A suspected death in Berlin, a Chinese man convicted in the US and several arrests. Everything shows that the game of spies is spreading feverishly. The new field of conflict of the great powers is its field technological innovation.
Russian diplomat Kirill Zallo has died after falling from the balcony of his country's embassy in Berlin. Only later did it become known that he was the son of the deputy director of the Russian secret service FSB, who in fact was involved in the assassination of Chechen rebel Zelimhan Kangosvili in the German capital Tirgarden Park. Eight Moscow spies deported by NATO, where he was allegedly on the Russian negotiating team. A calm Chinese man has been convicted in Ohio of stealing industrial secrets.
Once upon a time, writes the Italian newspaper "La Repubblica", the spies were moving in the dark, but today by opening the newspapers you can see their adventures almost every day, confirming that the secret services are returning to the forefront as instability in international relations intensifies.
Yanjun Su did not wear a fake beard or walk around with an automatic disguised as an umbrella. From 2013 he attended classes at the university and went to conferences, where he located people he could recruit. He invited them to China for serious academic presentations, with all expenses paid and something extra as an expression of gratitude. Something was happening there and, in the midst of promises of more important rewards, flattery and who knows what other tempting offers, he turned the guests into informants. In May 2017, Shu attracted a General Electric engineer who arrived with a suitcase full of secrets for the aircraft engines manufactured by his company. She asked him for more information. The engineer invited him to Belgium in April 2019. What Su did not know was that the FBI had discovered everything and forced the engineer to cooperate. So when Su arrived at the appointment in Belgium, an FBI agent in handcuffs was waiting for him. A Cincinnati federal court last week sentenced Sue, who now faces up to 60 years in prison.
One of the many stories that confirm that the spies are back - if they had ever relaxed the "game". It is certain that they now play a critical role not only in the geopolitical challenges between the US and China but also in the confrontations between many states. In the 1990s, then-CIA Director Jim Wolsey declared that the new front of espionage was industrial, economic, and technological. Technological espionage is now at its zenith, without stopping everything else.
China is convinced that it can surpass the US as a superpower by stealing innovations. According to research by Nikolas Efthymiadis, a professor at Penn State University in Harrisberg, In the last 30 years, at least 475 cases of Chinese espionage have been reported worldwide. Of these, only 22% involve traditional activities because Beijing believes that our future world domination is based primarily on Artificial Intelligence and technological superiority, which it seeks to gain by stealing from opponents any possible information. It then uses them to create its own autonomous capabilities.
Also, We see Russia returning to the habits it had when Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent, with the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the poisoning attempts of Sergei Skripal and Alexei Navalny. However, Moscow uses many digital companies, such as those to influence the US elections in 2016 or even the Italian elections, while we must not forget the hacking of Solar Winds and other companies. It remains to be seen why NSA agent Edward Snowden took refuge in Russia after revealing US digital operations.
CIA Director William Burns has commissioned a team leader who identified and killed Osama bin Laden to find what lies behind Havana Syndrome, a neurological disorder that appears to plague US diplomats around the world. Of course, it is taken for granted that the COVID pandemic has sparked a new wave of espionage: many secret services have been searching for months for the origin of the virus and where vaccines are being developed.
in.gr