Speaker 1: Welcome back everybody.
Speaker 2: Today we're going to be looking at Shadow at Shape,
Speaker 2: the NATO intern spy case, and today we're talking about
Speaker 2: something that doesn't make the using news cycle of that
Speaker 2: well in the way a kinetic strike does, but it should.
Speaker 2: The Canadian national Chinese origin working as an intern at
Speaker 2: Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, Shape in Belgium was arrested
Speaker 2: on suspicion of spying for a third country and being
Speaker 2: part of a criminal investigation, a criminal organization. Belgian federal
Speaker 2: prosecutors confirmed and NATO's security services tip them off. They
Speaker 2: hit her home and her workplace inside the headquarters. She's
Speaker 2: sitting in pre trial custody right now. Shape is not
Speaker 2: some administrative office with cubicles. That's the military brain of
Speaker 2: the Alliance. That's where the plans get built, the operations
Speaker 2: get synchronized.
Speaker 1: An intern had access, maybe limited, maybe more than limited.
Speaker 2: We don't know, oh, exactly the full scope, because the
Speaker 2: Belgians are playing this close to the chest and NATO
Speaker 2: is saying operational readiness wasn't impacted.
Speaker 1: I've been I've seen a lot of skifts.
Speaker 2: In on my day and enough briefings to know what
Speaker 2: the language usually means folks. The clearance process, polygraphs, background checks,
Speaker 2: that they dig into your even your high school girlfriend's
Speaker 2: cousin continuous evaluation. The whole machine is built on the
Speaker 2: assumption that the people inside the wire are solid. When
Speaker 2: the assumption cracks, even at the intern level, everything downstream
Speaker 2: gets re examined. This woman was a Canadian citizen. That matters.
Speaker 2: Canada has a five eyes partner, is a five eyes partner.
Speaker 2: The trust between those nations is supposed to be ironclad.
Speaker 2: Chinese origin doesn't equal guilt. Let's be clear, but Chinese
Speaker 2: intelligence has a documented aggressive, long game approach to talent spotting,
Speaker 2: co option, and recruitment. They play the diaspora, they play students,
Speaker 2: they play interns. They play the long game better than
Speaker 2: almost anyone. The Chinese have been running inflowid and said
Speaker 2: collection operations against Winstern institutions for decades, academia, tech.
Speaker 1: Government contractors. But I want to know is how far
Speaker 1: did this go?
Speaker 2: Was she tasking? Was she photographing documents? Was she social
Speaker 2: engineering people with clearances? Was she just collecting open source
Speaker 2: stuff that still had operational value?
Speaker 1: We don't have those answers yet.
Speaker 2: The Belgian prosecutor's office is keeping the third country unnamed
Speaker 2: in public statements. Here's the part that should keep everybody up.
Speaker 2: Interns in junior people have more access in the system
Speaker 2: of events. They sit in meetings, they carry documents, they
Speaker 2: hear hallway conversations, they see the calendar of senior officers
Speaker 2: and a headquarters environment. The junior person, who is always helpful,
Speaker 2: always asking questions, can become invisible in the best possible
Speaker 2: way for a collector.
Speaker 1: This arrest also.
Speaker 2: Comes at a time when the Alliance is already under stressed.
Speaker 2: Different threat perceptions across the members. Pressure on defense spending,
Speaker 2: highbred warfare from Russia persist.
Speaker 1: In Chinese collection.
Speaker 2: Belgian authorities move fast once that tip came in, and
Speaker 2: that's good, But the fact that it required a tip
Speaker 2: from inside NATO security services tells you the detection system worked.
Speaker 1: Eventually.
Speaker 2: The question is how long the vulnerability exists before the detection.
Speaker 2: We'll keep an eye on this case and names will
Speaker 2: eventually come out. Details will also The third country will
Speaker 2: be confirmed until the end. The lesson is clear. The
Speaker 2: soft targets inside the hardest targets are still soft.