Fortune India
India is rocked by the Jyoti Malhotra scandal, in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor. How much information she passed to Pakistan from India, we don't know. But human history is filled with stories where spies have changed the course of human history. Take a look.
Born Margaretha Zelle in the Netherlands, Mata Hari, an exotic dancer, is the most notorious spy in the world. Active during World War 1, she passed on information about the Allies to Germany, leading to many deaths, and earning her notoriety to last forever.
A Soviet military officer, Penkovsky was recruited by the US and UK to turn against the Soviet Union. The vital information he passed to the West allowed John F. Kennedy to avoid the nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Penkovsky was caught and executed by the Russians.
After the Munich Olympics massacre in 1972, Israel's Mossad launched a massive manhunt to nab the Palestinian terrorists. The operation lasted many years and was immortalised in Steven Spielberg's classic movie, Munich.
Kaushik was an undercover RAW agent who infiltrated the Pakistan Army in the 1970s. So successful he was that he rose to the rank of Major in Pak army, while sabotaging it from within, leading to Pakistan's loss in the 1971 war.
Aldrich Ames's story is stuff of legend now. This CIA officer went rogue during the height of the Cold War and led to death of many American soldiers. His betrayal went unnoticed for over a decade.
Khan was a British-Indian agent who infiltrated Nazi-occupied France. She was a wireless operator. Although captured and tortured by the Gestapo, she was sent to a concentration camp where she was executed. Her courage remains the stuff of legends.
This German-born physicist was working on America's top-secret Manhattan Project. He was recruited by the KGB to pass on nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, eventually leading the latter to develop their own Atom Bomb.
Kim Philby's name is part of history and popular culture. This British MI6 agent was recruited by the KGB, became a mole inside the British intelligence and passed on top secret information to the Russians. Philby's betrayal was immortalised by John le Carre in his great novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy