What does the word ‘spies’ conjure up for you?

For most people, it’s those daring individuals who work for state security departments like the CIA, SIS, KGB or Mossad, up against scary individuals in in scary countries. The ones who search for weapon systems, and clandestine operations, or infiltrate political organisations that might threaten their native country. Men and women, some of questionable morality, out to save the world as they or their masters believe it should be. Real life spies like Gary Powers, Kim Philby or Mata Hari, or their literary counterparts James Bond, Matthew Bourne and their ilk. Probably not people we’re likely to meet in everyday life – or would want to.

There’s another much more common breed. People undertaking industrial and commercial espionage. Gaining trust in a workplace to steal trade secrets from a competitor. Infiltrating government departments to learn about lucrative contract opportunities long before they are published, so their employers can be prepared and steal a march. Penetrating criminal gangs to prevent thefts before they happen and cripple cyberattacks where others have failed. Worming their way into cross-border commercial disputes that prejudice the spies’ employer.

There are spies like these all around us in everyday life. Not everyone is who they seem. Most are never found out. Most are relatively ordinary people who work in their own country, doing jobs they understand to a high degree of competence. You may have encountered some of them.

But, just as in every other profession, there is an elite. Teams of skilled individuals who sell their services to a company, delivering one-off projects for an upfront fee, and a substantial bonus on satisfactory completion. Projects that the company simply cannot perform for themselves. Perhaps in other countries, far away, where they have no resources. Perhaps dangerous, where they cannot risk their own personnel. In every such mission, the company cannot afford to be found out, or take the risk of reputational damage if they attempt it themselves and it goes wrong. Contracted the task to the professionals, and the company gets plausible deniability.

Those who perform these missions don’t usually like to be called spies. Our team members call themselves ‘covert researchers’. But spies are what they really are. Indeed, several of them once worked as spies for government agencies. But not anymore. 

Meet the Repurposed Spies.