Mashed wrote an article titled: A Couple Was Just Arrested For Selling Government Secrets Using These Sticky Foods. I was curious, so I did some research on the connection between food and spies.
This research led me to the Smithsonian podcast on the first American food spy. In-between these two stories I read a lot about this fascinating, and much larger topic than I thought when I started. Also, let me say how this is now an amazing combination of big business, governmental intervention, and culinary intrigue all wrapped around small, individual stories.
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Governmental Spycraft
This section is naming examples of how governmental or police use spies at restaurants, where alcohol and foods are used to further their espionage efforts (or other devious deeds) throughout the world.
Restaurants Are Great for Spies
NPR speaks about Amaryllis Fox, who wrote a memoir in 2019 titled: Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA. Her book recounts various clandestine adventures as a CIA operative, and she is quoted as saying restaurants and cafés are in many ways the lifeblood of espionage. That is, a public place perfect for meeting people accidentally, or intentionally.
- Specifically, Fox adds: Chains like Panda Express, Panera Bread, McDonald’s and Starbucks, which have a standardized layout and are open late into the night, are handy operational sites.
Lindsay Moran’s 2005 memoir, Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy, recounts her espionage experiences in Macedonia. What specifcally makes restaurants, or cafés, so great for spycraft are:
- Food spots are found everywhere around the world.
- It is a reasonable place to hang out and people watch.
- The way restaurants and coffee shops are designed, they are public yet also feature private spaces.
- It is possible to pick an out-of-the-way place so that a meeting can be discreet.
- The natural flow of restaurant use is that you can always find a time of day with few customers.
- You can case the place and find ways of escape, or exiting quickly if required.
Restaurant Gift Cards
Moran explained further: a CIA instructor taught how to use Starbucks gift cards as a communication tool. “He gives one to each of his assets and tells them, ‘If you need to see me, buy a coffee.’ Then he checks the card numbers on a cybercafe computer each day, and if the balance on one is depleted, he knows he’s got a meeting,” she said. “The card numbers aren’t tied to identities, so the whole thing is pretty secure.”
Alcohol + Loose Lips
WaPo wrote that to soften up a source or contact, spies often meet in restaurants that serve both food and alcohol. The old adage, “loose lips sinks ships” may have been regarding gossip specifically, but it could also have been about alcohol, getting drunk, and accidentally spilling state secrets.
Brussels
The BrusselsTimes reported about a restaurant in the EU quarter, that had been noted by the EU security service as a place where foreign spies operated. They warned that at least 250 Chinese and 200 Russian spies were operating in Brussels. So, everyone was warned to stay away from the popular steak-house.
Since Brussels is the home of NATO and the EU, it is no wonder spies are everywhere. Plus a good steak-house, sounds like a spy heaven. The owner complained about the warning, saying that lots of politicians come there, not to spy but to spend time with friends. To talk and relax.
Ah, yes and it sounds about right, “loose lips” and all.
Maryland USA
The Department of Justice arrested Jonathan and Diana Toebbe, both of Annapolis, Maryland. They were selling restricted information concerning the design of nuclear-powered warships to a person, they believed, was a representative of a foreign power. This person turned out to be an undercover FBI agent. But what I find so interesting is in how they shared data.
- The Toebbes first left a plastic-wrapped SD card filled with restricted data stuffed inside a peanut butter sandwich at a drop.
- On another occasion an SD data card was placed inside a pack of gum.
So foods, as Vice details, can be a weapon, a way of passing on messages, and a means of blending into the crowd.
North Korea
In 2013 the FreeBeacon told the story of North Korea sending its spies to work in state-owned restaurants located in other countries, writing: Pyongyang rakes in more than $100 million annually from workers and restaurants abroad. The state is seeking hard currency, but also are conducting espionage. At the time of the article there were 44 restaurants in China, 1 each in Bangladesh, Burma, Malaysia, Nepal, Indonesia, and Laos, and 5 each in Cambodia and Vietnam.
North Korea had also dispatched up to 40,000 guest workers abroad, be it China, Cambodia, or elsewhere. Reportedly, the workers are forced to live in slave-like conditions and provide a large portion of their funds to the communist government.
Washington DC
DCEater and WaPo tells the story of former Georgetown Chadwicks was a place to grab a quick burger and beer. In 1985 it was the scene of a CIA officer selling out his country to the Russians. The financially desperate CIA agent Aldrich Ames met with Viktor Cherkashin and revelated the names of 100+ undercover CIA operatives in Russia. In return Aldrich receive $4.6 million.
What exposed Aldrich was his careless spending of all that money.
Food Spies
This section relates to the governmental sponsored spies who went, and probably still do, around the world gathering or stealing seeds, cuttings, or plants to help improve their own country’s farms and economy.
David Fairchild
In the late 1870s the peoples in the USA were 60% – 70% farmers, and the general population was just starting to reach out beyond the national diet of basic meat, root veggies and cheese to more exotic foods and spices. An example is the introduction of bananas in 1876.
The Smithsonian (2018) spoke about about the USAs first food spies, from the late 19th-century: globe-trotting scientists and explorers who sought exotic crops to enhance America’s diet and help grow the economy. They names a pioneer among these spies, Kansas born David Fairchild. Starting in the 1890s, according to the SmithsonianMag, Fairchild worked for the United States Department of Agriculture, journeying around the world to send back seeds or cuttings of over 200,000 kinds of fruits, vegetable and grains. His department, the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, researched and distributed new crops to farmers around the states.
But what he did was really to help change the USAs diet, at great risk to his life; he nabbed avocados from Chile, kale from Croatia, mangoes from India, and much more (including Peru’s quinoa, Egyptian cotton and dates from Iraq.). For example, Germany had the best beer, and the best hops in the world and jealously guarded these plants, even at night. Fairchild went to Germany, made friends with the guards and next thing you know he brings the plant back to the USA and created a hops and improved beer industry here.
Amédée François Frézie
Vice tells the story of Amédée François Frézie a French spy who, at the turn of the 18th century went to Chile to study defence fortifications, but came back to France with the strawberry. Or I should say The Strawberry, as it was the parent plant of the fruit we eat today.
- Fruit: The year was 1712. An engineer in the French Army Intelligence Corps named Amédée-François Frézier was sent by King Louis XIV on a reconnaissance mission to Chile. Between covert visits to Chilean military fortifications where he posed as a tourist in order to gain access, Frézier was also charged with documenting the local flora and fauna. One day he came upon a familiar sight: a berry that looked similar to one he knew from Europe, but significantly larger.
The new species was planted in France, and hybrids made, and one of the various hybrid species started to spread quickly across Europe. Eventually, this particular hybrid made its way back across the Atlantic and was grown North and South America.
Fraud + Regulatory Spies
This section describes the spies who work in various regulatory agencies, to fight food fraud all over the world.
This group of spies are usually food-related Association’s spies or Governmental spies looking into the authenticity, transparency and accuracy of labeling foods. Currently, as I have noted elsewhere, China appears to be a frequent distributer of fake, falsely labled, or toxic foods (1, 2, 3, 4), but are certainly not the only ones.
Food fraud is not new, as Wikipedia notes: For as long as wine has been made, it has been manipulated, adulterated, and counterfeited. In ancient Rome, Pliny the Elder complained about the abundance of fraudulent Roman wine which was so great that even the nobility could not be assured that the wine they were pouring on their table was genuine.
Currently, food fraud, according to GetPocket, costs the global food industry as much as $40 billion annually. So understandably, there are companies focused on these world-wide scams. For instance, Inscatech agents scour world-wide supply chains hunting for evidence of food industry fraud and malpractice.
- Food that has been adulterated like melamine-laced baby formula.
- Food made up of wrong ingredients, for instance rat meat sold as lamb, or Ikea meatballs made up with horse meat.
- Manufacturers lying about food sources or ingredients, like halibut labeled as flounder.
FoodandWine reports this is a very lucrative venture:
- Inscatech Founder, Mitchell Weinberg told Bloomberg that worldwide, they detect fraud 70% of the time.
- In China, a major exporter of food globally, that number is closer to 100%.
International Culinary Spies
These group of spies are looking into food influencers, critics, and manufacturing secrets. Or are hired as secret shoppers to spy on their own stores or franchises.
Stealing Secrets
In the food world there are tightly guarded secrets, like the recipe to Coca Cola’s syrup, KFC’s chicken spices, and a friend’s mother’s garam masala recipe. Where there are secrets and success, of course, there are those who want to steal it.
AllBusiness detail some of the ways people have gone to extremes in trying to duplicate successful businesses by stealing their recipes, menus, and look and feel of decor. Their lessons are summed up to this: while you have to trust your employees, figure out ways to not share too much. Basically, as they say, figure out how to safeguard your secrets.
Secret Shoppers
Secret Shoppers are also spies, that travel a lot, always worried someone will find them out, and having to eat, taste, watch all that food being made. The TV show, Undercover Boss, provides the obvious reasons why. With national, or even regional chains, the originators of the business always worry about the people running their stores or franchises. Are they putting the lettuce in the right place on the burgers, do they have the right mix of water to slury for the soda machines, are the bathrooms clean, and so on.
While the job of a secret shopper does mean lots of travel, loneliness, and stress, it also means eating lots of food. One common complaint is weight gain.
Spy Restaurants
Then there are spy themed restaurants in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Washington DC. But I will not get into them, although they do sound interesting. Since I have never been to one it is on my list of places to visit.
So if you are thinking of writing the next popular spy-oriented novel, make sure to have at least one food-related scene.
—Patty
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