However, it is popularly used to mean any long-term clandestine spy or informant within an organization, government or private. In police work, a mole is an undercover law-enforcement agent who joins an organization in order to collect incriminating evidence about its operations and to eventually charge its members.
What is the difference between a spy and a mole?
A mole is a spy who works for a particular agency, but divulges vital information to a rival agency. A spy, on the other hand, tries to extract information from a rival agency by pretending to be one of them. The fictional James Bond, for instance, is a spy.
What does being the mole mean?
In espionage jargon, a mole (also called a “penetration agent”, “deep cover agent”, or “sleeper agent”) is a long-term spy (espionage agent) who is recruited before having access to secret intelligence, subsequently managing to get into the target organization.
What is a mole in Secret Service?
Mole. An agent of one organization sent to penetrate a specific intelligence agency by gaining employment; a term popularized by John Le Carre.
What is a Russian sleeper agent?
Sleeper agents in espionage
In espionage, a sleeper agent is one who has infiltrated into the target country and has “gone to sleep”, sometimes for many years. The agent does nothing to communicate with the sponsor or any existing agents or to obtain information beyond what is in public sources.
Are moles intelligent?
Moles are extremely intelligent and sensitive creatures. They have hardly any vision but they have an extremely sharp sense of smell. This allows them to locate their food in underground tunnels (that is why they don’t need good vision).
Why is it called a mole?
The mole is a unit used in chemistry that is equal to Avogadro’s number. It is the number of carbon atoms in 12 grams of the isotope carbon-12. The word mole comes from the word molecule. … The mole is most often used to convert between numbers of atoms and molecules to the gram mass unit.
How do u get moles?
Moles are caused when cells in the skin (melanocytes) grow in clusters or clumps. Melanocytes are distributed throughout your skin and produce melanin, the natural pigment that gives your skin its color.
Where did the insult mole come from?
The word was popularised as an insult by the 1979 book Puberty Blues where it was always spelled “moll”. By the time the phrase first appeared on Big Brother it seems that “mole” had become the accepted spelling, and a range of merchandise declaring “game on moles” was produced.
What is a female spy called?
Sexpionage is a historically documented phenomenon and even the CIA has previously added Nigel West’s work Historical Dictionary of Sexspionage to its proposed intelligence officer’s bookshelf. Female agents using such tactics are known as sparrows, while male ones are known as ravens.
What is a CIA spy called?
Contrary to popular belief or what is seen in film and television series, US-born, professional employees trained to work as Intelligence Officers for the National Clandestine Service (CIA) are never referred to as “secret agents”, “spies”, “agents” or “special agents”, they are known as ‘Operations Officers’ or ‘Case …
What does it mean when a spy is burned?
A “burn notice” is an official statement issued by an intelligence agency to other agencies. It states that an asset or intelligence source is unreliable for one or several reasons, often fabrication, and must be officially disavowed.
Who is the most famous spy?
8 of the Most Notorious Spies in History
- Sir Francis Walsingham (1532-1590) …
- Belle Boyd (1844-1900) …
- Mata Hari (1876-1917) …
- Fritz Joubert Duquesne (1877-1956) …
- Lise de Baissac (1905-2004) …
- Dušan Popov (1912-1981) …
- Anthony Blunt (1907-1983) …
- Aldrich Ames (1941-present)
Who is the most famous female spy in history?
Mata Hari. One of, if not the most famous female spy of all time, Mata Hari was an exotic dancer and reportedly a German spy in World War One.
What is the CIA equivalent in Russia?
KGB, Russian in full Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, English Committee for State Security, foreign intelligence and domestic security agency of the Soviet Union.