James Harper is in dire need of protection—and money. But the nuclear spy has exhausted his options and left breadcrumbs of his trail. The FBI is watching.

Spy Valley is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get exclusive bonus episodes for Spy Valley and all our shows, as well as ad-free listening and early access to new podcasts.

For more fearless storytelling, search for the Brazen channel on Apple Podcasts or visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works – from espionage and corruption to deal-making and organised crime, we’ll take you inside stories from hidden worlds.

Episode 5: The Doomsday Machine

“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”

Silicon Valley is an espionage innovator—it has been since its inception. During the dawn of the high-tech age, an engineer named James Harper begins his industrious climb. But as Silicon Valley blossoms into what it is today, so too does the dark side of all this newfound wealth and ambition—right as the cold war reaches its final crescendo.

As Harper works to build his fortune, his ambition endangers his nation’s safety. He sells nuclear secrets to the Soviet Bloc—intelligence that might still help Moscow in a nuclear exchange today. It would become the chase of a lifetime for San Francisco’s FBI spy hunters.

In this series, we’ll walk you through a maze. One of nuclear spying, technology theft, and double agents, and the too wild-to-be-believed events that placed James Harper at the center of this story.

And you’ll hear that story from James Harper–the Soviet Bloc spy–himself.

Spy Valley is a Project Brazen production. For more fearless storytelling, search for the Brazen channel on Apple Podcasts or visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works – from espionage and corruption to deal-making and organised crime, we’ll take you inside stories from hidden worlds.

Don’t stay in the dark. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get exclusive bonus episodes for Spy Valley and all our shows, as well as ad-free listening and early access to new podcasts. For the latest from Brazen delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters at brazen.fm/newsletters.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Documentary

This week on Spy Valley we’re sharing the first episode of a new four-part series from Brazen called ‘The Professor’.

William Veres is in trouble. In 2018 he was arrested following the largest ever investigation by the Italian police’s art squad. They accuse him of running a pan-European art-smuggling ring with ties to the Sicilian mafia. He is alleged to have stolen $40 million worth of art and antiquities from Italy. Charged with 14 counts, including money laundering, forgery, wire fraud and conspiracy, he faces a jail term of up to 20 years.  But he has a plan to get out of trouble. 

In this four-part podcast, host Simon Willis follows him as he puts that plan into action. It’s a story that takes listeners deep into the underworld and into the dark heart of the most famous criminal organization of them all – Cosa Nostra.  It is a story of drug dealers, hitmen, smugglers, spies – even a corrupt prime minister. And in the middle of it all is William Veres’s quest to save himself. How? By solving the coldest cold case in the history of art crime – the theft of Caravaggio’s Nativity. 

The Professor is a series for Hidden Worlds, the home of unbelievable true stories and gripping investigations into shadowy places. Subscribe to Hidden Worlds and get brand new series delivered to your favorite podcast app year-round. One podcast, endless stories. For more, visit brazen.fm/hidden-worlds.

Don’t want to wait for the next episode? Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus to listen to the full series today, and get ad-free listening.

Introducing The Professor: Hunting for the Mafia's Missing Masterpiece

In collaboration with SpyCast, this week on Spy Valley we're sharing a bonus episode recorded live at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. The panel was moderated by Sharon Weinberger, the national security and foreign policy editor at The Wall Street Journal, featuring Spy Valley host Zach Dorfman with Dr. Raymond J. Batvinis, a historian and former FBI Special Agent, John Gibbons, who headed the US Attorney's prosecution team in the case against James Harper, and nuclear historian and National Cryptologic Museum Director, Dr. Vince Houghton.

For more espionage stories from the International Spy Museum, listen to SpyCast, hosted by the museum’s Historian and Curator, Dr. Andrew Hammond.

Spy Valley is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get exclusive bonus episodes for Spy Valley and all our shows, as well as ad-free listening and early access to new podcasts.

For more fearless storytelling, search for the Brazen channel on Apple Podcasts or visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works – from espionage and corruption to deal-making and organised crime, we’ll take you inside stories from hidden worlds.

From SpyCast and Spy Valley: a night at the museum

Thanks for listening to Spy Valley. If you’re looking for a new podcast to follow, we think you’ll enjoy Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen. Listen here for a special preview of the series.

Amid the nuclear threat of the Cold War, America's prized secrets were falling into the hands of its sworn enemy—the Kremlin. The FBI's hunt for the leak led to an astonishing discovery—the mole was one of its own, special agent Robert Hanssen.

For two decades, Hanssen masqueraded as a devoted patriot while ruthlessly selling out his country, trading classified intelligence to the Soviet Union and later Russia, in exchange for cash and diamonds. He was a whirlwind of contradictions—a self-proclaimed patriot and a traitor; a family man who sexually betrayed his wife; an ardent man of God and a sinner.

In this CBS News limited series, CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett delves into the double life of Robert Hanssen and unravels the chilling truth about the most damaging spy in FBI history. Listen to Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen Now—Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen

The man codenamed “Caribou” plays a critical role in James Harper’s story, but his own story remains in the shadows. In this bonus episode, Spy Valley host Zach Dorfman sits down with Hanna Kozlowska, journalist and translator of the Polish archives used in the series, to discuss Caribou’s position as a mole for the US within the Polish spy service—and what happened when the Poles found out about his double-cross.

Spy Valley is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get exclusive bonus episodes for Spy Valley and all our shows, as well as ad-free listening and early access to new podcasts.

For more fearless storytelling, search for the Brazen channel on Apple Podcasts or visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works – from espionage and corruption to deal-making and organised crime, we’ll take you inside stories from hidden worlds.

Bonus: Caribou: An American Agent in Communist Warsaw with Hanna Kozlowska

Spyhunters and prosecutors are closing in on James Harper. They need one last fount of information that could help put him away for good. But obtaining it could prove fatal for its source.

Spy Valley is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get exclusive bonus episodes for Spy Valley and all our shows, as well as ad-free listening and early access to new podcasts.

For more fearless storytelling, search for the Brazen channel on Apple Podcasts or visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works – from espionage and corruption to deal-making and organised crime, we’ll take you inside stories from hidden worlds.

Episode 5: The Doomsday Machine

Download our free app to listen on your phone