm for. me, they ask a question, I answer their. question, and then we sit there in. silence for as long as we need to sit. there until they ask their next. question, and then we sit there and and.

I answer their question, we sit there in. silence again. And that's combating. elicitation is a technique that we call. counter elicitation. And that's just one. of several elicitation techniques that. interviewers can use. And that's useful. in everyday life, I guess, as well. >> Absolutely. In what context? When you're dealing with a negotiation, when you're dealing with a hostile. employee, when you're dealing with a. hard conversation, when you're trying to. find information in a in another person. who you think is holding information. back, elicitation techniques are. incredibly valuable. You can ask them a. question, you can ask them the same.

question twice, that'll help you. identify whether or not they're lying. If there's a gap in their two answers or. if they answer two different ways. And I. mean, I'm sure you've seen it as a you. you One of the things that makes you. such an effective host in your own house. here is that you use elicitation. techniques all the time. You ask. feeling-based questions. How did you. feel about this situation? Uh take me. back to that moment. How would If you. could If you could be king for a day, what would you do? Right? These are all. very advanced elicitation techniques.

because it gets people to express more. than they thought they would share. So, you were in you're in that room in. that airport, these two very poorly. trained guards trying to get something. out of you. They don't get it out of. you. So, at some point they just let you. go. Correct. So, what ends up happening. is they they're arguing with each other. and I don't know why they're arguing. It. seems like uh from the from the pigeon. words that I can pick up, one of them's talking about being busy. and not having enough time and this. doesn't make sense, and the other.

person's talking about uh we have to do. this, this is required, etc. etc. I. don't actually know what they're saying. to each other, but I see that their. aggression with each other just keeps. going up. Almost like two colleagues who. are fighting, right? But at the end of the day, they couldn't. hold me without either. releasing me back to my plane or moving. me into a place where they were going to. retain me long-term. So, when faced with. that kind of decision, they released me. back to my plane. And then, the biggest.

stress that I had was not running to my. plane because as soon as they let me out. of the secondary interview, all I wanted. to do was like haul ass to my plane, get. on my plane, and feel safe. But, I had to. continue to show that I was not a. trained officer. And at this point, Jeheet, are you How. are you feeling back in the friendly. country? So, at this point, I still have. no idea what's happening. Um I. By the time I hear from him, he is in.

the the cutout country on his way back. So, I know he's left me a voicemail, and. I know he's out of Falcon, the enemy. country, which is great. But, I know. he's in that third country. So, I'm. like, okay, he should be on his way. home. But, until then, I mean, all of. this that he was going through, I didn't. find out until he actually returned. home. And then I hear this story, and. I'm like, what the hell? Like, this is absolutely. like our worst nightmare, like what we. did not want to happen. And so, immediately, we're like,

you know, we go into action. Like, first. it's like, I'm so happy you're home. And. then the next thing is, how did this. happen? And we just start taking action. into, you know, investigating like, did we do. something wrong? Like, is there any any. mistake that we could have made? And we. have to research and go back through all. of our own stuff, and, you know, and. then we have to make the assessment of. can Andy ever go back in? You know, was. this really what we think it was, or. you know, is he safe to like, is his. alias safe? You know, and then we have to make those.

calls. >> your assessment? Did you think he could. go back in? No. It was too risky. >> Yeah, we we assessed that Alex Hernandez. was burned. Was burned, yeah. >> And we assume Alex Hernandez being your. undercover spy name. Correct. Alias, yeah. The the operating alias that we. used. Uh and we assumed that the cutout. country, the third country that Alex was. traveling through, so anytime Falcon. wanted to track Alex, they would track. him back to that third country. Alex. would even use the Falcon airline to fly.

back and forth between the third country. and Falcon. Specifically so that if. Falcon intelligence ever suspected Alex, they would feel that much more. comfortable knowing that they had flight. manifests on him going back to a third. country. So, we just assumed from our study that. Alex was fully burned. That that the. mole had come across either Alex's. operational history or the mole had come. across my true name operational history. and tied me to Alex. Whichever one it. was, Alex was burned. But, we also. assessed that everybody else who had. been traveling to Falcon.

through the cell was still safe. Mhm. So, you assessed that your shadow cell, which was your team in the friendly. country, were all fine. Yeah. But, Alex. Hernandez, which was your alias, was. could no longer be used. Correct. The. And that was how the cell was built. The. cell was built where Alex Hernandez was. the tripwire. Where the first person to be compromised. would be Alex, and that would be the. forewarning to everybody else so they. could start to turn up their operational. security. So, does that mean it's it's game over. for you?

For me in Falcon, it's game over. I can. I can never go back. I can never go back. in my true name. I can never go back in. an alias name. Um all of my biometrics, meaning my. fingerprints, my eye prints, like all of. that is most likely compromised. All of. Alex Hernandez. uh everything that I carried on me, all. the digital platforms that I carried on. me, which were all air-gapped and. isolated to just Alex, all of those. things we have to assume have been. collected and and and um synthesized and. reverse engineered. And you were running. a real fake business, right? It well,

yeah. I was I was a middle manager. I. was a middle manager in the very fake. business. Oh, you're a middle manager. And that was a business set up by the. CIA. Okay. So, is that in part why you both decided. to leave the CIA? Did Did the shadow cell operation end. at that moment? After shortly after Andy was. compromised, we found out that we were. pregnant. And we were hoping to be able. to stay on at Wolf to continue because I. could have kept.

doing everything exactly the same. Wolf. Wolf being the friendly country? Exactly. And being in the friendly. country, I could have, you know, done. all my targeting from there, no problem. And then we could have, you know, Andy. still could have helped, he just. couldn't travel into the enemy country. anymore. But headquarters decided that. we had been so successful, and we were. continuing to be successful by spreading. the cell model to these to the other. locations, that they wanted us to come. home to Washington, D.C. and train. officers, train newer officers back at.

headquarters on how the cell model. worked and um the new techniques we had. come up with. The worst part is. we had a conversation about. what meant more to us, CIA or family. And without saying it, we were both. landing on CIA. And we start thinking, how do we not give up CIA to have a. family? So, we approach the agency, and. we tell them, you know, that we have this idea. If. you'll put us on light duty, just give.

us some cush job for like 4 years. We'll. pump out our second baby, we'll get our. first one old enough to go to school, we'll get our second one old enough for. a nanny, and then you can throw us back. into the fray. They do that for other officers when. they're not successful officers. But. when you're a successful officer, they. have different plans, and they try to. just push you and push you and push you. So, they rejected our offer, and they. said, "No, it's a soft duty." And they. put us back, and they told us, you know, "G he's going to go to this office and.

do this very sensitive thing, and you're. going to go do this other very sensitive. thing, and we don't your family's not. our problem." And it was at that moment, I think, that we both realized. CIA is never going to let us focus on a. family. We're always going to be focused. on the mission. That's what their job. is. That's their number one purpose. Where if if our number one purpose is to. be parents, we need to make a change. What did the. Shadow accomplish. in terms of the information or strategic. objectives that it accomplished?

So, the Shadow Cell. really did do what what we started out. you know, what with the mission really. did complete the mission that we started. out to do. And that was to find new. intelligence sources and we were really. successful in doing that. And it. accomplished a secondary goal. We didn't know the effectiveness that. the Shadow Cell had in ferreting out the. mole until after we had left CIA. We found out that the mole that we had. been.

plagued by was actually arrested by FBI. in I think it was 2019. Mhm, it was later. So, but the case file. that had identified that mole started. all the way back with our operations. So, it was successful in ferreting out. the mole. It was successful in building. new intelligence sources inside of. Falcon. It was successful in maintaining. the United States' intelligence. advantage against this adversary at a. time when all of our other operations. were compromised by the mole. I think.

what G he's talking about is an. completely unexpected benefit. in that our model. seems to have become the foundation for. a massive restructuring at CIA in 2014, just 2 years after our cell model, when. I was when I escaped Falcon. 2 years after that, John Brennan, then. director of CIA, rolled out a an entire. reorganization of CIA that was based off. of the same cell model that we had. built. Was this the mole?

We cannot confirm or deny anything about. the mole. I will say this that if you if. you research the time that that man was. arrested, you'll find two other people. >> Mhm. who were also CIA moles at the same. period of time. >> of time. So, the work that you did overseas, um. you believe helped lead to the capture. of this mole? The work that we did overseas, we. believe helped capture the mole that. that. Falcon House was out to capture. And do.

you believe that the mole. leaked secrets to the enemy country that. ended up being the reason why they knew. that you were a spy? That was the. assessment that we reached inside our. own cell, as well as what the. Counterintelligence Center, which is the. covert espionage group that Yih-Yun was. talking about earlier, their conclusion. of the facts was the same. That we did. not make any error in our operations, there was no no compromise in my. behavior, no compromise in my.

operations, no compromise of our systems. or our communication methods, that the. only way that Falcon could have found. out about me was through a leak from the. mole. How did the mole get caught in the end? What did they do wrong? It's a great. question. So, um. FBI created a sting operation. based off of the intelligence that we. were able to collect through our. operations that that brought the mole. out. So, FBI created a series of sting. operations where they baited the mole. into coming back onto American.

territory. And when the mole stepped. foot on American territory, they had. enough of a legal case that they could. arrest him at the airport and then. prosecute him in a court of law. And what was discovered about the mole. and the work that they were doing and. how long they were doing it for and what. they were. being paid or given to do to snitch on. the United States? So, the details that that I know that I. know we can share, um they were paid hundreds of thousands. of dollars. They were not paid into the. millions, but they were paid hundreds of.

thousands of dollars to provide. information on operations, officers, assets, locations. They were witting, meaning they knew that they were working. with a foreign intelligence agency. They. didn't believe they were working with a. company, they didn't believe they were. working for a research institute. They. knew they were working with a known. foreign intelligence organization. Um, and that the original ally who gave. us the information about the mole, that.

original ally actually also retained. incriminating data on the behaviors of. that person that were shared with the. with Department of Justice. And so was this This was an individual. who was in the CIA who was approached by. this enemy country, and the enemy. country said to him, "If you give us. secrets on what the CIA are doing. against us, then we'll give you hundreds. of thousands of dollars." We'll give you. something. We'll give you cash at least. as part of it. We may also give you. other things. Here's the The nasty thing. about espionage is cash is usually only.

one of several rewards. There's also operations where where the. cash is there so that when you're. arrested, the. your country that arrests you believe. that that's what your motivation was. While all of your real money is kept in. a separate account that's saved within. the actual currency of the country that. you're serving. So this person, they. were in the CIA. as a mole leaking secrets about the CIA. They then left at some point. And then.

the FBI set up a trap to get them to. come back. Correct. When they left, did. they go to the adversarial country? We can't confirm those details because. to confirm those details starts to give. more insight into who the mole was. Okay, but they they managed to cuz I was. thinking I was just wondering if this. the other the enemy countries offered. them like lifetime protection or. something. They do. So your enemy. countries will offer you lifetime. protection, they'll offer you multiple. generations worth of payment. So even if.

you're arrested, don't worry, your kids. will be taken care of and their kids. will be taken care of. Uh, you've got citizenship, like the. case of Edward Snowden who has received. citizenship. Sometimes they offer. uh rewards and common and. accolades in their own home country. There's a a number of very strange and. compelling. offers that come about from foreign. intelligence services. When you think. about a double agent, when you think. about a spy who turns on their own. country, it's less about thinking that they're. paid to do it. Spies aren't motivated usually by money.

We weren't motivated by money. We're motivated by that that very. unhealthy relationship where you have to. be validated by somebody else. And that same environment that CIA. creates where all of its internal. officers have to be able to fight their. own head trash, but still seek. validation from within their. organization, that unhealthy. relationship is something that can be. compromised and a foreign intelligence. service can find an intelligence officer.

and fill that void for them and validate. for them and say, "You're talented and. you've got promise and you've got. potential and we see it and your own. home service doesn't understand how. important you are and your own home. service doesn't understand how valuable. you are. If you'll help us with this, we can reward you. with money, we can reward you with. citizenship, we can reward your children. with future residency and with college. and and we can make you a very wealthy. person. All the things that you worked. for that your country would never give.

you.". Did the mole admit. that they had been a mole? I do not believe so. I don't believe so. >> I also believe that that most espionage. cases, when they actually go to court, they're not tried under the Espionage. Act. They're tried under some. gentler term, some gentler lesser. offense that is easier to prove, but. also helps the government protect its.

reputation against being penetrated. So, this individual, they left the CIA, flew to this other country, they came. back, and they tried to rejoin the CIA. to get more information. Well, they. tried to rejoin a federal agency, and. that was that was how the FBI was able. to. to lure them, and how they were also. able to for for an interview. Yeah, for. an interview, and how they were able to. get them on American soil. Interesting. So, I do want to share that that your.

curiosity right now. is a major issue with CIA, cuz they. already know they already know that very. smart people out there are going to know. that there's a way there must be a way. to reverse engineer. the whole story, who to find out who is. Falcon, or to find out where is Falcon, to find out where is Wolf, to find out. who is who is the mole, right? And. what's going to be what's fascinating is. that. we.

we have put every effort that we can. into the story to make sure that it's. not traceable. because. CIA had several penetrations at the same. time during our tenure at CIA. And. that's both depressing and encouraging. because it's encouraging. in that it shows that what we were doing. was parallel to what many other officers. were doing. We wrote the book Shadow. Cell, but that doesn't mean we were the. only two people that were tapped on the. shoulder to carry out experimental new.

operations. They could have asked five, seven, 12. other people to go carry out new. operations to try to ferret out this. multi-penetration. of CIA at the time. But, it's also discouraging because. it's one of those areas that keeps these. stories from being shared because CIA. doesn't want the world to know that it. was penetrated by multiple people. It. doesn't want the world to know who those. people were. If it did, it would have. disclosed this long ago. Well, obviously my research team tried.

to figure out who it was. And the Diary of a CEO research team is. not a team to take lightly, so I'm a. little bit afraid of to hear their. conclusions. Well, based on our own. research, um we thought that the mole was likely. Jerry Chun Seng Lee, who spied for China. around the time of the book. Jerry began. spying for China after leaving the CIA, then tried to rejoin the agency, was. allowed to leave the country by the FBI, and was arrested in 2018 at the airport. when he returned to the USA.

Just like the mole in the book. But, it also says here Andrew will not. comment. on whether he is actually the mole or. not. So, there's no point asking you if. that's. if he is the mole. We are under legal obligation to to. neither confirm neither confirm nor deny. uh the results of your research team, but also the results of anybody else's. research if they reach out to us and and. ask for confirmation on who this who the.

mole may or may not be. >> Has. being in the CIA changed the way that. you view reality and human beings? Oh, yeah. In what ways? >> so. So, I love this question and I. really want you to be honest. Can you please share with Steve how you. went from your college beliefs to your. post-CIA beliefs? So, when I worked with refugees, that was my first big turning point that. humans can be really nasty. Like, I grew.

up Buddhist, and so it was always like, "Humans have the potential to be. amazing." And I agree, that's true. But, when I worked with refugees, I realized. that humans can be horrible. And you. were you know, I worked with Bosnians. and um. and I worked with uh refugees from. Rwanda, where. you know, their neighbors literally. turned on them. People who they had. grown up with literally the next day. came over with a machete or came over. with a gun and killed their family. members and chased them through forests.

or through whatever. And that can happen anywhere. That was. the first time that I realized that. anytime somebody says that can't happen. here, that's a lie. That can happen. anywhere. None of those people ever. thought "Oh yeah, that could happen. here." None of those people ever thought. that. People always think that can't. happen here. My neighbor would never do. that to me and that's not true. And then. when I worked for CIA, I you know, that. compounded the sense of like the world.

behind the scenes is a dangerous place. and you can't fully I sound horrible. saying these things. You can't fully. trust anybody. I mean, the reason I'm. with Andy is because I trust Andy 100%. But he might be the only person that I. trust everything that comes out of his. mouth. >> You only trust me like 98%. >> Well, you know, yeah, but I know I can. get that other 2% out of you, that's. why. So, you know, you really. like you always have to.

understand that people are a combination. of good and bad. And while I wish while. I would like to think that. people would always try to err to the. good, I always have to keep in mind that. people have a bad side to them and they. and there's any set of circumstances. that could trigger that. Do you think. we're in one such moment? I think we're always in a moment. I. think some part of the world is always. in that moment. What about the United. States? Cuz I know Andy said when we had.

the conversation the other day that he. was going to. try and leave the United States before. 2026. >> Well, it's not just me alone leaving. Yeah. Well, maybe we have different. motivations, I don't know. Are you. staying, GG? Cuz he says he's leaving. I've been the one who's been pushing to. leave for years. >> Why? How would you sort of summarize the. situation that the like Western world. and the United States are in right now? From your perspective, with what you. know. Are these good times? Jihi's was born in Venezuela. What was.

Venezuela like in the '80s? Oh, it was. nice. It was one of the world's best. economies. It was a thriving democracy. It was an excellent place. With a large. wealth gap. Jihi's parents. her father we came from a wealthy. family. A wealthy Venezuelan family. That's how they moved to Japan. It's not. easy to pick up and move a family of. four to Japan or family of three and. then have a child in Japan, right? All. of that wealth. that they had in 1980 when Jihi was born. was gone.

in 19 I just a few years later. Yeah, in. '80 '85 maybe. Five years and Venezuela went from being. one of the most successful thriving. democracies with a strong economy, it. went from that to what it is now. There is no shaking that reality from. Jihi or from her family. So, if there's anybody in the United. States right now who is acutely aware of. how fast everything can go sour, it's my wife and that's why what I.

certainly find is this uncompromising. commitment to moving in large part. because you can't wed yourself to any. one system. unless you want to be available to the. detriment of that system. Yeah, I believe in being mobile. We rent, we don't buy. As you might have been able to tell, I'm. absolutely fascinated by the psychology. behind high performing sports teams. I. think it started with my love for Sir.

Alex Ferguson as a Manchester United. fan. So, when I was told about a new. Netflix series that covers the rise of. the Dallas Cowboys, it immediately. piqued my interest and this isn't. because I'm mad about American football. I'm not. I don't even watch it. But I do. know about the Dallas Cowboys and for a. lot of Texans they're much more than a. sports team. I watched this series and. it is absolutely. brilliant. It centers on Jerry Jones, an. oil businessman with no football. background, who bought the Cowboys in. the late '80s and transformed them into.

the most valuable sports franchise in. the world. It's all about how one guy. assembled a powerhouse team in the 1990s. made up of legendary players and coaches. and through fearless decision-making led. his team to three Super Bowl victories. and I really enjoyed it and I think you. might, too. Check out America's Team, The Gambler and His Cowboys, which is. streaming right now only on Netflix. And. they now sponsor this podcast. I've just invested millions into this. and become a co-owner of the company.

It's a company called Ketone-IQ. and the story is quite interesting. I. started talking about ketosis on this. podcast and the fact that I'm very low. carb, very very low sugar and my body. produces ketones which have made me. incredibly focused, have improved my. endurance, have improved my mood and. have made me more capable at doing what. I do here. And because I was talking. about it on the podcast, a couple of. weeks later these showed up on my desk. in my HQ in London. These little shots. and oh my god, the impact this had on my. ability to articulate myself, on my.

focus, on my workouts, on my mood, on. stopping me crashing throughout the day. was so profound that I reached out to. the founders of the company and now I'm. a co-owner of this business. I highly, highly recommend you look into this. I. highly recommend you look at the science. behind the product. If you want to try. it for yourself, visit ketone.com/steven. for 30% off your subscription order and. you'll also get a free gift with your. second shipment. That's. ketone.com/steven. and I'm so honored that once again a.

company I own can sponsor my podcast. Are there any particular skills. that people who are trying to be. successful in their average life cuz. this is called the Diary of a CEO. That you learned through your time at. the CIA that you think are most useful. for people to be successful, however you. define that, in their day-to-day lives. The first thing I want to say is that. our book Shadow Cell talks not. necessarily about awesome spies. It. talks about how we.

went back to the basics. We went back to. foundational espionage. What we call at. CIA sticks and bricks. We gave up all the technology. We gave. up all the fancy satellites. We gave up. all the drones and we went back to build. off of strong foundations. And we didn't. do that because we're smart. We did that. because the terrorist groups that won. the global war on terror. were using bricks and stones and sticks. And they were winning over an American.

Department of Defense that had a $900. billion budget every year. We spent $8 trillion in the global war. on terror only to evacuate Afghanistan. All of that happened because they were. using foundational tools that we. couldn't crack. And in the Shadow Cell, that's all we did. We used foundational. tools that proved to dominate time after. time. And there's so much in everyday. life and there's so much in business. from marketing to sales to budgeting to.

hiring practices to, you know, annual. and semi-annual reviews. There's so much. that businesses can take from this basic. idea of never let go of the foundations. Never let go of your sticks and bricks. What advice would you give to the. average person? And generally just generally in their. life, you know, about how to live a good. life based on what you've seen, what you. know now and how you look at the world. For me, a good life is a life spent. doing the things you want to do, the. things that bring you joy when you have.

the age and the energy to do them. It makes me super sad whenever I meet. people who wait until they're 60s and. they retire to be free, to try and. travel, and and that's when they focus. on learning the guitar, and that's when. they focus on art, and their body just. can't keep up with them. Their body. can't travel like it used to travel. They have a shake in their hand. They. can't paint anymore. But they they. believed for 30 years that it would be. better when they retire instead of. acting on it right now. And.

for me it's it's all about finding joy. in the moment today. My son is 12. He. plays chess now. He wants to play video. games with me now. He wants to go deep. into details about his favorite manga. comics right now. All of that could be. different in 5 days. My daughter is 7, doing handstands, and. doing cartwheels, and all she wants is. for Daddy to to give her a a shoulder. massage at night and tell embarrassing. stories about my childhood to her while. she falls asleep. That's what she wants.

now. All that could be gone and never. come back in 6 months. I have to do it now. If I don't do it. now, it'll never happen. I won't be able. to wait until I'm wealthy. I won't be. able to wait until I sell a company. I. won't be able to wait until I retire and. then try to get these moments back now. So, what can I do? I ask myself every. day, what can I do right now. to maximize the joy that I get right now. because it's not just my joy that's. happening. It's also the joy that I'm. giving to the people who want my time.

and space. My wife, my kids, my peers, my clients. What can I do. to bring joy to myself will bring joy to. others. What is that about to say so. much to you? I can see it in I can see. it in your face. My life is filled with. people who failed to figure that out. My. life is filled with a with a mother who. kept waiting to to do the things that. she wanted to do, and now she still. doesn't get to do it. And grandparents. who retired poor, and family members who. retired poor, and people who died early,

and people who got hurt and can't walk, and You know I called your mother? We spoke to your mother. Did you call my. mom? Yeah, and when I asked her this. question, I said to I said to your. mother, I said um what's your. relationship like with Andy? And she burst into tears. Did she. really? She went on to say how proud she. was of you, but it was telling that she. she burst into tears when she was asked. that particular question. That's awesome. I'm I'm glad that you called her. I I I. talked to GiGi about this often because.

I don't I never had a relationship with. my father. And my relationship with my. stepfather was very bad. I go into some. of that in the book as well. And uh. I as an adult. only project. negative assumptions on what they must. have intended because that's what I was. shaped to believe as a child. I can't. confidently project positive. expectations on them because as a child. I never believed they were doing. anything positively. I believed my mom.

was career focused, and I believed that. my mom didn't really want to be a mom. I. believed that my mom didn't really want. to be married to the man she was married. to, and that's what I believed as a kid. So, now as an adult, that's my. foundation. GiGi's foundation with her. parents is completely different. Like. it's incredible now because. like the the disparity between my. negative thoughts of my youth and GiGi's. positive memories from her youth are. starkly contrasted, and that's why I. want to give my children something like. my what my wife had. And what's your answer to that, GiGi?

In terms of what you want next. So, when I was younger, I was brought up. with this idea of. a destination. So, I did everything I. was supposed to do, got good grades in. school, went to college, went to grad. school, got a career with the federal. government. It was really good. And then. we left CIA. And I was like, but I had made it. Like. I had I rode that train, I did. everything I was supposed to do, and I. made it. So, what are we doing now? And. it was a really hard transition for me.

But now that, you know, we have the kids. and we have our business, you know, and I've gone through a lot of. therapy, you know, I realized that. Andy has been right all along. It really. is. you never know what the next moment is. going to bring, and so you have to enjoy. every moment that you have right now. You know, don't put off that trip until. next year, do it as soon as you can. Don't, you know, like those dishes don't need to get. washed right now if your kid wants to.

read a book with you. Like you can just. put that off for a little bit. Um so, I've it's taken me a long time, but. Andy and I are now aligned on the like. live every moment with as much joy as. you can because. and to my. other point, like you you never know. when shit's going to hit the fan. So, enjoy it now because you never know when. you might have to, you know, flee your. house cuz you're, you know, it catches. fire or flee the country because a war.

breaks out or, you know, >> Getting arrested in a foreign country. Yeah, getting arrested in a foreign. country. And I'm a big believer of. seeing the where the writing on the. wall. I don't think that, you know, my. advice to people is don't be complacent. Just like Andy said, you know, don't be. complacent in your business, but don't. be complacent in your life, either. Like when be as before World War II. kicked off, there was tons of writing on. the wall of what was coming. And people just kept thinking to. themselves, that can't happen here. It.

can't get that bad, can it? >> You trying to tell me something? So, the. writing on the wall for Americans is. that. we are transitioning into something new. We will never go back to what we were. And so, you either need to be a part of. creating the new America. >> Mhm. or you need to start thinking about. where else you're going to go. Because the America we knew before no. longer exists, and it will never come. back. This is new America now. So, you either. take part in it, or you leave. Okay. So,

what is old America under your. definition? So, old America, you know, and I'm I'm not that old. So, you know, old America in my lifetime has. been a series of. uh you know, the the government. appearing to work together, you know, the appearing to do things, you know, to improve the lives of. people, but also, I think, becoming complacent. over time. Like, the last several terms.

we've had. a strong executive that has slowly. become stronger, which I don't think is. the way that we should be going, but. that's what's happened. And. a Congress who is constantly in. deadlocks, so nothing is happening. And. so, we continue like I mean, the other. the immigration problem. Why is the. immigration problem a problem? This. could have been fixed decades ago, honestly. Like, decide what you want for. immigration. Decide what you want your. policy to be, right? And the policy,

clearly, I think most people agree, isn't open doors. So, if it's not open. doors, what do you want? And then make. that policy happen. So, you know, I. think. I think we've had a history now of an. executive getting stronger. For some. reason, the American people want a. strong man. So, when you say the. executive, you mean the president? >> yeah. The president's getting more power. to do things? Yes, because. >> For a period of time, it was because. Congress didn't want to make their own. decision, so they pushed the power to.

the president. And then, in probably the. last 16 years, we've seen the president. take more power, execute more executive. orders. So, whether you like it or not, we're in a period now where there's a. strong executive. When anybody gets. power, it's very unlikely they're going. to let it go. So, do you think Trump's. not going to go anywhere? I think the. executive, Trump is the current executive, whoever. the next executive and the executive. after that, they will continue to retain. their executive powers. >> Yeah. It doesn't benefit them to let go of the.

office of the executive's powers. So, GG, if that's the old America where it. got slightly more complacent, there was. more power and. increasingly more power given to the. president, >> Mhm. you're saying we're in a. transitional moment now. >> Mhm. What does that new America look. like on the end of that transition in. your view? So, I don't think we have a. good idea of what it's going to look. like. I think the current administration. is taking a lot of risks that I find. interesting. Interesting is a very.

a muted word. What is the real word? I mean, interesting is the real word. because I think that he's taking a lot. of risks that really break down. how how things have been for a long. time. So, you know, getting rid of you. know, pulling money from Medicaid and. Medicare, getting rid of USAID, you. know, transitioning from soft power to. hard power. >> Hard power being dropping bombs in Iran. Yes. Okay. So, we're giving more money. to military and we're taking money away.

from you know, aid, basically. So, we're. making that shift. We're making, you. know, various economic shifts, immigration shifts and I don't think we. I think there's a lot of unnecessary. panic about all of it because. whether I agree with his methods or not, I think that that we just have to wait. for things to settle out. And. if something doesn't work, you know, I. think he's like the type of guy that's. going to take another risk and see if he.

can fix it. Or that if it doesn't work. by the time the next administration. comes in, they'll have to do something with it. You know, like there nothing stops. Everything keeps going. So, you know, I I don't know that this I. don't know that America is heading for a. future that I want to be a part of. I. think that's for me, I think that's a. true statement. But, I think there's a lot of Americans. out there who this is the path that they. want to take. What is your perspective on everything. she he just said? The transition that's.

happening right now is a transition. where we where the American people have. to decide how much they want to get. involved and how much they want to let. other people just do it for them. And Donald Trump is a I'll do it for you. kind of guy. And Joe Biden was also an I'll do it for. you kind of guy. And Obama was an I'll. do it for you kind of guy. And we are. electing people who will do it for us. Do what for us? >> Whatever Whatever nasty thing we don't. want to deal with. Budgeting,

currencies, hard work, foreign trade, foreign relations, wars. We don't We. want to be able to just talk about it. without having any blood on our hands. So, we push that responsibility to our. government. When in fact, our founding. fathers were the opposite. Our found Our. founding fathers were, "Hey, the blood. is on all of your hands. You tell us. what you want us to do. Do you want a. revolution? Then let's go fight a revolution. together. Do you want to build a new. government? Then we'll build a new.

government together. That's That's how. our country was supposed to be formed. So, when GiGi says that we're in a. transition and she doesn't know where. it's going, she is accurate. We don't. know what the future holds. Except, we. know the future holds more pain, for. sure. Because we will either come out of this. through a painful transition that makes. us better, or we will come out of this through a. less painful transition that leaves us. in a position that none of us want to be. in. And then we're going to have to put in.

more pain to fix it all again. And how. do you think the transition. levels out? Where do you think we end up. if you had to guess? I think that we. have a solid 60/40 right now. I think. there's a 60% chance that we don't like. where the transition ends, and then we. spend 15 to 25 years fixing it again. Fixing our economy, fixing our. superpower status, fixing our foreign. relations, fixing our fixing our trust. of our own government. I think there's a 40% chance that. the the decisive action Donald Trump is.

taking right now. is adopted wide scale, and we actually. stimulate our economy, get people back. on the same page, and and move forward. in a way that keeps us one step ahead of. our of the threats that we see from. China, the disaster that we see. continuing to unfold in the Middle East, the the precipice that we have come up. against in terms of geopolitics. There's. a chance that we come out of that, but I. think the dominant chance is that we. don't. And I I would say that that's not.

just my opinion, that's the. opinion of economists of economists, that's the opinion of foreign. foreign relation experts. There are. multiple people out there who are all. saying. that our budgetary decisions, our. foreign policy decisions, our military. infrastructure decisions, our economic. decisions are risky. Risky means there's. a chance they'll work, but it's a low. probability chance, not a high. probability chance. In such a scenario. then the economy would would be hurt, and then there'd be more wars presumably. because if we're if the society becomes.

more individualistic and focused on. themselves and nationalistic, then they. become more of an island, people get. more paranoid, they start building an. Trump says building like the he's. calling it the golden dome over the. United States so that he can fire any. rockets out of the air if anyone. attacks. And then you kind of have to unravel. that and try and go the other way. potentially. Is that kind of what you're. saying? I try to do as much reading as I. can. I'm sure you're the same way. And. one of my gifts to myself is when I read. fiction. And I'm reading a book called. The The Left Hand of Darkness by a.

sci-fi legend named Ursula K. Le Guin. And it's a book from the '70s. And I'm reading this book, and in it she. has this quote where she talks about. nationalism inside the the world of the. science fiction planet that she's on, right? And the the quote is something. like, "Nationalism is not a product of. pride, it's a product of fear.". People aren't nationalistic because. they're proud of what they have.

They're nationalistic because they're. afraid that something might take away. what they have. And anytime you are driven by fear, you don't have the chance for true. happiness. And what I found in that. that passage from the sci-fi book was. really very insightful to what I see. happening across the United States. We're all nationalistic, left and right, gay and straight, whether you whether. you are old or young, we're all.

nationalistic. We all love our country. But the things that's driving so much of. our nationalism is this fear of the. other side. Not a fear of the collapse. of our society, not the fear of some. rising power across the ocean, but for. some reason we're more afraid of our. neighbor. than we are afraid of the real threats. that are out there. Because at the end. of the day, they're. California and Mississippi have much. more in common. than the United States and China. But for whatever reason, we get so.

distracted and so confused with our own. infighting that we don't realize that. infighting is exactly what all of our. adversaries from Russia to North Korea. to Cuba to even even. uh. you know, Bulgaria, which is a NATO. country that's pro-Russia. Our infighting just helps them. And and. what's the potential worst-case scenario. of that infighting? Because people think. okay it just means people are going to. pop off at each other on on X and. Twitter and social media and they're. going to scream at each other and then.

Gridlock is the biggest challenge. I I. don't believe that we're going to be. going into any kind of civil war in the. United States. We're not going to shoot. each other. We're not going to go. machete our neighbors. Not now, but. gridlock is going to lead to economic. collapse. Economic collapse is going to. lead to very real individuals having. very real problems, which is going to. lead to an increase in criminal. activity. People will steal from each. other. People will steal from from. stores. People will, you know, lie and. hurt each other to try to take care of.

their own. And as that society starts to. collapse and we become more and more. tribal again, all very predictable, all. all case studies that we've seen all. over the world, as we become more and. more tribal, then we will become fed. upon by our adversaries who don't have. the same problem. When you said gridlock. is the. the first sort of domino that falls. there, what is gridlock? I see gridlock as policy gridlock. We. don't know how to move forward with. Israel. We don't know how to move. forward with the budget. We don't know. how to move forward with whether or not.

we ratify these election results, right? And in the in the time that we don't. know how to move forward, it creates an. opportunity for somebody else to bypass. the democratic process and just dictate. the outcome. And that series of dictations makes it. so that the outcome is less. collaborative, less well thought out, less well defined, less palatable for. more people, and then that distrust kind. of continues on. We do live in a moment. now where the distrust for government is. higher than it's been in a long time. We.

see the we see the largest decline in. American currency that we've seen in. decades and in century in a in the. better part of a century. We see a lack. of public trust. We see consistent. presidential approval ratings below 50. for every president that comes through. We we are in a place where the people. just don't trust their own government. And I would say that that's not such a. big deal, except that we are the. wealthiest country in the world. We are. the largest.

military in the world. We are the. largest producer of financial tools and. the largest producer of weapons. We are. a big [ __ ] deal. to not have our [ __ ] together. Welcome to the United States. Shadow Cell, an insider's account of. America's new spy war. By Andrew Bustamante and G H Bustamante. It is a fascinating book because usually. the public doesn't get to read books. like this.

Uh and for the reasons you said, because. they're so highly scrutinized and then. ultimately decided to be confidential by. the CIA, but this one managed to get. through. So, I highly recommend. everybody reads it. We've touched on. some of the surface-level elements of. this, but if you want the details of. what happened, then this is a book good. book to read. But it also just gives you. a window into a world that most of us. live in ignorance to cuz we don't we. don't realize these things happen. It's. actually from doing this podcast that I. that things that I thought were. conspiracy theories.

became not conspiracy theories. You know? Yes. Cuz before I started this. podcast and started to speak to people. like you and other guests that I've had, I thought that while I was watching. podcasts and thinking that that's. [ __ ] no that's [ __ ] that. doesn't happen. This These are like. spies that that's not going to happen. There's no way that like one country. spies on another. There's no way that like, you know, people go undercover into countries and. get secrets and do all these crazy. things. I thought that was movies. But actually that happens and all. countries are doing it to each other. And I imagine even the United States is. doing it to some of their allies. Like I. imagine the United States probably has.

spies in the UK, for example. The The United States doesn't claim to. spy on the Five Eyes countries and the. Five Eyes have all claimed not to spy on. each other. um, but that's just a claim. We have a closing tradition on this. podcast where the last guest leaves a. question for the next guest, not knowing. who they're leaving it for. And the question left for both of you to. answer individually is, how did a. mistake you made shift the trajectory of. your life in a way you could not have.

predicted? I would say that the mistake I made that. shifted the that truly shifted the. trajectory of my life was staying with. my ex-boyfriend for so long, um, because. I we'd been together a year. and. I knew it then the relationship was. already troubled. and I was applying to the Peace Corps. right out of college, but I also knew that.

if I joined the Peace Corps and I went. overseas, the relationship wouldn't survive. And. for some reason, I chose the. relationship over Peace Corps. And. because I chose the relationship over. the Peace Corps, I ended up going to. grad school so I could stay with him. And then, because I went to grad school. and the relationship drained me of all. of my money, I ended up applying to the CIA. And if I. hadn't been in that relationship, I never would have joined the CIA, ever.

I never would have met Andy. I wouldn't. have the kids I have right now. I. wouldn't have the life I have right now. So, arguably a mistake to stay in a bad. relationship for 7 years, but I wouldn't. be where I am today without that. It's hard for me to answer the question. because I I keep finding myself coming. to the same conclusion that Jihi came. to, that all of the mistakes that I. think about. making all led to a sequence of events. that brings me to where I am now.

So, I'll actually give a more recent example. that is changing the course of my life. right now. In 2023, I hired the first executive. I hired the first executive into my. company, the first kind of equal. executive to me as a CEO. And I hired that person because they. came well recommended. I hired that. person cuz they had a a long track. record of success. I hired that person. because they seemed to understand a lot. of things about business that I didn't.

understand and it was time for for me to. scale and it was an important thing to. for me as a CEO to lead the charge by. hiring the right people. And then in the following 16 months, that person. lost the company individually. a half a million dollars and then put us. into debt almost another $215,000. So, a giant $730-ish thousand dollar. mistake in one 16-month period of time.

And throughout that whole time, I I saw. the mistakes. I saw the errors and I. kept convincing myself not to take. action. I kept thinking, this is just. what scaling must look like. This person. must know what they're doing. Like, you. have to spend money to make money. Uh we. have to we have to prepare for the. future. Like, I kept rationalizing every. step. Oh, this was just a. misunderstanding. Oh, this was just a. this was something that will pay off 6. months from now. And then, you know, that 16 months kind.

of ended in March of this year. And I'm staring at a healthy company. that has zero dollars in its checking. account that's carrying hundreds of. thousands of dollars in debt. and I realized I can't. let somebody else. try to do this cuz nobody cares as much. as I do. I'm the owner. I'm the CEO. The. company was built because of my passion. for the lessons and my passion for the. people that we serve. We are co-owners. of the company together. Jihi believes. in me and she trusts me and I can't.

violate that trust by continuing to. think that somebody else can do it. better. So, I remove that person from their. position. I radically change the. company, and within 3 months, we are. back into a profitable statement. We are. months away from being able to pay off. all the debt that we had gathered. We'll. never get back the money that we lost in. all the failed investments, but we are. on a trajectory to go in a completely. different direction because I took hold. of my company and made it my company.

again instead of thinking that I wasn't. qualified or wasn't capable or wasn't. good enough to be the CEO that built the. company, why wouldn't I be good enough. to be the CEO that grows the company? I. think a lot of young founders can relate. to that. I hear that story so often. I hear that story all the time. I've had it for many, many years of the. founder that starts a business and then. basically gets like gaslighted by oh, this person's an executive. They've done. it for 26 years, so they must know what. they're doing. I'll give them a massive.

salary. I'll give them control, and then. they make a set of decisions, which. because you you know, you've not walked. that path before, you're unable to have. high conviction as to whether those. decisions are good, but because they are. so expensive and their decisions are so. expensive, you kind of have to go with. it, and then eventually you realize at. some point that. just because someone has. worked in some interesting places or had. some previous interesting job titles. doesn't equip them for this challenge. And especially when it's a small but. this is actually the paradox of it as. well. Like the mentality of success in.

like big scale businesses is not the. mentality of success in like a. high-growth startup. You know, where you're like. penny-pinching. >> Yeah. Thank you so much. I super. enjoyable hearing the story. It was. actually much more. captivating reading your book than I. assumed it would be. Um and I think that's because of the. level of detail you go into in the book, which you just wouldn't have come across. before. So, really recommend everybody. goes and read it. And thank you again. for coming back here. And it's It's to. meet you, G He, cuz I've heard about you. before, but putting a face to the name. is is always useful. So, thank you so.

much for being here and continue doing. what you're doing because you're opening. our eyes to a world that we would. otherwise not be able to see. So, thank. you both. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you. This has always blown my mind a little. bit. 53% of you that listen to the show. regularly haven't yet subscribed to the. show. So, could I ask you for a favor? If you like the show and you like what. we do here and you want to support us, the free simple way that you can do just. that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is if you do. that, then I'll do everything in my. power, me and my team, to make sure that. this show is better for you every single. week. We'll listen to your feedback,

we'll find the guest that you want me to. speak to, and we'll continue to do what. we do. Thank you so much.