List of Famous Spys

Ian Robert Maxwell was a British media proprietor, Member of Parliament (MP), suspected spy, and fraudster. Originally from Czechoslovakia, Maxwell rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire. After his death, huge discrepancies in his companies' finances were revealed, including his fraudulent misappropriation of the Mirror Group pension fund.

Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod, better known by the stage name Mata Hari, was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I. Despite her having admitted under interrogation to taking money to work as a German spy, many people still believe she was innocent because the French Army needed a scapegoat. She was executed by firing squad in France.

Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter pilot. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.

Eliyahu Ben-Shaul Cohen, commonly known as Eli Cohen, was an Israeli spy. He is best known for his espionage work in 1961–65 in Syria, where he developed close relationships with the Syrian political and military hierarchy, and became the chief adviser to the Minister of Defense.

Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was a British-naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian FSB secret service who specialised in tackling organized crime. According to US diplomats, Litvinenko coined the phrase "mafia state".

Sarabjit Singh Attwal was an Indian national allegedly convicted of terrorism and spying by a Pakistani court. He was tried and convicted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan for a series of bomb attacks in Lahore and Faisalabad that killed 14 bystanders in 1990. However, according to India, Sarabjit was a farmer who strayed into Pakistan from his village located on the border, three months after the bombings.

Sergei Viktorovich Skripal is a former Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for the UK's intelligence services during the 1990s and early 2000s. In December 2004, he was arrested by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and later tried, convicted of high treason, and sentenced to 13 years in prison. He settled in the UK in 2010 following the Illegals Program spy swap. He holds both Russian and British citizenship.

Nicholas Stephen Alkemade was an English tail gunner in the Royal Air Force during World War II who survived a freefall of 18,000 feet (5,490 m) without a parachute when abandoning his out-of-control, burning Avro Lancaster heavy bomber over Germany.

Yevgeny Nikolayevich Zinichev, is a Russian statesman, politician and military officer. He serves as the Minister of Emergency Situations since May 18, 2018. He is also the member of the Security Council of Russia since May 28, 2018. In 2016, he served as the acting Governor of Kaliningrad Oblast before being replaced by Anton Alikhanov. He is ranked General of the Army as of 2020.

Perseus (Персей) was the code name of a hypothetical Soviet atomic spy that, if real, would have allegedly breached United States national security by infiltrating Los Alamos National Laboratory during the development of the Manhattan Project, and consequently, would have been instrumental for the Soviets in the development of nuclear weapons.