The Big Breach - Index of

The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum SecurityCompliments of http://www.192.comemptied, the letters immediately beneath the marker would bescrutinised, the addressees noted and traced, and any holding jobs withaccess to secrets would come under suspicion. Letter-posting is thusnot a popular job with members of the station. But if a VCO could enterRussia without attracting surveillance, letter-posting would be simpleand relatively cheap. We knew from defectors such as NORTHSTAR andOVATION that even the FSB did not have the surveillance resources towatch every British businessman visiting their country.The FSB relied heavily on visa applications to screen visitors to theircountry, examining every detail against their records fordiscrepancies. The easiest to check was the birthdate because in the UKevery birth is registered in a legend at St Katherine's House, which isopen to public inspection. Each birth is entered consecutively when thechild is born, so it is impossible to enter back-dated births and MI6do not use `dead baby' aliases, as described in Frederick Forsyth'sbook The Day of the Jackal, for fear of legal action by angry relativesif the operation should go wrong and be publicly exposed. For mostoperations, this lack of birth registration is not a problem becausethe resources of the opposing counter-intelligence service were notthat inquisitive, but to fool the enquiries of the FSB visa inspectionsa workaround was required.The solution was simple. My own birth was not registered in StKatherine's House because, although a UK citizen, I was born overseasin New Zealand. Enquiries by the Buenos Aires station revealed that inArgentina they had no verifiable register of births, so if I claimed tohave been born of British parents in Argentina, it would be difficultfor the FSB to check its veracity.I asked G/REP to forge me an Argentine birth certificate, based on agenuine one that they held in their files. Then through their liaisonwith the passport office, CF obtained me a British passport in the nameof Alex Huntley, born in Buenos Aires on 13 January 1963. From the DVLAthey got me a driving licence and then provided a robust ACA (aliascover address) keeper. ACA keepers are agents who act as a coverlandlord for VCOs, providing a checkable home address. With an address,CF arranged a bank account and credit card with the Natwest Bank.All DSS (Department of Social Security) files of Britain's 54 millioninhabitants are computerised and held in Newcastle. CF occasionallyused these records to obtain information on people of interest to us.But what if the FSB were able to hack into the DSS computer? Itwouldn't be difficult as it was linked to every high street DSS officeand the log-on procedure was not complicated. The only way to make myalias stand up to hacking was to falsely enter the details in the DSScentral computer. This had not previously been done but, after a fewweeks' negotiation with the DSS, Alex Huntley had a full DSS recordwith national insurance number and registration card.The next task was to research a legend for my alias life. Every elementwould need to be plausible but uncheckable. A check through the PublicSchool Handbook revealed that Scorton Grammar School in Richmond, NorthYorkshire, had gone into liquidation in the late '80s, leaving nopublicly available records of its ex-pupils, so I could safely claim tohave studied there. The records of the University of Buenos Aires werehopelessly disorganised, so this is where Anglo-Argentine Alex Huntleypage- 73 - To purchase the original limited edition hardback version of this bookplease call 08000 192 192 or go to http://www.192.com