Aerial view of Moscow Kremlin landmarks: Saint Basil’s Cathedral, Kremlin, Spasskaya Tower and Red Square
Sergey Alimov | Moment | Getty Images
In the late 1970s, American spy Jim Olson was stationed in Moscow. At the time, it was one of the highest-risk, high-stakes CIA stations in the world.
Olson served overseas for more than 30 years, intercepting sensitive Russian messages sent via microwave transmissions. He knew that if they were caught, it could mean spending the rest of their lives in Soviet prisons.
Many of the transmissions involved military and defense messages, and they eventually discovered that their strategy to intercept these messages was compromised. For the Russians, something safer is brewing: Their communications are going underground.
“We know exactly what they’re doing,” Olson told CNBC senior Washington correspondent Eamonn Javers on CNBC’s new original podcast series “The Crimes of Putin’s Merchant.”
In this series, Eamon Javers spent nearly a year investigating a criminal network and exploring how wealthy Russian hackers stole millions of dollars from American investors. Javers interviews FBI agents, prosecutors, and even spies like Olson, revealing shocking details about a massive criminal enterprise.
In episode six, Javers talks to Olson, who details his dangerous mission to preserve vital information. After satellite images confirmed that the Russians had begun digging a cable tunnel, CIA agents knew they had to act quickly—before the well dried.
“We decided to pursue it,” he said.
Olson and two other agents were assigned to the mission in Moscow and were trained on how to hack into those cables (and how to do it covertly).
But the task won’t be easy: Olson must disguise himself as a Russian peasant and travel to the countryside on a public bus, a route frequently patrolled by militiamen. He breaks into a manhole on the side of the highway, monitors the tunnel for potentially toxic gases (or Russian police), and then buries himself in the shadows.
Javers asked Olson how it felt to perform such a mission, which he called “mission impossible.” He asked if fear ever entered his mind.
“Fear doesn’t play into it because you’re so focused on the mission,” Olson said. “We just do what we’re trained to do, and when you execute something like this, it’s a huge sense of accomplishment.”
For spies like Olsen who put their lives on the line, motivation is everything.
“It’s humbling because you feel like your country has a lot of trust in you to carry out this mission,” Olson said. “And you can make a significant contribution to the security of our country — that’s pretty heavy stuff. ”
Let’s listen to “Putin’s Merchant’s Crime” now.
