Honey Trap and Kompromat Operations

Intelligence agencies’ attempts at military espionage and counter-espionage in other countries have continued from the past to the present. Countries do not even need to be adversaries for such attempts. Reports in the media in recent days have once again brought to mind the honey trap operations linked to intelligence services that we will discuss in this article.

Espionage is a human-centred way of gathering intelligence. In this kind of intelligence activity the subject is the human being, and everything about the person is always assessed. Data on habits, weaknesses, family relations, financial situation and frequently visited places are among the first information to be analysed. The honey trap is the name of one of the grounds for gathering intelligence, prepared for those personality types identified in this analysis whose sexual drives are open to exploitation.

A honey trap operation is the method by which intelligence agencies use attractive women or men to entrap their targets. Targets are usually chosen from people with access to important and secret information. As this definition shows, the targets of a honey trap are not only people holding senior posts. What matters in choosing a target is access to critical information.

Although Russian and Western intelligence cultures are very different today and espionage is carried out with intensive use of technology, obtaining information through the honey trap, one of the oldest methods in KGB manuals, remains effective.

In setting out this difference, the US national security expert Schindler draws attention to the concepts of provocation and blackmail, decisive among the methods used by Russian intelligence. According to Schindler, provocation, in the sense of confusing the enemy, distracting him and bringing him under control, is the first defining feature of Russian intelligence culture. The second is the term used in Russian as “kompromat”, meaning “compromising material” or blackmail material.

In intelligence work, whatever method is used, every detail is attended to in profiling target persons. For example, the method of approaching the target is determined by reviewing the person’s habits, close circle, family relations, problems and weaknesses. When the process of taking control of the target by setting a honey trap is launched, the relationships the person does not want known are taken into account at the same time. For instance, an important person, a businessman or a public official found to be womanising or keeping a mistress can be made a target even if he was not one before. If it is established with certainty that the person under observation is womanising, there is no longer any need to work on a honey trap. At this point, infiltrating a game whose script has already been written can also be said to fall within kompromat operations.

Through kompromat operations a person can be recruited as an agent or prevented from going beyond certain limits. Besides embarrassing photographs or video footage, people’s financial crimes and problems in their family lives can also be made the subject of kompromat operations. And the honey trap operation is one of these kompromat operations that are still valid today.

In this context it is worth recalling the trial on military espionage charges of an officer of the Turkish Armed Forces who fell into a honey trap set by Greek intelligence years ago, and the developments in the process known as the 2009 İzmir military espionage and blackmail case.

The first case concerns the seduction of a young officer by a Greek woman. The story goes like this: The car of a woman working at the Greek Consulate General in İzmir breaks down. As she wonders what to do, a first lieutenant serving in the Turkish Air Force who happens(!) to be passing by helps her. The conversation that begins while the young officer changes the tyre continues with the woman wanting to buy him a coffee as thanks. The relationship between the two soon turns into love. The first lieutenant, dizzy with love, is gradually brought to the point of saying yes to every request from his Greek lover, and finally agrees to sell his country’s critical information to the Greeks. Thus the young officer’s friendship with a beautiful woman soon turns into a military espionage relationship. The young officer, enjoying happy days with his forbidden love, is caught when his neglected wife goes to his superiors. The house the first lieutenant rented for his Greek lover and his spending far above his salary are uncovered.

The information obtained from the investigation points to a classic case of military espionage. By the end of the road, no trace remains either of the Greek lover or of the Greek secret service. The first lieutenant confesses and is arrested. This young officer was persuaded to sell state secrets through the honey trap, one of the traditional tactics of intelligence officers.

In the process known as the 2009 İzmir military espionage and blackmail case, too, it emerged that many soldiers had been introduced to escort girls and then blackmailed with recordings of their voices and images. Considering the findings of these trials, it can be seen that the honey trap still retains its validity and its importance in obtaining intelligence today.

Today it would be too charitable to think that an important public official, a journalist or the leader of a political party is not being watched by foreign intelligence services. Entrapping a target with an attractive woman is a known method. We often come across it in books and films about honey traps. Documenting the relationship of a person who is already womanising is another method, and all of these fall within kompromat. One cannot help thinking of the tape wars in recent Turkish politics… How often honey trap and kompromat operations have been carried out in recent years, it turns out. The country’s current political climate has almost been shaped by zipper operations. One of the dozens of questions that come to mind: Are these operations limited to domestic politics, or can we speak of the role of foreign secret services?