New Delhi: Spymasters training their spies to use the amorous art i.e. honey trap, to obtain secret information goes back a long time. Who doesn’t know the story of Mata Hari, the exotic dancer who became World War I’s most notorious spy? The archetype of the seductive female spy, she was executed for espionage by a French firing squad at Vincennes outside of Paris. It is reported she refused to be blindfolded before being shot to death.
Cut to today. Four contractual employees of Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in Odisha’s Balasore, were arrested on espionage charges last week. They were reportedly honey-trapped for information on activities at the testing facility.
This is not the first time, that defence personnel have been honey-trapped in Odisha or the rest of the country.
In May 2012, former Leading Aircraftsman (LAC) KK Ranjith from Punjab’s Bathinda airforce came in contact with a Pakistan intelligence officer, Damini McNaught who cultivated the air force warrior by luring him to work as a defence analyst for a UK-based magazine. The 24-year-old single man was arrested under the Official Secrets Act in 2015. He also had another female handler named Alphonsine Davis. Cross-border spies fooled Ranjith by calling his mobile phone over the internet with the other party introducing herself in a British accent– as McNaught and posing as an executive of a UK-based news magazine.
Between 2015 and 2017, five cases of honey trapping were reported by the Army and the Air Force. The Army reported two cases of honey trapping in 2015 and another two in 2017. It was reported that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies were using fake social media accounts with female names to befriend, lure and sometimes blackmail India’s defence personnel into committing espionage.
In April 2018, a soldier in training from Rohtak was found to have shared multiple pictures of at least 18 different Army Recruitment Centres.
In November 2019, Bichitra Behera, an Indian Army soldier belonging to Ankarada near the small town of Hinjili in coastal Odisha, was arrested in Rajasthan for allegedly being honey-trapped by a woman agent of Pakistan’s ISI. The intelligence unit of Rajasthan Police arrested the 25-year-old soldier, who was posted in Pokhran, on charges of sharing confidential and strategic information about the Indian Army through social media to an agent of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. Behera was getting cash payment for providing such dossiers to the woman and got it transferred into his bank account.
In December 2019, the Indian army identified 150 profiles being used by Pakistan to lure honey trap Indian Army officers.
In February 2020, at least 11 Indian Navy personnel and two civilians were arrested in connection with an alleged spying case where Pakistani intelligence operatives honey-trapped them on social media. This brought the social media profiles of service personnel under the scanner for being in touch with the suspicious profiles. The Indian Navy imposed a strict ban on the use of smartphones and social media applications such as Facebook by its personnel.
In September 2020, a woman was arrested for honey-trapping a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The woman was the mastermind of a gang involving four others, all men. The arrests were made after a scientist in Noida was lured and kidnapped, and Rs 10 lakh was demanded as ransom from his family to release him.
The increasing frequency of such incidents led the Indian government to ask Indian Army soldiers to remove 89 apps including Facebook and Instagram from their phones. The most extensive line-up of banned apps includes 15 dating apps like Tinder, Truly Madly, and Ok Cupid.
The Army describes honey-trapping as a weapon of hybrid warfare being waged by its enemies.
The Navy has an investigation called Operation Dolphin Nose to track down personnel being honey-trapped.
