CIA reaches out to recruit agents in despotic regimes

The US Central Intelligence Agency has launched a new drive to hire potential spies in China, Iran and North Korea after a similar successful campaign to recruit Russians.

- SHWETA SHARMA

The agency posted instructions in Mandarin, Korean and Farsi on Wednesday to enable individuals in these countries to “securely” contact the agency.

Encouraged by the success of a similar campaign in Russia, CIA officials are attempting to reach out to dissatisfied individuals as China broadens its cooperation with Russia and Iran. The organisation said it had posted instructions across social media channels including Telegram, Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube to allow people to contact it via public or dark web sites.

“We want to make sure individuals in other authoritarian regimes know that we’re open for business,” a CIA spokesperson said in a statement.

The CIA shared similar Russian-language messages after Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in 2022. China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are known as the “hard target” countries, where governments have made it difficult for other nations to penetrate and thereby gain insights into their workings or access other intelligence.