Today’s briefing:
— Four spicy spy stories
— Will the EU ditch its top diplomat?
— Why FIFA banned this jersey
Good morning {{first_name | Intriguer}}. A quiet but quintessential milestone for any diplomat grinding through a tough language like Mandarin, Arabic, Korean, or Japanese is not the day you pass your exam, but the day your instructor picks your local name. Not the phonetic version of Bruce or Karen or whatever, but something with local meaning.
For example, I knew a Western woman who arrived in Beijing as ‘Bright Pearl’, and legend has it that more than one foreign short-king has been dubbed (affectionately) ‘Little Hero’.
But my favourite? An ol’ foreign service friend famously touched down in Seoul as, and I kid you not, ‘A Thousand White Tigers’. Just imagine that for a second: you’re grinding through yet another soul-crushing inter-agency email chain, only to sign off with a glacier-cold “Regards, A Thousand White Tigers”. Pure poetry. Instant legend status.
But let’s wrap the week with a few spies caught hiding behind less glamorous titles.
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 | Managing Editor Jeremy Dicker |
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Number of the day
$75B
That’s how much SpaceX just raised in its record-breaking IPO, maybe making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. The target ~$1.75T market cap is on par with the combined debut valuations of the ~29 top US IPOs since 2000. Shares start trading publicly today (Friday).
Spy vs Spy.
Move aside spy headlines like Wildly Senior ex-CIA Guy Caught Siphoning $40M in Gold, or Trump Nominates Jay Clayton as Next Spymaster (our take btw: this ex-prosecutor who signed Maduro’s secret indictment is at least more credible than housing-finance Pulte).
Anyway, here are some other intriguing spy headlines you might've missed, starting in....
🇺🇸 The US
The House just failed to extend a critical-but-controversial spying law (s702 of FISA):
Critical because it (eg) once helped thwart a terrorist attack on Taylor Swift! But…
Controversial as an alleged loophole for warrantless searches of American data.
Either way, s702 just expired at midnight for the first time since its 2008 enactment, though existing FISA court approvals are still valid until next year — courts just can't issue any new spy permits until the House (now on recess) hashes this out.
But speaking of big changes... the CIA's former chief-of-disguise (Jonna Mendez) just gave an intriguing keynote at Infosecurity 2026 in London, warning of how AI is rewriting the spy-book faster than agencies can adapt. She did, however, drop a spicy hint about the enduring value of classic spycraft — using the CIA’s 1990s-era animated mask tech, she said she fooled trained observers (and even a US president) while right next to them!
And while we're talking old-school, it was interesting to see the FBI expose 13 fake consultancy websites that China's MSS was using to recruit new US sources via fake job ads. Interesting because of frankly how undergrad that tactic feels (right up there with cold LinkedIn approaches), but also alarming because it does seem to work.
Now speaking of alarming, join us over in...
🇱🇰 Sri Lanka
The country's public security minister just dropped an absolute bombshell in parliament, claiming Sri Lanka's ex-spymaster "strategically directed" one of Asia's worst-ever terror attacks — the 2019 Easter bombings that left 269 dead!
The ex-spy denies the long-running allegations, which basically suggest he 'let it happen' in cahoots with Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the hardline ex-defence minister who (with his president brother) famously crushed the Tamil Tigers. But motive? Just two days after the Easter bombing, Rajapaksa announced his run for the presidency on a 'national security' platform that delivered a landslide win.
Of course, keep in mind Sri Lanka’s current government hates the dynastic Rajapaksa family, which insists it’s all political. But speaking of long-running rivalries, join us in...
🇮🇱 Israel
We’ll save a few words by noting up-front that literally everything in this section is "allegedly", but basically it seems Mossad was running a Palestinian (with a Ukrainian passport) to help identify Hezbollah targets in southern Beirut.
But the Shiite group captured and detained him until March, when he somehow escaped during Israeli airstrikes, which Hezbollah insists were targeted to help him flee! The guy then made it several miles across town to Beirut’s upscale diplomatic quarter of Baabda, where he disappeared into Ukraine's embassy and hasn't been seen since!
Everyone now seems to agree he's no longer inside the embassy, but nobody will say where he's gone, or how he got there. Our take? Mossad is famously good at exfiltrations.
Now let's wrap it up in...
🇦🇹 Austria
We've long flagged Vienna’s reputation as the continent's undisputed espionage capital. That’s partly because of what's there: the UN, OSCE, OPEC, IAEA, etc. But it’s also thanks to Austria's traditional philosophy of 'permissive neutrality' towards Russian espionage — ie, we'll turn a blind eye, just don't target us.
And yet, we continue to sense Austria's tolerance is waning — it’s now expelled 14 Russian spooks since 2020, recently booting another three over that absolute "forest of antennas” up on Russia’s Vienna embassy rooftop — they're not sharpening the signal so Ambassador Grosov can watch the World Cup. They’re hoovering data across the city.
Oh, and just yesterday, a Brussels court jailed a local businessman who The Insider spectacularly outed as a deep-cover Russian military intel officer, smuggling inputs to sustain Putin's sputtering war machine. Watch for who Putin now 'arrests' for a trade?
Intrigue’s Take
Years ago, a senior spy told us that...
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Other spy stories just from this week include…
China has objected to what it argues is a Japanese spy plane off its coast, while Germany has arrested a Munich couple for extracting military tech for China.
Outgoing US spymaster Gabbard has just rescinded an earlier intelligence assessment which had cast doubt on claims foreign adversaries were behind the mysterious Havana Syndrome symptoms hitting Western spies/diplomats.
And Israel has arrested a man for helping Iran target infrastructure in Haifa, while the Pentagon has quietly upgraded Israel’s counterintelligence threat to "critical" (the highest) after Israel stepped up its collection on US-Iran talks.
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Meanwhile, elsewhere…
🇨🇭 SWITZERLAND — Gonna cap a pop…
The Swiss will vote on Sunday in a referendum on whether to impose a world-first population cap (of 10 million). Supporters argue it’ll preserve a demographic balance, while critics argue it’ll trigger a labour shortage and damage EU ties. (AP)
Comment: The latest polls suggest it’ll be a close call. 🍿
🇰🇷 SOUTH KOREA — Drone sentence.
A court has sentenced former president Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years for sending drones into North Korea in an attempt to provoke a Pyongyang reaction and aid his failed martial law bid (for which he’s already serving a life sentence). (Korea Times)
🇪🇺 EUROPEAN UNION — Tear it all down.
France, Germany, and other EU members are discussing overhauling the bloc’s EEAS diplomatic service, citing cost and coordination concerns. The idea would be to redistribute EEAS duties to the European Commission and member states. (NVU)
Comment: One factor is that members are dissatisfied with top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas (too hawkish and independent, though predecessors faced the opposite accusations). Another factor — and we’ll absolutely get diplo-cancelled for saying this — is that the EEAS is widely seen as a parking spot for competent-but-not-exceptional diplomats missing out on top foreign service jobs back home. 🔥🔥
🇹🇼 TAIWAN — Maritime troubles.
The Taiwanese coast guard has vowed to expel China-based vessels that recently “harassed” foreign merchant ships, while the military has conducted its first live-fire test of US-supplied HIMARS rockets along its China-facing shore. (TaiwanNews)
Comment: The week’s more intriguing development might be the head of Taiwan’s more Beijing-friendly opposition (KMT chair Cheng Li-wun) running a US charm offensive. She’s pushing the familiar line that Taiwan can (and should) engage both DC and Beijing, implicitly framing her party’s moves to block drone production bills or delay US arms packages as prudent steps to avoid provoking China…
🇬🇧 UNITED KINGDOM — Defence minister walks.
Britain’s defence minister has suddenly resigned, accusing the government of being unwilling to commit enough resources “at this time of rising threats”. (Al Jazeera)
Comment: Healey was one of PM Starmer’s most senior and loyal cabinet ministers, so it’s hard to ignore the likelihood his sudden departure was really about abandoning a sinking Starmer ship as much as any actual spending row.
🇨🇴 COLOMBIA — Pre-election shenanigans.
The pro-Petro head of a key congressional commission has tried and failed to suspend President Petro from his post until the 21 June runoff election. (UPI)
Comment: The strategy behind this unusual move? It might’ve been a clumsy attempt to a) shield Petro from further scrutiny in the sensitive final days, b) create a narrative of political persecution to rally his base, or c) allow him free rein to actively campaign in favour of his leftist successor, Iván Cepeda. Whatever the strategy, it seems to have backfired, with the right’s firebrand outsider ‘The Lion’ still firming up as the favourite.
🇦🇫 AFGHANISTAN — Two killed in rare protests.
Taliban forces have killed two people, including a child, amid a rare women-led protest against the group’s continued crackdown on hijab rules. (Guardian)
Comment: When the Taliban returned to power, it repeatedly and publicly assured donors it’d respect women and girls. But you only need to look at the way it’s excluded them from work, school, and pretty much any facet of public life to know it lied.
Extra Intrigue
👠 Three stories we couldn’t shoehorn in this week
Portugal’s António José Seguro has vetoed a draft law aiming to ban political flags on public buildings.
London authorities have seized a social housing flat rented by Sierra Leone’s first lady, amid doubts about her primary residence claims.
And a former Air Canada pilot is now facing charges after flying for 16 years (!) with a fake license.
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Jersey of the day
We tried yesterday to cover all the geopolitical controversies hitting this year’s FIFA World Cup, but we could (and maybe will?) add to that list every day. Here’s another:
Barely days before the kick-off whistle, FIFA bosses ordered Haiti to change its jersey design because it featured an illustration of 1803’s Battle of Vertieres, which secured the country’s independence from France. Why? The FIFA hall-monitors argued the design fell foul of its rules barring “political, religious, or personal messages or slogans”.
Colombian jersey manufacturer Saeta shared the news on Instagram, and defended the original idea for capturing the “resilience and spirit” of the Haitian people. Still, Saeta quickly cranked out replacements (sans battle), which Haiti will debut against Scotland this weekend.
Friday Quiz
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