1 month ago
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MOSCOW and Beijing are unleashing a new kind of warfare on the West – and it’s waged not with bullets, but with bedsheets.
US intelligence insiders say Russian and Chinese operatives are flooding America’s tech heartlands with a wave of seductive spies to steal state secrets and high-tech innovations through lust and lies.
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Experts say this “sex war” is about more than secrets. It’s psychological warfare — exploiting human weakness to penetrate the West’s defences.
Jeff Stoff, a former US national security analyst, warns that America’s rivals are operating in plain sight: “The Chinese understand our system and they know how to work within it with virtual impunity.
“China is targeting our startups, our academic institutions, our innovators, our DoD-funded research projects.
“It’s all intertwined as part of China’s economic warfare strategy — and we’ve not even entered the battlefield.”
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James Mulvenon, chief intelligence officer at Pamir Consulting, told The Times: “It’s the Wild West out there.”
He said he’s been bombarded with LinkedIn requests from “the same type of attractive young Chinese woman” – all to eager to connect.
When two “glamorous” Chinese women tried to crash his Virginia conference on investment risks, he said: “We didn’t let them in… It is a phenomenon. And I will tell you: it is weird.”
Counterintelligence experts added that Beijing’s “sex warfare” is exploding – and it’s proving devastatingly effective.
America’s moral scruples mean the US doesn’t play this game.
“They have an asymmetric advantage when it comes to sex warfare,” Mulvenon admitted.
It’s not just flirty spies, but full-blown operations.
One former official told of a “beautiful” Russian woman who married an American aerospace worker after graduating from a “Russian soft-power school”.
She now moves in crypto and defence-tech circles, while her husband remains “totally oblivious”.
The official said: “Showing up, marrying a target, having kids with a target — and conducting a lifelong collection operation.
“It’s very uncomfortable to think about but it’s so prevalent.”
China’s whole-of-society espionage
US investigators say Beijing has turned its entire population into potential operatives.
Investors, students, businesspeople — all can be used to extract secrets from Western tech.
“We’re not chasing a KGB agent in a smoky guesthouse anymore,” said one senior counterintelligence official.
“Our adversaries — particularly the Chinese — are using a whole-of-society approach.”
And the stakes are huge.
The theft of American trade secrets costs US taxpayers up to $600 billion a year, with China leading the charge.
In one case, Klaus Pflugbeil tried to sell Tesla’s stolen tech blueprints for $15 million to undercover agents in Las Vegas.
Prosecutors said the stolen data could have boosted China’s dominance in electric vehicles.
US Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said: “Pflugbeil’s actions stood to benefit the PRC in a critical industry with national security implications.”
‘Pitch’ traps
Beijing’s honeytraps aren’t only romantic. They’re economic.
US officials warn that Chinese “pitch competitions” lure startups into revealing their business plans — or worse, their intellectual property.
Some contests even record participants and demand access to personal data.
“It’s a counterintelligence risk,” said one official.
“They may simply take your idea, exploit it and patent it, stealing your financial future.”
The China (Shenzhen) Innovation and Entrepreneurship International Competition, held this year in cities from Boston to Tokyo, raised red flags after participants were shadowed by officials and wired with microphones.
One biotech CEO said: “They would record everything I would say, do and then ask questions like a reporter would.”
When his firm won $50,000, the organisers wired the prize straight to his personal bank account.
Weeks later, federal funding for his firm was frozen.
Seductresses in action
Moscow, meanwhile, is doubling down on its old-school seduction ops.
Russia’s “red-haired temptress” Anna Chapman — once the face of Putin’s 2010 spy ring — is reportedly back under a new alias, Anna Romanova, fronting a Kremlin-linked intelligence museum in Moscow.
Her return to the espionage stage comes after years of boasting that her “sex appeal worked like magic” on male targets.
Another infamous “sex spy”, Aliia Roza, once claimed she was taught “sex techniques” and “how to make men fall in love” at a Russian military academy.
“Sex is a very important part of the relationship,” she said.
“It’s probably 80 per cent where the person only feels like trusting you according to that sex experience.”
In London, two Bulgarian women — Cvetelina Gencheva and Tsvetanka Doncheva — were recently exposed as part of a Russian “honeytrap” ring that spied on Putin’s opponents.
They worked inside a “highly sophisticated” espionage cell run by Orlin Roussev, a former tech worker, who allegedly deployed seduction and surveillance to infiltrate Western networks.
One target, journalist Roman Dobrokhotov, was followed onto a plane, where spies watched him type in his phone PIN.
Police say the group’s honeytrap missions put lives at risk.
China’s espionage tactics also have a familiar face.
Fang Fang, the “honeytrap” who infiltrated US politics between 2011 and 2015, seducing two mayors and cultivating links to rising Democrats, including Rep. Eric Swalwell.
FBI surveillance caught her in sexual encounters with U.S. officials before she fled to China.
Her mission was to charm her way into political circles, raise campaign cash, and funnel influence back to Beijing.
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