> Miller granted consent and ultimately admitted that he had run the queries for Taylor and sent the results to Taylor via text message, and that Taylor had provided a gift card in return.
Wow it just blows.my.mind. that that is all it takes!
Wow it just blows.my.mind. that that is all it takes!
Years ago a judge in southern Italy was in the news for having sold a case in exchange for groceries.
It looks petty, but it's actually shrewd: by accepting small gifts the crook feels he did only a small favour.
The system is often more reliable than the staff. I bought a gift card from IKEA in China and wanted to see what would happen if I tried to use it in the US. It worked fine, in theory. But when I asked the American cashier how much was on my card, she happily reported to me that it was $100. (It wasn't; it was ¥100.) The receipt she gave me, though, correctly listed ¥100.
Was there some kind of mix up? Are they laundering their money using foreign currency? Or does US Ikea not understand the difference between Yen and Yuan?
I am not aware of any such distinction being drawn in reality, though.
You read stories of ones who were caught, and you cannot make it it up. Their main recruitment target are idiots in places of high power.
KGB recruited more agents than real spies. They had many more people doing lobbying, covert propaganda, and subversion, than peeking into Western secrets.
They really valued their high profile spies, but their influence agents — "pomogaikas" were near disposable. Finding idiots in places of power was always easier than finding smart, ideologically motivated betrayers fit for espionage assignents.
1. A lot of embezzlement by FSB agents in Ukraine, who thought they could get away with it since surely there wouldn't be an invasion.
2. Many targets would take the money, promise to help overthrow the government, and then not do anything when the time came.
Take the bribe, pay the income tax, set up some email forwards, then kick back and relax...
Maybe that was the idea all along.