There are up to 500 spies in Britain
TODAY there are probably up to 500 sleepers in Britain, mostly working for Russia, China, Israel or Al Qaeda.
They are so difficult to detect that MI5 does not have a dedicated unit to search for them, but the threat is there because six of them tried to get jobs as MI5 interpreters in 2005.
Sleepers spend years living like model citizens. As they don’t spy there is almost zero chance of catching them. They are activated to act as saboteurs in war or because they have got into a position of trust and can start to pass secret intelligence.
They are cheap to run, receiving far less training than a full spy, but they can be devastating.
The most successful Russian Cold War spy was Melita Norwood, a lowly secretary in a metals research firm, who, with a miniature camera provided by the KGB’s equivalent of James Bond’s Q, copied hundreds of secret files about the UK’s nuclear deterrent, enabling Russia to build a nuclear bomb far ahead of schedule.
She was active for 40 years until 1977, was never detected and recruited many others to spy for Russia. We only know this because the KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin finally betrayed her in 1992.
The most famous sleeper case in the UK was cracked way back in 1961. A couple, the Krogers, ran a bookshop in Ruislip but were Soviet sleepers sending intelligence about British nuclear submarines using microdots hidden in the books.
It may sound like a John Le Carré novel, but sleepers are here. You could be sitting near one right now.