List of Famous Spys

Ali Abdul Saoud Mohamed is a double agent who worked for both the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Egyptian Islamic Jihad simultaneously, reporting on the workings of each for the benefit of the other.

Violette Reine Elizabeth Szabo, GC was a British/French Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent during the Second World War and a posthumous recipient of the George Cross. On her second mission into occupied France, Szabo was captured by the German army, interrogated, tortured and deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where she was executed.

Kim Jae-gyu was a South Korean Army Lieutenant General and the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. He assassinated South Korean President Park Chung-hee—who had been one of his closest friends—on October 26, 1979, and was subsequently executed by hanging on May 24, 1980.

Noshir Sheriarji Gowadia is a design engineer and convicted spy for several countries. He became one of the creators of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber during his career at Northrop Corporation but was arrested in 2005 on espionage-related federal charges.

Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple was accused of providing top-secret information about radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and valuable nuclear weapon designs; at that time the United States was the only country in the world with nuclear weapons. Convicted of espionage in 1951, they were executed by the federal government of the United States in 1953 in the Sing Sing correctional facility in Ossining, New York, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to suffer that penalty during peacetime.

Luis Clemente Posada Carriles was a Cuban exile militant and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent. He was considered a terrorist by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Government of Cuba, among others.

Liu Liankun, was a Major General in the People's Liberation Army who provided the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan with secret intelligence about the status of missiles from the People's Republic of China (PRC). During the 1996 missile crisis, the ROC Ministry of National Defense notified the public that the missiles launched by the PRC actually carried unarmed warheads. This tipped off Beijing that Taipei had a high-level mole working on the mainland. Liu, a top Chinese military logistics officer, was arrested, court-martialed and executed in 1999.

Mordechai Vanunu, also known as John Crossman, is an Israeli former nuclear technician and peace activist who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, where he was drugged and abducted. He was secretly transported to Israel and ultimately convicted in a trial that was held behind closed doors.

Shi Pei Pu was a Chinese opera singer from Beijing. He became a spy who obtained secrets from Bernard Boursicot, an employee in the French embassy, during a 20-year-long sexual affair in which the performer convinced the man that he was a woman. He claimed to have had a child that he insisted had been born through their relations. The story made headlines in France when the facts were revealed.

Rafael "Rafi" Eitan was an Israeli politician and intelligence officer. He also led Gil and served as Minister of Senior Citizens. He was in charge of the Mossad operation that led to the arrest of Adolf Eichmann. He served as an advisor on terrorism to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and in 1981 he was appointed to head the Bureau of Scientific Relations, then an intelligence entity on par with Mossad, Aman and Shabak. Eitan assumed responsibility for and resigned over the Jonathan Pollard affair, and the Bureau was disbanded. He was subject to an arrest warrant issued by the United States FBI. From 1985 until 1993, he was head of the government's Chemicals company, which was expanded under his leadership. After 1993, he became a businessman, noted for several large scale agricultural and construction ventures in Cuba. He was the chairman of the Vetek (Seniority) Association – the Senior Citizens Movement.