Today Justin sits down with Dr. Brian J. Ellison. Brian has a Master's degree in International Security from American University and a PhD in War Studies from King's College London. He's worked as a senior research scientist at the Center for Naval Analysis and at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory where he has specialized in Chinese strategic affairs, naval warfare and intelligence. His work has led to significant policy, operational, and institutional changes within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the overall intelligence community. In 2014, Brian was awarded the commendation for Meritorious Civilian Service by Commander Mar Fork Pack for his research and analysis of the Marine Corps's organizational challenges in the Indo-Pacific. He's here today to discuss human intelligence operations by the US Navy in the Pacific Theater of Operations, which he details in his new book.

Connect with Brian:

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Kruschiki

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This week Justin talks with Mike Yeagley. Mike is a graduate of St. Lawrence University and is currently the Chief Strategy Officer for cohort.ID. For the past decade, Mike has been working in a variety of positions to understand and reveal how advertising and marketing data can be both an asset and a detriment in intelligence and targeting operations. He's here today to discuss his work regarding the many ways that data can be bought, sold, and used worldwide, and how anyone can effectively understand change and reduce their own data profiles.

Connect with Mike and cohort.ID:

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Kruschiki

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This week Justin sits down with Ana Margarita Martinez. Ana fled to the states at age six as a Cuban political refugee, and settled in South Florida as part of the Cuban Exile community. In 1992, she met Juan Pablo Roque, a Cuban Air Force pilot, who had recently arrived in Miami after defecting. They dated for three years and then married in 1995. A year later, Juan Pablo suddenly disappeared and Ana discovered that he had really been a spy for the Cuban government all along. She's here today to discuss her life, her marriage, and the shocking betrayal that turned her world upside down.

Connect with Spycraft 101:

Kruschiki

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Today Justin talks to retired FBI Special Agent Sheldon Fung. Sheldon has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biochemistry from the University of California Davis, and a Master's Degree in Criminology and Weapons of Mass Destruction from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. spent more than 21 years with the FBI as a bomb technician and a WMD coordinator. He's here to discuss one of the biggest WMD cases he ever worked on, which began in Irvine, California in March, 2000, after a local man named Dr. Larry Ford attempted to have his business partner killed in a professional hit. Sheldon and his team became involved when the investigation took a shocking turn when biological agents and a buried arms cache were discovered in his home, along with evidence that connected Ford to the South African government and even the Central Intelligence Agency. Justin covered this case himself already for episode 93 of the podcast back in May 2023, which you might remember if you're a longtime listener, but today we'll hear from one of the primary investigators.

Connect with Spycraft 101:

Kruschiki

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Today, Justin welcomes retired FBI supervisory special agent James Gaylord. Jim spent nearly 32 years with the FBI, including six years supervising a counterintelligence squad at the Los Angeles Field Office's Santa Ana Resident Agency. If you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you might remember Jim as one of our earliest guests from episode 12, recorded nearly four and a half years ago. Today he's back to talk about two of the most famous cases he ran as case agent. It's the story of The FBI's hunt for China's most prolific spy family. Chi Mak, his family, and Greg Chung were US citizens operating at the behest of the People's Republic of China government and its intelligence services, targeting some of the most sensitive American military knowledge in use at the time.

Catch Jim's original appearance on Ep 12: Life in FBI Counterintelligence here.

Connect with Jim:

https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Chi-Groundbreaking-Pursuit-Prolific/dp/1493091964

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Kruschiki

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Today Justin sits down with Gregg Bergersen. Gregg spent 19 years in the Department of Navy's office of Naval Intelligence as an intelligence research specialist. He was then asked to join the Department of Defense as a weapons systems policy analyst at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency in Arlington, Virginia, where he oversaw complex command control, communication, computer intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance foreign military sales programs managed by the Army, Navy, and Air Force. In February, 2008, Gregg was arrested on charges of espionage for which he was later sentenced to 57 months in prison. 

While serving his sentence, Gregg dedicated his life to the Lord and now works to provide hope to prisoners through spiritual development courses. Over the past 10 years, he served as the director of a Texas prison ministry with nearly 100 volunteers providing hope to the lost and the least in our society at dozens of prisons. Over 20,000 prisoners have graduated from his courses. Gregg is here today to discuss his work as a civilian analyst for the Office of Naval Intelligence, Navy International Programs, and Defense Security Cooperation Agency, as well as the personal relationship which slowly transformed into espionage and incarceration that changed his life for the better. 

Connect with Gregg:

houstonprisonministries.com

Connect with Spycraft 101:
Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here.
spycraft101.com
IG: @spycraft101
Shop: shop.spycraft101.com
Patreon: Spycraft 101

Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here.
Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.

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Today Justin sits down with Sam Farran. Sam moved to United States from his birth place in Lebanon and joined the US Marine Corps in 1978. He was later trained as an interrogator and worked on orders with the Defense Intelligence Agency and as an at attache officer. After retiring from the Marine Corps, he worked as a civilian contractor all over the Middle East and in particular in Yemen. In 2015, Sam was captured by Houthis Fighters in Sanaa shortly after they took over the capital city. He was held for nearly six months before finally being released to return home. Sam is here discuss his work all over the Middle East and his months of captivity by the Houthis in Yemen in 2015, which he wrote about in his book.

Connect with Sam:

Facebook: Sam Farran

LinkedIn: Sam Farran

Check out his book, The Tightening Dark, here.

https://a.co/d/cAlX6il

Connect with Spycraft 101:
Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here.
spycraft101.com
IG: @spycraft101
Shop: shop.spycraft101.com
Patreon: Spycraft 101

Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here.
Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.

Support the show

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Today Justin is joined by repeat gues Trevor Barnes, who writes on national security issues for the London Standard Newspaper and is a former senior reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation. He is the author of Dead Doubles The Extraordinary Worldwide Hunt for One of the Cold War's Most Notorious Spy Rings. That was the story of the infamous KGB Portland spying, which operated in England in the 1950s. If you're a longtime listener, you may remember Trevor from his previous appearances here on the podcast for episode 33 when we discussed the Portland spying, and more recently in episode 192 when we discussed the recent trial of a Bulgarian spy ring operating in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. He's here to discuss a very recent and serious case of Russia-linked sabotage in London, directed by the Wagner Private Military Corporation that targeted a warehouse shipping supplies to Ukraine. That trial just ended in the sentencing of five defendants, and Trevor attended the trial in person. 

Check out Trevor's previous appearances on episode 33: The True Story of the Portland Spy Ring here and episode 192: Inside the Bulgarian Spy Ring here.

Connect with Trevor:
Twitter/X: @trevorwbarnes
LinkedIn: Trevor Barnes

Connect with Spycraft 101:
Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here.
spycraft101.com
IG: @spycraft101
Shop: shop.spycraft101.com
Patreon: Spycraft 101

Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here.
Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.

Support the show

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Today Justin talks with Dr. Brad Williams. Brad is an associate professor in the Department of Asian and International Studies at the City University of Hong Kong. He has studied, taught and conducted research in Australia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Taiwan, and the United States. He is the author of Resolving the Russo-Japanese Territorial Dispute, which was published in 2007 and has published on a diverse range of issues in Japanese politics and foreign policy such as arms procurement, civil society, humanitarian assistance, human security, north Korean abductions, nuclear proliferation and secrecy laws. He's here today to discuss the development of Japan's counterintelligence community from the immediate aftermath of World War II up through the early 2020s.

Connect with Brad:

scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/persons/bwilliam/

Check out the book, Japanese Foreign Intelligence and Grand Strategy: From the Cold War to the Abe Era, here.

https://a.co/d/e4ohfPV

Connect with Spycraft 101:
Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here.
spycraft101.com
IG: @spycraft101
Shop: shop.spycraft101.com
Patreon: Spycraft 101

Subtack: spycraft101.substack.com

Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here.
Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.

Support the show

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Today Justin talks with Chris Feistl. Chris worked for 26 years as a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration. He spent much of his career in Columbia beginning in 1994. Since then, he's been featured in several different documentaries, including the Discovery series Finding Escobar's Millions, plus German Cocaine Cowboy and Narco Wars. He's here today to discuss his book, After Escobar. It's the story of his time in Columbia in the mid 1990s, working with his partner, Dave Mitchell, to dismantle the Cali cartel led primarily by the brothers, Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez. Chris and Dave's work in Columbia was the basis for season three of the Netflix series, Narcos. 

Connect with Chris:

afterescobar.com

IG: @afterescobar

Check out the book here. 

https://a.co/d/6p7V6jq

Connect with Spycraft 101:
Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here.
spycraft101.com
IG: @spycraft101
Shop: shop.spycraft101.com
Patreon: Spycraft 101

Subtack: spycraft101.substack.com

Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here.
Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.

Support the show

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