I spent years talking with legendary spy hunters about the clues that expose secret agents. Then I went looking for answers from a spy himself. by Susan Katz Keating Journalists love anniversaries, and this was a good one, the perfect day to highlight history and talk to a spy. Fourteen …

Bricks of cash, luxury cars and secret accounts exposed a sprawling reconstruction fraud. Years later, a tip sent Soldier of Fortune back into cases that never reached an ending. by Susan Katz Keating They bought luxury cars, opulent properties, high-end watches, first class travel, and more. The only catch was, …

by Susan Katz Keating Not everything moving through war is a physical object. Some of the most valuable commodities in a conflict zone are identity, permission, and cover. You need the right document, the right credential, and the right story, at the right checkpoint. My team and I at Soldier of …

by Susan Katz Keating China and other foreign actors are using Ukraine as a testbed, deploying cut-outs and deniable assets to gather real-time data on drones, intelligence sources told Soldier of Fortune. The grainy figures moved across the screen, creeping through murky terrain like shadows come to life. A blip …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating The work has been called the most dangerous form of journalism. Amid my daily influx of emails, text messages, and phone calls, I frequently am hit up by people who want to go downrange under my name. They approach me with variants on the following requests. …

by Susan Katz Keating For decades, war correspondents earned the right to carry a PRESS credential into dangerous places. Now outsiders, operatives, and opportunists are seeking the same protection without earning it, because in conflict zones a press card can open doors, lower rifles, and get you out of a …

Editor’s note: Longtime CIA covert operations officer James Parker Jr. often talked to me about his days in Southeast Asia, including the secret war in Laos. He told stories of another case officer and former Green Beret, George Washington Bacon III, who became a mercenary in Angola. Here is an …

by Susan Katz Keating In years gone by, they called it the Living Room War. Every evening, American families watched grainy footage of helicopters lifting from rice paddies, and listened to body counts read in calm anchor voices. The war came home, but it arrived on a schedule, filtered through …

by Susan Katz Keating “The Taliban are behind my door.” The whispered words came through the phone in the pitch of night, hours after Kabul fell on August 15, 2021. My friend “Hakim,” a man I had been trying from afar to help leave Afghanistan, called me from inside his …

by Susan Katz Keating World SitRep tracks selected developments in conflicts, armed networks, and illicit activity, focusing on significant shifts and emerging patterns. Hizballah Cash Flies Commercial Air A smuggling network uses airline passengers to carry hundreds of millions of dollars in cash bound for Hizballah, the US Treasury Department …