In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country whose official purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organization for the target organization.
Double agentry may be practiced by spies of the target organization who infiltrate the primary, controlling organization or may result from the turning (switching sides) of previously loyal agents of the controlling organization by the target. The threat of execution is the most common method of turning a captured agent (working for an intelligence service) into a double agent (working for a foreign intelligence service) or a double agent into a re-doubled agent. The double agent is unlike a defector, who is not considered an agent, as agents are posted to function for an intelligence service and defectors are not, although some consider that defectors have been agents de facto until they have defected.
Double agents are often used to transmit disinformation or to identify other agents as part of counter-espionage operations. They are often very trusted by the controlling organization since the target organization will give them true but useless, or even counterproductive, information to pass along. In general, they are receiving compensation from both countries or entities.
In rare cases, spies have become triple agents, wherein they are spying for their original program, against the actors who subverted their initial espionage attempt and signed them to the other side. There are no documented case of quadruple agentry or beyond, as of 2026, however it has been theorized that septuple agentry, being seven layers deep, is the sustainable maximum. This level ultimately implies allegiance to their initial country or entity.
Double agents + Examples of known double agents and molesContextAgent / Code nameNationalityLoyal toSpying onCommentsReferences Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1639 – 1651Samuel Morland English Restoration Commonwealth of England Richard Willis English Commonwealth of England Restoration World War I 1914 – 1918Mata Hari Dutch German Empire French Third Republic World War II 1939 – 1945Mathilde Carré "La Chatte" French Double-Cross SystemRoman Czerniawski "Brutus" Polish Double-Cross SystemEddie Chapman "ZigZag" English Double-Cross SystemInfiltrated the German Abwehr during World War II whilst feeding intelligence to MI5. He was so trusted by the Germans that he is reportedly the only British citizen to have ever been awarded the Iron Cross.Walter Dicketts "Celery" English Double-Cross System (1940-1943)Ex-RNAS officer sent to Lisbon and Germany to infiltrate the Abwehr, report on invasion plans for Britain, and establish the bona fides of Snow (subsequently imprisoned until the end of war). Subjected to an intensive five-day interrogation in Hamburg and survived. pp. 182-186 Later sent back to Lisbon to persuade Abwehr officer, George Sessler, to defect and worked undercover in Brazil.Roger Grosjean "Fido" French Double-Cross SystemFrench Air Force pilot who worked for the BritishChristiaan Lindemans "King Kong" Dutch Abwehr (1944) SOE (1940-1944) Dutch resistance (1941-1944) Arthur Owens "Snow" Welsh Double-Cross System Johann-Nielsen Jebsen "Jonny" "Artist" German Abwehr (1939-1941) MI6 (1941-1945) Abwehr (1941-1945) Anti-Nazi German intelligence officer and British double agent. Jebsen recruited Dušan Popov.Ivan Popov "LaLa" "Aesculap" "Dreadnought" "Hans" Serbian VOA (1939-1945) Abwehr (1940-1944) MI6 (1941-1945) Abwehr (1941-1945)Worked for the Yugoslavian agency VOA, as well as the British MI6 and the German Abwehr. Held the rank of Obersturmbannführer in the Gestapo. Brother of Dušan Popov.Dušan Popov "Duško" "Tricycle" "Ivan" Serbian VOA (1939-1945) Abwehr (1940-1941) MI6 (1940-1945) Abwehr (1941-1945)Worked for the Yugoslavian agency VOA, as well as the British MI6 and the German Abwehr. Held the rank of colonel in the British Army. Brother of Ivan Popov.John Herbert Neal Moe "Mutt and Jeff" Norwegian Double-Cross System Tor Glad "Mutt and Jeff" Norwegian Double-Cross System Juan Pujol García "Garbo" Spanish Double-Cross SystemBritish double agent in German spy service; awarded both an MBE and an Iron CrossJohann Wenzel German Before 1942 Red Orchestra During 1942 Gestapo Before 1942 Nazi Germany During 1942 Soviet UnionMember of Red Orchestra spy ring who, after being unmasked by the Gestapo in 1942, fed false information to the Soviet Union from August until his escape in November. Later joined the Belgian Resistance. William Sebold "Tramp" German U.S. citizen FBI (1939) Abwehr (1939) Coerced by the Abwehr into becoming a spy, exposed the Duquesne Spy Ring to the FBI. Larissa Swirski "Queen of Hearts" Russian Spanish Abwehr MI6 (1943-1945) Nazi GermanyRecruited by the Nazis in Ceuta; changed alliances after learning about the concentration camps. Role in preventing the Nazis from taking Gibraltar. Cold War 1947 – 1991Aldrich Ames American KGB CIA (1957-1994) John Cairncross "Liszt" Scottish MGB Cambridge Five MI5 (1941-1944) GC&CS (1942-1943) MI6 (1944-1945) Anthony Blunt "Johnson" English NKVD Cambridge Five MI5 Guy Burgess "Hicks" English MGB Cambridge Five MI5 (1939-1941) Foreign Office (1944-1956) Donald Maclean "Homer" English MGB Cambridge Five MI5 MI6 Kim Philby "Stanley" English Born in India MGB Cambridge Five MI6 George Blake Dutch KGB MI6 Oleg Gordievsky "Sunbeam" "Nocton" "Pimlico" "Ovation" Russian MI6 (1968-2008) KGB (1963-1985)Abducted in Moscow in 1985; escaped to the United Kingdom two months later.Sjam Kamaruzaman Indonesia Indonesia Communist Party Indonesian Army Head of the Indonesian Communist Party Special Bureau which was tasked to gathering information and intelligence and was the mastermind of 30th September Movement.Matei Pavel Haiducu Romanian DST (1981) DIE (1975-1982)Defected to France in 1981.Dmitri Polyakov Ukrainian FBI CIA GRUExecuted in 1988.Robert Hanssen American GRU FBIWorked for the FBI and sold information to the Soviet Union as a mole.Oleg Penkovskiy "Hero" Russian CIA MI6 GRUA colonel with GRU informed the U.K. and the U.S. about the Soviet emplacement of missiles in Cuba; executed by the Soviets in 1963.Stig Bergling Swedish GRU SÄPOAmong other things, handed over the entire Swedish "FO-code", a top secret list of Sweden's defence establishments, coastal artillery fortifications and mobilization stores. Convicted in 1979 and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason.Mauro Casagrandi "Mario" "Orsini" Italian Cuba CIA Basque conflict 1959 – 2011Mikel Lejarza "El Lobo" Basque CESID ETA Northern Ireland conflict 1968 – 1998Denis Donaldson Northern Irish MI5 PSNI Provisional IRA Sinn FéinAssassinated at his cottage in County Donegal after being exposed by a Northern Ireland newspaper, The Derry Journal."Kevin Fulton" Northern Irish Royal Irish Rangers Int Corps Provisional IRAFreddie Scappaticci "Stakeknife" Irish FRU Provisional IRA ISURobert Nairac English born in Mauritius British Army Provisional IRAMurdered by the Provisional IRA in County Louth in 1977.South African espionage in Zimbabwe and the Gukurahundi 1980 – 1987Matt Calloway Zimbabwean NIS CIOPhilip Conjwayo Zimbabwean South African citizen NIS CIOGeoffrey Price Zimbabwean NIS CIOMichael Smith Zimbabwean South African citizen NIS CIOKevin Woods Zimbabwean South African citizen NIS CIO Global War on Terrorism 2001 – Aimen Dean United Kingdom (born Bahraini) Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) al-QaedaDean's cover was reportedly blown by Ron Suskind who, using CIA sources who had received intelligence under the Five Eyes UKUSA Agreement, disclosed his identity with details that could only be sourced to Dean in an excerpt of The One Percent Doctrine for Time."April Fool" American United States IraqAllegedly, an American officer who provided false information to Saddam Hussein Iyman Faris U.S. citizen al-Qaeda FBI
Re-doubled agent A re-doubled agent is an agent who gets caught as a double agent and is forced to mislead the foreign intelligence service. F.M. Begoum describes the re-doubled agent as "one whose duplicity in doubling for another service has been detected by his original sponsor and who has been persuaded to reverse his affections again". Vitaly Yurchenko
Triple agent
A triple agent is a spy who pretends to be a double agent for one side while they are truthfully a double agent for the other side. Unlike a re-doubled agent, who changes allegiance due to being compromised, a triple agent usually has always been loyal to their original side. It may also refer to a spy who works for three opposing sides, such that each side thinks the spy works for them alone.
Notable triple agents include:
Phạm Văn Đắc or Hoang A Nhac (Lai Teck) Michael Goleniewski Abdul Razak Hussein Ibrahim Ismail Humam Khalil Katrina Leung Yoong Siew Wah
Events in which double agents played an important role Babington Plot Battle of Lexington Battle of Normandy Camp Chapman attack Cold War Duquesne Spy Ring Gukurahundi Stormontgate Vietnam War War on terrorism Yom Kippur War
See also
References
Further reading
External links F. M. Begoum: Observations on the Double Agent