Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Do CIA secret Numbers Stations still exist?

 


The CIA ran numbers stations, shortwave radio station that broadcast arranged numbers to intelligence officers operating in foreign countries. Rumor has it that some are still in existence, and the broadcasts have set time schedules, although some may be at random times. Numbers stations were most prolific during the Cold War era, and a well-known numbers station was the E03 "Lincolnshire Poacher", which was run by the British Secret Intelligence Service, broadcasting from a clandestine location in Bletchley Park in the mid-1970s.

     In 2001, the U.S. tried the Cuban Five on the charge of spying for Cuba. That group had received and decoded messages that were broadcast from Cuban numbers stations. Also in 2001, a senior US Defense Intelligence Agency analyst was arrested and charged with espionage for communicating with the Cuban Intelligence Directorate through encoded messages, with instructions being received through "encrypted shortwave transmissions from Cuba". In 2006, Carlos Alvarez and his wife, Elsa, were arrested and charged with espionage after they were caught receiving assignments via shortwave radio number station transmissions.

     In June 2009, the FBI arrested Walter Kendall Myers with conspiracy to spy for Cuba, after they caught him receiving and decoding messages broadcast from a numbers station operated by the Cuban Intelligence Directorate.

I enjoyed the movie “The Numbers Station” with John Cusack, a black ops agent with the CIA, who is assigned to a remote numbers broadcast station with orders to protect the station and the code operator, Katherine (Malin Akerman). When the station comes under attack, the pair work together to defend it, save themselves and stop their attackers from sending out a deadly code that could change the world as we know it.

Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and authors the "Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster" series- check out his PENUMBRA DATABASE and the MISSION OF VENGEANCE spy thrillers. 

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