Love, Spying and Dhoka: Jyoti Malhotra and the history of honey-trapping

The Jyoti Malhotra ‘spying’ case continues to unravel day by day — each day new details emerge on how the YouTuber, who ran the channel ‘Travel with JO’, shared sensitive information, including details about blackouts imposed by India during ‘Operation Sindoor’ after reportedly being honey-trapped by a Pakistani official.

This case has served as a chilling reminder of the past instances when Indians, including diplomats, army officials, and scientists have fallen victim to honey traps by spy agencies across the world. For instance, there’s the infamous cases of Madhuri Gupta and Satendra Siwal.

We take a closer look at some of these instances of honey traps and how they leaked sensitive information.

Honey trapping, explained

Before we deep dive into examples of Indians being honey-trapped, let’s understand what this concept means.

Honey trapping is a form of espionage in which an individual uses romantic or sexual relationships to manipulate, coerce, or blackmail information from a target. The term honey refers to the allure being used to entice the target.

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When an individual is being honey-trapped, the person carrying out the operation is often referred to as honeypot. They establish a relationship with the target and once trust is established, he/she gathers the information through manipulation, coercion, or force.

Many note that famous writer John Le Carre, known for his bestseller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, is said to have coined the term ‘honeytrap’ to describe this form of espionage. And through the years, men and women have perfected honey trapping but experts note none have done it as well as the Russians.

In a Slate report, one former KGB agent said that the Soviet intelligence agency didn’t ask Russian women to stand up for their country but “asked them to lay down.” And one of the biggest Cold War spy cases was that of Clayton Lonetree, a Marine Corps security guard entrapped by a female Soviet officer, then blackmailed into sharing documents. In 1987, he became the first Marine convicted of espionage.

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When Madhuri Gupta was honey-trapped

Before Jyoti Malhotra , there was the notorious case of Madhuri Gupta , a mid-level diplomat stationed in Islamabad, accused of secretly serving the interests of Pakistan’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

In 2010, she was arrested for passing on information. Investigations revealed that the Grade B Indian Foreign Service officer and Second Secretary (Press & Information) in Islamabad had been a victim of a honey trap. Investigating officer Pankaj Sood, speaking to The Caravan later, said, “They threw a young man at her and she got trapped.”

That young man was Jamshed, alias Jim, a Pakistani operative in his 30s, half her age, who had been tasked with seducing Gupta and extracting sensitive information. The probe revealed that Jamshed and his handler, Mudassar Raza Rana, first contacted Malhotra through a woman journalist and won her trust by helping her locate a rare book by Maulana Masood Azhar, chief of terror organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The investigation showed that Malhotra was so infatuated with Jim that she allegedly wanted to convert to Islam, and go on a trip to Istanbul with him.  Eventually, she was arrested and in 2018, a court found her guilty and finally convicted her of spying for Pakistan. She lived in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan, awaiting her trial, and died in October 2021 at the age of 64.

How honey-trapped Satendra Siwal ‘spied’ for Pakistan

In February last year, an Indian embassy employee in Moscow, identified as Satendra Siwal , was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) for allegedly spying for Pakistan’s intelligence agency.

According to the ATS, Siwal, who was working as a security assistant in the embassy, had shared secret documents related to weapons systems of the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy, including warplanes and submarines.

But what led him to do this? Investigators revealed that he had been approached by a woman disguised as ‘Pooja Mehra’ on social media. She honey-trapped Siwal and persuaded him to leak confidential documents in return for financial gain. Following his confession, Siwal was charged under several provisions, including the Government Secrets Act of 1923.

When UP man was lured by ‘Neha’

Earlier this year, Uttar Pradesh’s ATS arrested a man employed at the ordnance factory in Firozabad on suspicion of spying for Pakistan. Identified as Ravindra Kumar, he allegedly shared confidential data, including information on the Gangayaan space project and the trial of a military logistics-delivery drone.

Leaking this information was the result of a honey trap, say officials. Investigations revealed that a woman, posing as ‘Neha Sharma’, contacted him through Facebook last year. And despite revealing that she worked for Pakistan’s intelligence agency, she managed to lure him into a honey trap.

When Pakistan honey-trapped DRDO’s Pradeep Kurulkar

In May 2023, the Maharashtra Police arrested Pradeep Kurulkar , a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) scientist, for leaking confidential information to a Pakistani woman operative.

The police chargesheet stated that Kurulkar shared information about sensitive defence projects in exchange of nude pictures and sexting.

Kurulkar, who was a member of several strategically-significant defence projects including the Agni missiles, was in touch with the Pakistani operative between June 2022 and December 2022 through email, Instagram and video calls using two applications suggested by the woman, The Indian Express reported.

He is now in judicial custody and lodged at Pune’s Yerwada Central Prison.

Ex-BrahMos engineer Nishant Agarwal’s case

Last June, former BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd engineer Nishant Agarwal was handed a life imprisonment term for spying for Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI. The punishment comes after he was arrested in 2018 for spying.

Formerly working at the BrahMos facility, Agarwal leaked sensitive information to the ISI. Investigations then revealed that he had been honey-trapped. The anti-terrorism squad came across Facebook accounts with names Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan – suspected to be operated by Pakistani intelligence agents – that were in touch with Aggarwal.

The case of R&AW’s KV Unnikrishnan

But it’s not just scientists and diplomats who have been honey-trapped. Serving military personnel and spies have also fallen for the allure of a honeypot.

And no case is as famous as that of KV Unnikrishnan, a Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) officer. The 47-year-old deputy inspector general in charge of the R&AW mission in Madras (now Chennai) was allegedly honey-trapped in the 1980s, by a woman suspected of being a CIA (Central Intelligence Agency, the foreign intelligence agency of the United States. She had presented herself to the Indian spy as a stewardess for American airlines, Pan Am Airlines.

The CIA threatened to reveal Unnikrishnan’s compromising photographs with the airhostess to glean information on R&AW training and arming Tamil groups, including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Indian government’s negotiating positions on the peace accord with Sri Lanka.

Later, Unnikrishnan confessed to high treason.  He was kept under preventive detention at Tihar Jail for a year and then dismissed from service. “We didn’t have any evidence that would stand in a court of law,” a former R&AW chief told India Today. In 2013, it was reported that Unnikrishnan settled in Chennai and lives a peaceful and non-dramatic life.

With inputs from agencies