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| Spies Among Us: A Chilling Reminder From Britain's Longest Secret Mole Hunt |
There are stories that make you shake your
head in disbelief. And then there are the ones that make your blood run cold.
What just surfaced from Britain’s intelligence vaults? Absolutely the latter.
Somewhere in the bowels of MI5, behind
doors few ever pass through, a secret was buried for nearly 20 years. The kind
of operation that feels ripped straight from the pages of a spy novel—but it
was very real. Codename: Operation Wedlock. The mission? To determine
whether one of MI6’s own—a high-ranking British intelligence officer—was
quietly working for Russia. Yes, Russia.
You’d think this was some Cold War relic,
but no—this kicked off in the late '90s and ran well into the 2010s. Triggered
by a CIA tip, British intelligence launched what may be one of its most
sensitive internal investigations since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
They were chasing a ghost. “Suspect 1A,”
as the CIA identified him. A man in the heart of the British intelligence
system, allegedly slipping secrets to the Kremlin, possibly under the nose of
Vladimir Putin himself—then head of the FSB. Chilling? That's putting it
lightly.
The op was so secretive, MI5 briefed
agents inside a church just to avoid detection. Others thought they were on a
training exercise—until they left HQ and realized the mission was dead serious.
Surveillance units operated from a fake private security firm in South London,
quietly observing, gathering, and hoping for a slip-up. They even went so far
as to conduct unsanctioned surveillance missions in the Middle East—breaking
international law if caught.
All this effort, all this risk... and in
the end? No smoking gun. By 2015, the suspected mole had left MI6. Gone.
Vanished into quiet retirement—or something far worse.
And here’s where the unease should really
set in.
Because this isn’t just a British problem.
It’s a global one. In my own spy thriller Shadow War, I wrote
about a scenario where former Russian KGB officers infiltrated the highest
echelons of American government. A U.S. Senator—Chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee—compromised. Even the National Security Advisor's office
wasn’t safe. Sound far-fetched? Not
anymore.
Operation Wedlock reminds us: the Cold War
may be over on paper, but the espionage games never ended. They just got
smarter. More digital. More patient.
Inside our own U.S. Intelligence
Community, we like to think we’ve buttoned things up. But the truth is,
spycraft has evolved. Today’s double agents don’t pass microfilm in
alleyways—they drop files via secure backchannels or embed malicious code into
harmless-seeming emails. They don’t have to be in the room. They just need
access.
Which is why we need to double down on
trust—but more importantly, verification. The intelligence community, both in
the U.S. and abroad, must treat internal security with the same seriousness we
reserve for foreign threats. Every agency needs a robust counterintelligence
division—not a token squad, but a full-fledged unit with teeth, capable of
rooting out deception in all its forms.
Because the next "Suspect 1A"
may not be sitting in London. They could be right here, inside the very
institutions designed to keep us safe.
The
silence around Operation Wedlock should be a wake-up call—not a sigh of relief.
We can't afford to wait 20 years just to
come up empty.
Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). He also writes the Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster Series, which blends his knowledge of real-life intelligence operations with gripping fictional storytelling. His work offers readers an insider’s glimpse into the world of espionage, inspired by the complexities and high-stakes realities of the intelligence community.
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