Spy Swap: My Name Is Bond
This morning commenter ML recommended The Duran interview with geo-political/monetary guru Martin Armstrong. One standout exchange included Armstrong recounting how he became aware that insiders seemed to get a heads up before significant geopolitical events occurred—wars and such like. I came across a long and interesting twitter thread that gets into the whole business of the recent spy swap. I hope the author’s ideas on how the rulers manipulate financial markets won’t disillusion readers. The author, btw, is
Izabella Kaminska @izakaminska, Founder Editor of The Blind Spot @theblindsp0t, + Senior Finance Editor POLITICO Europe. Former Editor of FT Alphaville.
As you can guess from the name, Kamińska is Polish. Obviously, she has her own views on Russia, but she also notes “a potentially involuntary limited hangout by the US.”
Izabella Kaminska @izakaminska
Aside from the headline news, today’s Russian prisoner swap seems to me to include a potentially involuntary limited hangout by the US. It pertains to the release of Vladislav Klyushin and what that suggests about how spies and spy agencies really fund themselves.
The official line is that Klyushin was involved in “hack-to-trade” insider schemes. But why would that be of interest to the Kremlin?
To understand, first watch this suspiciously well produced (given the turnaround time) CNBC mini doc about “Putin’s trader.”
Not only is the doc extremely well produced for something that in theory only became public knowledge today - hinting of tactical embargo terms or pre-positioning of information by the Feds themselves - the access they were given to prosecutors suggests it serves a broader agenda.
There are other tactical if you know you know leaks throughout. For example, the last minute tip off from an anonymous source linking the reporter to a former Russian spy living under an assumed identity after defecting from Russia with US help. That isn’t the sort of source that you just uncover via investigative work.
So we have a former Russian spy telling us very clearly that Russia uses its spying power (both human and cyber) to gain access to insider information to make shed loads of money for spies. Why would Putin allow these individuals to get super rich? Likely because it’s the perfect off the books funding source which allows spies to self finance their work without the annoyance of sanctions.
But it’s not just about sanctions.
If information means power in markets, then it stands to reason that spy agencies - with all their backdoor access points, hacking specialists and general accumulation of privileged info - have possibly one of the biggest advantages in markets of all.
Would they use that privileged information tactically to front run markets to raise money for all sorts of black ops? If they’re already operating illegally in jurisdictions - it would be foolish to think they weren’t.
So the next question you have to consider is: when is an outsized hedge fund return really a genuine outsized return, and when is it the product of traders being fed privileged information from spy agencies - in a sort of hedge fund front collaboration deal - where proceeds are split between the spies and the front companies? Or even where the managers are the spies?
Note also the quip about how Klyushin is supposedly only the tip of the iceberg. There are (according to the former Russian spy) allegedly many more like him embedded across the US financial system. And unlike Klyushin these guys are pros and this discreet. They don’t raise suspicions by buying Lamborghinis or fur coats for their wives. They keep a low profile. [Perhaps even give some of their fortunes away anonymously to civil society organisations?]
What else do we learn from the doc? Well there’s also the fact that the Feds managed to get access to all their encrypted comms. Including on apps previously thought to be unhackable like Threema. Is this a boast by the US or a warning?
If you consider Klyushin’s little op generated about $90m - imagine how much more is being extracted from the financial system as a whole by all the hostile sovereign states that use similar tactics?
Now consider that it’s not just hostile states that stand to benefit from deploying privileged info garnered from spy/surveillance to generate off the books funds for all sorts of black ops.
We continue with something I pasted in from threadreaderapp:
So the spy swap reveals that a good chunk of our financial system might be highly manipulated by espionage-based front running (see my previous thread). And that it is not just common practice for spy agencies to monetize their information advantage in markets, but also to cultivate transaction mule-type assets who front these operations on the understanding they engage in secret revenue sharing deals with the states they source their info from. In other words, a bunch of the wealthiest people in finance might only be wealthy because they are intel assets who are happy to monetize data sourced by 👀👀 activities and are allowed to maintain that wealth as part of “the deal”. A sort of “license to manipulate” for king and country.
And weirdly that subtle reveal coincides with a big correction in the Nasdaq.
Obviously might just be a coincidence. But then again if you map out the logical market reaction to such practice becoming more popularly known (the game might be up?) is it really that surprising?
Of course if you think of markets as nothing more than glorified Casinos - the clue was there all along! (Why else was James Bond’s perpetual gambling and tuxedo lifestyle tolerated by M?) 🧐
None of this is really that surprising. As the former Russian spy in the CNBC mini doc says - the only reason nobody cottoned on to it is because most of the world doesn’t think the way “bad guys” do.
Thus, as he also says, markets are just another battleground for nation state hybrid wars. And if that’s the case (as per the plot of Casino Royale) it obviously stands to reason that our state is bankrolling or feeding counter-espionage trading too. And that suggests honest actors don’t really have a chance in that context.
And we conclude with this paragraph, which was pasted in as an image in the original:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_Royale_(2006_film)
"To recoup his client's money, Le Chiffre organizes a Texas hold 'em tournament at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. MI6 enters Bond—the agency's best poker player—in the tournament, believing a defeat will force Le Chiffre to seek asylum with the British government in exchange for information on his clients. Bond is paired with Vesper Lynd, a British Treasury agent overseeing the $10 million buy-in. They meet their contact, René Mathis, in Montenegro. Obanno, furious that his money is missing, threatens Le Chiffre, but allows him to continue playing to win back the money. Obanno and his bodyguard attack Bond, who kills them both. Bond loses his $10 million stake after Le Chiffre is tipped off about his own tell, and Vesper refuses to authorize an additional $5 million for Bond to continue."
BTW, I picked this up from Michael Every’s X account. He must have thought it seemed plausible, at the least. Which raises the interesting question of how much of what goes on in the world of power is also manipulated? There’s lots of money at stake, as Sundance likes to remind us.
"Thus, as he also says, markets are just another battleground for nation state hybrid wars. And if that’s the case (as per the plot of Casino Royale) it obviously stands to reason that our state is bankrolling or feeding counter-espionage trading too. And that suggests honest actors don’t really have a chance in that context."
I don't know if I would go so far as to say individual honest traders don't stand a chance. It has been obvious to many by now that Gold, Silver, Oil, Gas, and basically all other commodities are manipulated markets. Insider trading is also rampant (and perhaps especially among our Congress critters). Yet, normally, the impact of any one country's spy agency on markets seems like it must be pretty limited. So the "limited hangout" would seem to be pretty limited, too. If commercial and individual traders felt they couldn't compete why would they trade at all?
But it brings up an interesting question: Just how much dark money are the intelligence agencies (especially in the U.S.) being funded with? Does anybody know? How could we find out?
P.S. - I appreciate the "double meaning" in your title very much, Mark! Very clever.
Something to consider: the fact that the US and Russia exchange prisoners, and likely still exchange on some level some intel, means that each “understands” the other to the point that there is something called deterrence. Prevents the worst stuff from happening at an institutional level - we let loose something with Ukraine starting in the early 2000s, at least, that we cannot control and have no idea what will happen.
We do NOT have deterrence with China, as we do not fundamentally understand them and we do not even try to understand them, at an institutional level.
Lastly, we tend not to recognize, for obvious reasons, that Russia, China, India and many others are really doing their own thing and going about their business without much thought or concern for the US. As we have held onto the old TELEVISION driven fantasies of Globalism and encouraging people to try and be whatever they can dream of, the rest of the world has embraced the DIGITAL and are moving on.
American and the West no longer do real assessments of the people and places and possibilities in the world. Andrew Marshall who ran the Office of Net Assessment for decades, as the counter to the CIA’s goofy assessments, kept the peace, no nukes or massive wars.
And yes, in the DIGITAL paradigm it is full surveillance of everything…and intel agencies have those inside details…though probably too stupid most of the time to really capitalize on the $ and they have little ability anymore to manipulate.