New in SpyWeek: Run Silent, Run Deep
A daring SEAL mission in North Korea, an intel hole in the Caribbean strike, a Chinese cyber octopus, and more Russia skullduggery lead the news
Cold Water Wash: There’s an old saying in the special ops world: “Ask forgiveness, not permission.” Team Trump has mastered the second part, anyway, according to a blockbuster New York Times piece this week. In the first Trump administration, officials neglected to tell congressional overseers about an ultra-daring op in early 2019 for Navy SEALs to swim ashore in North Korea and plant a listening device to eavesdrop on perpetual enfant terrible Kim Jong Un. “They were on a top secret mission so complex and consequential that everything had to go exactly right,” reported Times staff writer Dave Philipps and freelancer Matthew Cole. It didn’t. The SEALs got spooked by what they feared was a North Korean naval patrol boat nearby.
“Within seconds, everyone on the North Korean boat was dead,” they wrote. The murdered were just fishermen, the SEALs discovered, but the raiders had made enough noise to stir up trouble so they “retreated into the sea without planting the listening device,” the paper said, adding, “The Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, before or after the mission. The lack of notification may have violated the law.” No kidding.
Right of VZ Boom: We can only imagine what kind of intelligence led to the Trump administration applying the full might of the newly renamed Department of War on a speedboat suspected of running drugs across the southern Caribbean Sea this week. The president claimed that the attack was aimed at “positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists,” but Trump and DNI Tulsi Gabbard have a record of batting down contradictory intelligence on Venezuela and the criminal gang to match their aggressive policies. The legally dubious attack killed 11 people, almost certainly ones at the bottom of the narco totem pole. Normal procedure is to intercept and interrogate suspected waterborne drug traffickers, with the idea of not just taking bad guys and their cache off the street but gaining intel on higher ups. “I can’t fathom why they didn’t try to board the boat—unless you’re doing it [the military strike] for theater,” a former Coastie and DHS senior official told us. A former FBI counterterrorism official told SpyTalk’s Michael Isikoff, “It’s a good thing they killed those guys, because if we had captured those guys, we wouldn't have any grounds to charge them with terrorism."
Chinese Hoovering: “‘Unrestrained’ Chinese Cyberattackers May Have Stolen Data From Almost Every American,” a New York Times headline blared this week. “The range of the attack was far greater than originally understood, and security officials warned that the stolen data could allow Chinese intelligence services to exploit global communication networks to track targets including politicians, spies and activists,” reported the paper’s veteran national security investigative correspondent Adam Goldman. Beijing-sponsored hackers “are targeting networks globally, including, but not limited to, telecommunications, government, transportation, lodging, and military infrastructure networks,” a joint U.S. intelligence statement said.
ICE Spyware: The cyber division of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations has quietly jump started a $2 million contract with the U.S. branch of the Israeli spyware vendor Paragon Solutions that was halted last year by the Biden administration, according to independent journalist Jack Poulson’s All-Source Intelligence Substack, citing a U.S. government public procurement notice. “Paragon — which was founded by Ehud Schneorson, a former commander of Israel’s signals intelligence agency, Unit 8200 — had been acquired by the Boca Raton-based private equity firm AE Industrial Partners. As a result, Paragon was merged into the Virginia-based cyber intelligence firm REDLattice,” Poulson wrote. “ICE didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, making it unclear how the agency plans on using Paragon's software,” PC MAG reported. “Still, the contract’s reactivation will raise questions and concerns about the Trump administration potentially using spyware within US borders. A security researcher at Citizen Lab, John Scott-Railton, tweeted: ‘Foreign mercenary spyware is coming to the US.’”
Mossad-Gaza: Fwiw, Israeli spy boss David Barnea joined Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in expressing “hesitation in recent weeks about proceeding with the Gaza City offensive,” Israeli officials told the Wall Street Journal. “They…have argued for pursuing a cease-fire deal with Hamas that would release at least some of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza,” officials said. The carnage continues.
Russia, Russia, Russia:
Did the Kremlin plot to kill Ursula von der Leyen? Bulgarian authorities believe that Russia disrupted navigation signals that would have been used by a plane carrying the E.U. leader. (NYT)
Kremlin fingered in Ukraine assassination: Kyiv on Monday said Russia was linked to the weekend assassination of a pro-Western Ukrainian politician after the arrest of a suspect alleged to have carried out the shooting disguised as a courier. (CBS)
French counterespionage authorities sent out a memo to defense industries this week warning them to beware of Russian spies. ”Among the signs they tell employers to watch out for are if one of their employees starts a new romantic relationship, particularly with a foreigner.” That’s according to Philip Ingram, former British military intelligence officer and journalist specialising in security issues, interviewed on France 24 TV.
Trump Kompromat? The titilating allegations by former KGB official Alnur Mussayev that the Kremlin blackmailed and groomed businessman Trump into a code-named asset decades ago still lack hard evidence and corroboration, according to a close analysis by the pseudonymous “Jane Prescott”—at least so far. “It’s an explosive allegation,” according to the “Morning Truth” Substacker. “However, as of today, September 2, 2025, none of these supposed documents or recordings [Mussayev says exists] have been made public. No independent source has verified their existence.” Trump’s evident obeisance to Vladimir Putin on Ukraine and other matters, as demonstrated most recently at the failed Alaska Summit, is still in wont of a single, unifying explanation. Prevailing wisdom is that he just likes dictators.