Mole (espionage)
Type of spy / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In espionage jargon, a mole (also called a "penetration agent",[1] "deep cover agent", "illegal" or "sleeper agent") is a long-term spy (espionage agent) who is recruited before having access to secret intelligence, subsequently managing to get into the target organization.[2] However, it is popularly used to mean any long-term clandestine spy or informant within an organization (government or private).[2] In police work, a mole is an undercover law-enforcement agent who joins an organization in order to collect incriminating evidence about its operations and to eventually charge its members.
This article possibly contains original research. (December 2019) |
The term was introduced to the public by British spy novelist John le Carré in his 1974 novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy[3][4] and has since entered general usage, but its origin is unclear,[1] as well as to what extent it was used by intelligence services before it became popularized. Le Carré, a former British intelligence officer, has said that the term mole was actually used by the Soviet intelligence agency, the KGB,[2] and that a corresponding term used by Western intelligence services was sleeper agent.[5] While the term mole had been applied to spies in the book Historie of the Reign of King Henry VII written in 1626 by Sir Francis Bacon,[1][2] Le Carré has said he did not get the term from that source.