Thaindian News

Washington, Feb. 3 (ANI): In a bid to avoid premature retirements, America’s Central Intelligence Agency is allowing its operatives sell their espionage expertise to financial firms on a part time basis.

In his book called ‘Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The Secret World of Corporate Espionage’, Eamon Javers recounts an instance in which some CIA agents, who worked at a New York hedge-fund consulting firm, were using their “deception detection” skills - the art of picking up clues in body language and conversation - to ascertain when executives might be lying.CIA officials said that the out-of-hours work did not compromise national security and was only allowed once CIA officers had submitted full details of the work and been granted permission.

It is not known how long the policy has been in place or how many CIA officers work for outside organisations, The Telegraph reports.

The policy is an indication of the attractiveness of CIA techniques to financial institutions.

Javers also highlighted a Boston-based firm called Business Intelligence Advisors (BIA) that was founded by retired CIA officers and specialises in deception detection.

Its clients included one of the world’s leading investment banks and a hedge fund.

BIA has previously employed active-duty CIA officers but the company said that has not that happened for some time.

One person, who attended a 2006 presentation to hedge fund managers by BIA, said that one of the briefers had 20 years in the CIA and specialised in the polygraph lie detector and interviewing while another was a former interrogator.

The two women were so intense that they reminded the person of Clarice Starling, the FBI agent played by Jodie Foster in the film The Silence of the Lambs. “You could tell they knew exactly what they were doing”. (ANI)