5 ms·

Sorry, what is PIMLICO? Googling it comes up with a lot about the location in London.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago
PIMLICO was one of the code names for Oleg Gordievsky - who copies large amounts of KGB secret files in his position as KGB "Librarian" and handed them over to the British. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Gordievsky https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Gordievsky
- mhh__ 6y ago
  I was referring to the extraction operation to get him out. I don't think it has a proper Wikipedia page but it is absolutely ridiculous.
mhh__ 6y ago
Operation PIMLICO was MI6's ridiculously ballsy scheme to exfiltrate Oleg Gordievsky from directly under the nose of the KGB after he was compromised in Moscow. It is literally straight out of a spy novel, mainly because they weren't expecting to have to use it. A quick summary: "We have literally no idea what you look like, but if you hold a British supermarket bag by a bakery on a Tuesday - a man eating a Mars bar or a Kit Kat will walk by. That's the code for you to scramble to the Finnish border, upon which point some MI6 officers will drug you and shove you in the boot of a car. They will then drive (while stuck in between 3 KGB cars - only outrunning them because of soviet engines), through almost 10 diplomatic checkpoints with some absolutely ridiculously excuse about a Dentist appointment in Finland. If you get through those, we will play Finlandia on the radio and you're not quite safe but out of the USSR". Not only did this plan work, Oleg Gordievsky is still alive! Very brave man - he was betrayed by Aldrich Ames after the CIA got jealous and went spy hunting because how dare an ally keep their assets secret. He was invited home from London for a "promotion" (read: execution a la Tolkachev or Penkovsky); he chose to return. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uc5BxrWU_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uc5BxrWU_Q Watch this, and then buy Ben Macintyre's book for a quid (it's brilliant)
- fatbird 6y ago
  Holy shit.
- AlexCoventry 6y ago
  Thanks, that was glorious.
  - ascorbic 6y ago
    If you're interested, the Spy and the Traitor by Ben MacIntyre is all about that operation, and is as gripping as any spy novel.
    - arethuza 6y ago
      Really excellent book - amazing that Thatcher had to overrule the ambassador to get him exfiltrated.
georgecmu 6y ago
https://intelnews.org/tag/operation-pimlico/ https://intelnews.org/tag/operation-pimlico/ PIMLICO was an emergency exfiltration operation that had been put in place by MI6 long before Gordievsky requested its activation in May of 1985. Every Tuesday, shortly after 7:00, a British MI6 officer would take a morning stroll at the Kutuzovsky Prospekt in Moscow. He would pass outside a designated bakery at exactly 7:24 a.m. local time. If he saw Gordievsky standing outside the bakery holding a grocery bag, it meant that the double agent was requesting to be exfiltrated as a matter of urgency. Gordievsky would then have to wait outside the bakery until a second MI6 officer appeared, carrying a bag from the Harrods luxury department store in London. The man would also be carrying a Mars bar (a popular British candy bar) and would bite into it while passing right in front of Gordievsky. That would be a message to him that his request to be exfiltrated had been received. Four days later, Gordievsky used his skills in evading surveillance and shook off (or dry-cleaned, in espionage tradecraft lingo) the KGB officers trailing him. He was then picked up by MI6 officers and smuggled out of the country in the trunk of a British diplomatic car that drove to the Finnish border. Gordievsky told The Times that Soviet customs officers stopped the car at the Finnish border and surrounded it with sniffer dogs. At that moment, a British diplomat’s wife, who was aware that Gordievsky was hiding in the car, came out of the vehicle and proceeded to change her baby’s diaper on the trunk, thus safeguarding Gordievsky’s hiding place and masking his scent with her baby’s used diaper. If it hadn’t been for the diplomat’s wife, Gordievsky told The Times that he might have been caught.
- fatbird 6y ago
  Holy shit x2!
- mhh__ 6y ago
  It was actually a safeways bag not harrods (even more obscure)
  - goodcanadian 6y ago
    Gordievsky had a Safeway bag. The MI6 contact had a Harrods bag.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

PIMLICO was one of the code names for Oleg Gordievsky - who copies large amounts of KGB secret files in his position as KGB "Librarian" and handed them over to the British. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Gordievsky https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Gordievsky

mhh__ 6y ago
I was referring to the extraction operation to get him out. I don't think it has a proper Wikipedia page but it is absolutely ridiculous.

mhh__ 6y ago

Operation PIMLICO was MI6's ridiculously ballsy scheme to exfiltrate Oleg Gordievsky from directly under the nose of the KGB after he was compromised in Moscow. It is literally straight out of a spy novel, mainly because they weren't expecting to have to use it. A quick summary: "We have literally no idea what you look like, but if you hold a British supermarket bag by a bakery on a Tuesday - a man eating a Mars bar or a Kit Kat will walk by. That's the code for you to scramble to the Finnish border, upon which point some MI6 officers will drug you and shove you in the boot of a car. They will then drive (while stuck in between 3 KGB cars - only outrunning them because of soviet engines), through almost 10 diplomatic checkpoints with some absolutely ridiculously excuse about a Dentist appointment in Finland. If you get through those, we will play Finlandia on the radio and you're not quite safe but out of the USSR". Not only did this plan work, Oleg Gordievsky is still alive! Very brave man - he was betrayed by Aldrich Ames after the CIA got jealous and went spy hunting because how dare an ally keep their assets secret. He was invited home from London for a "promotion" (read: execution a la Tolkachev or Penkovsky); he chose to return. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uc5BxrWU_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uc5BxrWU_Q Watch this, and then buy Ben Macintyre's book for a quid (it's brilliant)

fatbird 6y ago
Holy shit.
AlexCoventry 6y ago
Thanks, that was glorious.
- ascorbic 6y ago
  If you're interested, the Spy and the Traitor by Ben MacIntyre is all about that operation, and is as gripping as any spy novel.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Really excellent book - amazing that Thatcher had to overrule the ambassador to get him exfiltrated.

georgecmu 6y ago

https://intelnews.org/tag/operation-pimlico/ https://intelnews.org/tag/operation-pimlico/ PIMLICO was an emergency exfiltration operation that had been put in place by MI6 long before Gordievsky requested its activation in May of 1985. Every Tuesday, shortly after 7:00, a British MI6 officer would take a morning stroll at the Kutuzovsky Prospekt in Moscow. He would pass outside a designated bakery at exactly 7:24 a.m. local time. If he saw Gordievsky standing outside the bakery holding a grocery bag, it meant that the double agent was requesting to be exfiltrated as a matter of urgency. Gordievsky would then have to wait outside the bakery until a second MI6 officer appeared, carrying a bag from the Harrods luxury department store in London. The man would also be carrying a Mars bar (a popular British candy bar) and would bite into it while passing right in front of Gordievsky. That would be a message to him that his request to be exfiltrated had been received. Four days later, Gordievsky used his skills in evading surveillance and shook off (or dry-cleaned, in espionage tradecraft lingo) the KGB officers trailing him. He was then picked up by MI6 officers and smuggled out of the country in the trunk of a British diplomatic car that drove to the Finnish border. Gordievsky told The Times that Soviet customs officers stopped the car at the Finnish border and surrounded it with sniffer dogs. At that moment, a British diplomat’s wife, who was aware that Gordievsky was hiding in the car, came out of the vehicle and proceeded to change her baby’s diaper on the trunk, thus safeguarding Gordievsky’s hiding place and masking his scent with her baby’s used diaper. If it hadn’t been for the diplomat’s wife, Gordievsky told The Times that he might have been caught.

fatbird 6y ago
Holy shit x2!
mhh__ 6y ago
It was actually a safeways bag not harrods (even more obscure)
- goodcanadian 6y ago
  Gordievsky had a Safeway bag. The MI6 contact had a Harrods bag.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]