Strategy used to target spooks
BRITISH intelligence agencies have doubled in size in the past 15 years and many officers serve for less than 10 years.
That means, if you add those leavers to the growing number of ex-diplomatic staff, there is a huge pool of Brits out there with sensitive information.
Ex-spies will know operational details of MI6 missions against Russia, names of spies and double agents and new spying techniques being used.
Diplomats may have information on former colleagues that could be used against them or details of government plans and commercially sensitive projects.
All of this can be used to give Russia the upper hand against the west – making former members of staff very vulnerable.
Particularly under threat are new businesses set up by former government workers who need a cash injection to get started.
There are many ways Russia can subtly recruit someone - sometimes they can do it and the target does not realise they have been recruited until it is too late.
Other times a more direct approach might be used – or even blackmail, having caught the target person doing something they do not want made public. RUSSIAN spies have launched a ruthless campaign to force ex-MI6 officers and British diplomats to turn on their own country.
Moscow’s spooks are under such high pressure to “turn” our spies into traitors that they have made several direct approaches to former Foreign and Commonwealth Office staff.
President Vladimir Putin is under increasing pressure at home, with the Russian economy ailing.
We can reveal the escalating campaign by Russian intelligence is so bad that FCO officials have sent out an urgent warning to ex-employees and former MI6 staff to be on the alert.
And they have been warned that BY CHRIS HUGHES their close relatives and loved ones could also be under threat from Russian spy agencies like the GRU.
In the memo, leaked to our sister paper the Daily Mirror, the alert also tells former staff to be on alert for approaches from Chinese intelligence – who are also stepping up efforts to compromise British former officials.
Previous defectors include George Blake a former British spy who became a double agent for the KGB following his capture during the Korean War.
Blake, 95, who was jailed for the crime, escaped in 1966 and lives in Moscow to this day.
The alarming development in the crisis between Putin and the West comes as a third man was revealed to have been involved in the Russian Novichok kill mission against former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury this March.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia survived but Dawn Sturgess died after she and her partner Charlie Rowley found a bottle containing the poison.
Yesterday, it was claimed ex-Russian spy Skripal helped brief Swiss authorities to counter a Moscow intelligence operation.
The memo reveals the full extent of Russia’s shadowy espionage plans.
It said: “Russian services continue to be very active in approaching serving and former members of Her Majesty’s Government including a number of approaches against former HMG officials who had previously visited Russia…
“It is also clear that the Russian services regard both current and former retired members of the Service as high priority targets.
“…the Russian services have a tradition of using pressure in their operations. This may be used against both former members of staff and their close relations.”
The warning urges anyone who is approached to acknowledge they worked for the FCO but politely refuse any offer. It instructs victims to contact FCO security immediately.
The FCO declined to comment.