5 ms·

I've been struck by how often it is really quite senior people within criminal/terrorist organisations are the ones that get turned by the various agencies. In

I've been struck by how often it is really quite senior people within criminal/terrorist organisations are the ones that get turned by the various agencies. In the UK, there was an informant for MI5 in the IRA for years codenamed Steaknife. It turned out he was the head of IRA internal security, it was his job to hunt moles. He was the perfect agent. I seem to remember a story of a mafia don who turned out to be an informant, which seems wild to me.

boomboomsubban 2y ago
> I seem to remember a story of a mafia don who turned out to be an informant, which seems wild to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_Bulger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_Bulger
- noneeeed 2y ago
  Aha, thank you.
  - rufus_foreman 2y ago
    The Scorsese movie "The Departed" is both a remake of a film made in Hong Kong ("Infernal Affairs") and a semi-realistic depiction of the Boston Winter Hill Gang led by Bulger.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is another great movie (and great book) semi-related to this theme.
    - noneeeed 2y ago
      Thanks, I hadn't known about the connection. It's a great film.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  he was informant to cover his ass, and run to attempts to play all sides. slip the feds a little juice tidbit here or there and he gets to run his empire a few months longer. repeat over and over until the feds get smart.
  - reverendsteveii 2y ago
    >he was informant to cover his ass, and run to attempts to play all sides. I mean, it's not as though other mafiosi turn informant because they yearn for justice...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - boomboomsubban 2y ago
    This makes it sound like the FBI was unaware they were dealing with a mafia don. They knew and didn't care, it benefit them.
pjc50 2y ago
Bob Lambert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lambert_(undercover_police_officer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lambert_(undercover_police... was one of the people responsible for the 'McLibel' leaflet that turned into the UK's longest running libel case. These days it looks to me like Extinction Rebellion (XR) are being run by spies, since all their activities are so counter-productive in terms of making people hate environmentalism.
- noneeeed 2y ago
  I am convinced Just Stop Oil are. Everything they do simply makes people angry at the environmental movement. XR seem to be trying to distance themselves, but it's too late, I don't think most people distinguish between them.
- lurk2 2y ago
  The Lambert case is wild. I genuinely didn't believe it when I first read about it just because it was so bizarre.
- ashoeafoot 2y ago
  Right, like putting out beavers in villages and towns. The beavers dig up dams, floiding the town, town which loved green and quiet hates environmentals forever. I would donate to that sort of self defeat initiative a million every day if i were exxon mobile. Anything to antagonize working class people.
cess11 2y ago
The older you get, the more you've got to lose, and a lot of people become less radical with age. At the same time you also tend to be a higher value target for external actors compared to young, new, members of an organisation. So in the young end of it you'd prefer infiltration to recruiting informants, in part because young informants also tend to be less reliable than old, for the reasons above. If it's your agent loyalty isn't as brittle as when you've convinced someone to become a traitor. When news of government or other external actors having gained access breaks, you typically don't want your infiltrators to become known if you can avoid it. It's different in some settings, antifascists commonly do the opposite and try to protect their informants so they can keep working if they move on to another far right group, while their infiltrators sometimes go public with what they've done.
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
If you get enough on them that you could probably prosecute them successfully, then you have enough on them to try to turn them. And if they're the only one at that level that you have enough on, rather than make one prosecution, it may be better to turn them.
lurk2 2y ago
They are the highest value targets who coordinate the group's activities. Most will have done something at some point that could land them in prison for a long time; this is how they are typically turned. The ones that haven't done anything the feds can feasibly threaten them with often get bribed, which is where things can get really messy because you end up with policing organizations essentially permitting organized crime under a series of conditions (e.g. keep things quiet and we won't bother you). There are many documented instances of this happening on the street level, and some evidence to suggest it is occurring at the national level and the international level. It can be counter-intuitive to think of these organizations being so easily compromised, but a good rule of thumb is that no organization dedicated to criminal or subversive activity is going to evade the attention of the feds, and once that attention is there, they will almost never be able to outspend them. It's comparable to a small business trying to harden their systems against a state actor.
- asa400 2y ago
  I would go so far as to say it quite literally is a small business trying to harden their systems against a state actor, only the systems here are organizational systems.
Baljhin 2y ago
> I seem to remember a story of a mafia don who turned out to be an informant, which seems wild to me. There's also "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno who turned FBI informant. In Ovid Demaris' book "The Last Mafioso: The Treacherous World of Jimmy Fratianno", he quotes Jimmy even laughs about being one, taking money from FBI and still running his rackets for a time.

boomboomsubban 2y ago

> I seem to remember a story of a mafia don who turned out to be an informant, which seems wild to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_Bulger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_Bulger

noneeeed 2y ago
Aha, thank you.
- rufus_foreman 2y ago
  The Scorsese movie "The Departed" is both a remake of a film made in Hong Kong ("Infernal Affairs") and a semi-realistic depiction of the Boston Winter Hill Gang led by Bulger.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is another great movie (and great book) semi-related to this theme.
  - noneeeed 2y ago
    Thanks, I hadn't known about the connection. It's a great film.
red-iron-pine 2y ago
he was informant to cover his ass, and run to attempts to play all sides. slip the feds a little juice tidbit here or there and he gets to run his empire a few months longer. repeat over and over until the feds get smart.
- reverendsteveii 2y ago
  >he was informant to cover his ass, and run to attempts to play all sides. I mean, it's not as though other mafiosi turn informant because they yearn for justice...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- boomboomsubban 2y ago
  This makes it sound like the FBI was unaware they were dealing with a mafia don. They knew and didn't care, it benefit them.

pjc50 2y ago

Bob Lambert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lambert_(undercover_police_officer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lambert_(undercover_police... was one of the people responsible for the 'McLibel' leaflet that turned into the UK's longest running libel case. These days it looks to me like Extinction Rebellion (XR) are being run by spies, since all their activities are so counter-productive in terms of making people hate environmentalism.

noneeeed 2y ago
I am convinced Just Stop Oil are. Everything they do simply makes people angry at the environmental movement. XR seem to be trying to distance themselves, but it's too late, I don't think most people distinguish between them.
lurk2 2y ago
The Lambert case is wild. I genuinely didn't believe it when I first read about it just because it was so bizarre.
ashoeafoot 2y ago
Right, like putting out beavers in villages and towns. The beavers dig up dams, floiding the town, town which loved green and quiet hates environmentals forever. I would donate to that sort of self defeat initiative a million every day if i were exxon mobile. Anything to antagonize working class people.

cess11 2y ago

The older you get, the more you've got to lose, and a lot of people become less radical with age. At the same time you also tend to be a higher value target for external actors compared to young, new, members of an organisation. So in the young end of it you'd prefer infiltration to recruiting informants, in part because young informants also tend to be less reliable than old, for the reasons above. If it's your agent loyalty isn't as brittle as when you've convinced someone to become a traitor. When news of government or other external actors having gained access breaks, you typically don't want your infiltrators to become known if you can avoid it. It's different in some settings, antifascists commonly do the opposite and try to protect their informants so they can keep working if they move on to another far right group, while their infiltrators sometimes go public with what they've done.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago

If you get enough on them that you could probably prosecute them successfully, then you have enough on them to try to turn them. And if they're the only one at that level that you have enough on, rather than make one prosecution, it may be better to turn them.

lurk2 2y ago

They are the highest value targets who coordinate the group's activities. Most will have done something at some point that could land them in prison for a long time; this is how they are typically turned. The ones that haven't done anything the feds can feasibly threaten them with often get bribed, which is where things can get really messy because you end up with policing organizations essentially permitting organized crime under a series of conditions (e.g. keep things quiet and we won't bother you). There are many documented instances of this happening on the street level, and some evidence to suggest it is occurring at the national level and the international level. It can be counter-intuitive to think of these organizations being so easily compromised, but a good rule of thumb is that no organization dedicated to criminal or subversive activity is going to evade the attention of the feds, and once that attention is there, they will almost never be able to outspend them. It's comparable to a small business trying to harden their systems against a state actor.

asa400 2y ago
I would go so far as to say it quite literally is a small business trying to harden their systems against a state actor, only the systems here are organizational systems.

Baljhin 2y ago

> I seem to remember a story of a mafia don who turned out to be an informant, which seems wild to me. There's also "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno who turned FBI informant. In Ovid Demaris' book "The Last Mafioso: The Treacherous World of Jimmy Fratianno", he quotes Jimmy even laughs about being one, taking money from FBI and still running his rackets for a time.