Claims Of Success In Recruiting Russian Informants: CIA Expands Recruitment In China, Iran And North Korea

CIA headquarters in faraway, Virginia, USA. (Wikimedia Commons/Library of Congress/Carol M. Highsmith)

JAKARTA - The United States intelligence agency on Wednesday unveiled a new attempt to recruit informants in China, Iran, and North Korea, in addition to what it said was a successful effort to recruit Russians.

The CIA posted instructions in Mandarin, Persia and Korea on its accounts X, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, LinkedIn and Dark Web about how to contact them safely, a CIA spokesman said in a statement.

"Our efforts in this field have been successful in Russia, and we want to ensure individuals in other authoritarian regimes know that we are open to business," the spokesman said, adding the CIA adapted to rising state repression and global surveillance.

A Mandarin video uploaded to YouTube showing only written instructions advises individuals to contact CIA via its official website using a trusted encrypted Virtual Private Network (VPN) or TOR network.

"Your safety and well-being are our main considerations," he said.

He asked for names, locations, and individual contact details that were not linked to their true identities, along with information that might be of interest to the CIA, with warning that responses were not guaranteed and could take time.

Separately, Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu accused the US of launching a "organized and systematic" disinformation campaign against China and said that "any attempt to divide the Chinese people and PKT (Chinese Communist Party) or to weaken their close ties will surely fail."

The Russian Embassy and Iran's UN mission did not immediately respond to requests for

CIA's exhaust for intelligence has grown as China expands cooperation with Russia and Iran as well as showcases its regional military power.

Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are known in the US intelligence community as "hard targets", countries whose governments are difficult to penetrate.

The US is also grappling with Iran's conflict with Israel, its nuclear program, its increasingly close relationship with Russia, and its support for militant proxies.

Meanwhile, North Korea's nuclear weapons program is another US intelligence target, along with what US officials say is Pyongyang's arms supply to Moscow for the fight against Ukraine, a charge Moscow and Pyongyang deny.

It is known that the CIA started recruiting Russians in 2022 by uploading Russian-language texts on its social media accounts about how to contact the agency safely, followed by videos in 2023.