Former CIA Spies (NEW): Leave the USA Before 2030! The CIA Tried To Ban This Story!

Former CIA Spies (NEW): Leave the USA Before 2030! The CIA Tried To Ban This Story!

The Diary of a CEOAug 28, 20252h 32m

Andrew Bustamante (guest), Steven Bartlett (host), Narrator, Narrator, Jihi (Jihee) Bustamante (guest), Jihi (Jihee) Bustamante (guest), Narrator, Andrew Bustamante (guest)

CIA mole hunt and the Shadow Cell operationEspionage tradecraft: aliases, cover companies, cleansing routes, and surveillance detectionTargeting, recruiting, and running human intelligence sourcesDigital surveillance, device insecurity, and FISA‑enabled data accessEthics and moral ambivalence in intelligence workInternal CIA culture, career pressures, and reasons for leavingGeopolitical risk, US political trajectory, and personal life philosophy

In this episode of The Diary of a CEO, featuring Andrew Bustamante and Steven Bartlett, Former CIA Spies (NEW): Leave the USA Before 2030! The CIA Tried To Ban This Story! explores married CIA spies expose mole hunt, spy tradecraft, and America’s future Former CIA officers Andrew and Jihee Bustamante reveal, for the first time, how they were used as a married ‘tandem couple’ in a high‑stakes operation to rebuild US espionage inside a hostile country and flush out a mole within the CIA. Code‑named operations in a friendly state (“WOLF”) and an adversary (“FALCON”) leveraged terrorist‑style cell structures and advanced tradecraft like cleansing routes, dry cleaning, surveillance detection, and commercial cover companies.

Married CIA spies expose mole hunt, spy tradecraft, and America’s future

Former CIA officers Andrew and Jihee Bustamante reveal, for the first time, how they were used as a married ‘tandem couple’ in a high‑stakes operation to rebuild US espionage inside a hostile country and flush out a mole within the CIA. Code‑named operations in a friendly state (“WOLF”) and an adversary (“FALCON”) leveraged terrorist‑style cell structures and advanced tradecraft like cleansing routes, dry cleaning, surveillance detection, and commercial cover companies.

Their work helped generate new intelligence sources against a hard target and fed into the FBI sting that ultimately caught a CIA turncoat later arrested on US soil. Along the way, they describe the moral gray zones of espionage, the reality of global surveillance and digital insecurity, and the institutional pressures that led them to leave the Agency to protect their family.

In the final act, they connect their experiences to broader geopolitical risk, arguing the US is in a dangerous transition period that could resemble Venezuela’s rapid collapse, and they are planning to leave America before 2030 while urging listeners to prioritize mobility, awareness, and present‑focused living.

Key Takeaways

Espionage is a team sport, not a lone‑wolf fantasy

The Bustamantes dismantle the James Bond myth: intelligence work is executed by cells—targeters, case officers, techs, linguists, and planners—coordinating around specific objectives. ...

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New collection methods can be used to expose insiders

CIA couldn’t act on an ally’s tip about a mole until it had its own legal evidence. ...

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Tradecraft hinges on managing patterns, not just hiding once

Andrew explains cleansing routes (“dry cleaning”)—routing travel from a friendly to a neutral country, swapping passports, then entering the hostile country so adversaries misattribute your origin. ...

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Digital privacy is far weaker than most people assume

They state flatly that no phone or device is truly secure: border agencies can clone drives; passwords can be cracked or obtained via providers; FISA warrants unlock otherwise private Apple/Google accounts; and adversaries and criminals both target any ‘secure’ platform as a priority. ...

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Double agents are driven more by psychology than pure money

The mole who penetrated CIA was allegedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the Bustamantes emphasize that money is usually one of several rewards. ...

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Institutional loyalty can clash directly with family priorities

After Shadow Cell, when Jihee became pregnant, they proposed a ‘light duty’ track to have two children and then return to high‑risk work; CIA refused, insisting on redeploying them to highly sensitive roles and explicitly signaling that family was ‘not our problem. ...

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The US is entering a high‑risk transition that demands mobility

Drawing on Venezuela’s rapid collapse from prosperous democracy to failed state within a few years, and on current US gridlock, institutional distrust, and rising executive power, the Bustamantes argue that Americans are wrong to believe ‘it can’t happen here. ...

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Notable Quotes

Espionage is a team sport. It’s not James Bond or Jason Bourne; it’s a cell of ordinary people doing extraordinary, coordinated work.

Andrew Bustamante

I don’t think people recognize that CIA is morally ambivalent to how it executes espionage operations. The goal is to keep Americans safe.

Andrew Bustamante

Anytime somebody says, ‘That can’t happen here,’ that’s a lie. That can happen anywhere.

Jihee Bustamante

Privacy’s not real. If you think nobody can ever look at your stuff, that’s wrong.

Jihee Bustamante

We will never go back to what we were. This is new America now, so you either take part in it or you leave.

Jihee Bustamante

Questions Answered in This Episode

You mention multiple simultaneous penetrations of CIA during your tenure. Without naming names, what patterns or vulnerabilities do you see inside the Agency that make it especially susceptible to insider compromise?

Former CIA officers Andrew and Jihee Bustamante reveal, for the first time, how they were used as a married ‘tandem couple’ in a high‑stakes operation to rebuild US espionage inside a hostile country and flush out a mole within the CIA. ...

Get the full analysis with uListen AI

Shadow Cell adopted terrorist cell structures to outmaneuver a state adversary. If CIA hadn’t gone through the war on terror, what specific vulnerabilities do you think would still exist in US operations against hard targets like FALCON?

Their work helped generate new intelligence sources against a hard target and fed into the FBI sting that ultimately caught a CIA turncoat later arrested on US soil. ...

Get the full analysis with uListen AI

Given your assertion that no device is truly secure and FISA can unlock most data, what would a realistic but non‑paranoid ‘digital hygiene protocol’ look like for a high‑net‑worth individual or CEO today?

In the final act, they connect their experiences to broader geopolitical risk, arguing the US is in a dangerous transition period that could resemble Venezuela’s rapid collapse, and they are planning to leave America before 2030 while urging listeners to prioritize mobility, awareness, and present‑focused living.

Get the full analysis with uListen AI

You argue the US is 60% likely to end up in a worse place before it gets better, and you plan to leave before 2030. What concrete indicators—economic, legal, or security‑related—would trigger your actual departure, versus signs that would convince you to stay and help shape ‘new America’?

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You describe CIA’s culture as simultaneously building elite capability and fostering dependence on institutional validation. How could an intelligence agency—or any high‑performance organization—deliberately redesign its culture to retain top talent without creating the psychological vulnerabilities that foreign services exploit?

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Transcript Preview

Andrew Bustamante

When this story hits the airwaves, it's going to transform people's opinion about the CIA and the depths to which CIA will dive to collect intelligence that protects Americans. So, one of its own officers became a spy, reporting our secrets to a foreign adversary. My wife and I were included in an operation to bait the mole to make a mistake so that the mole could be found and disclosed.

Steven Bartlett

Your wife is here today and you've never told this story before, have you?

Andrew Bustamante

No. And your curiosity right now is a major issue with CIA, because they don't want the world to know who those people are. It's a dangerous game.

Steven Bartlett

Well, obviously my research team tried to figure out who it was. (laughs)

Andrew Bustamante

(laughs)

Narrator

(laughs)

Steven Bartlett

So, was this the mole?

Narrator

Married CIA spies Andrew and Jihee Bustamante were tasked with unraveling one of the greatest intelligence operations in modern history.

Steven Bartlett

Their untold story shows you how to build trust, manipulate, and thrive under pressure. What actually happened?

Andrew Bustamante

A foreign ally contacted CIA and said, "You have somebody inside your organization sharing information on operations, officers, assets to an enemy country." They deployed us to the country and crafted new identities, new aliases so that we could build new sources of intelligence and try to find the mole.

Jihi (Jihee) Bustamante

And we were really successful in doing that.

Andrew Bustamante

Nobody felt like they were in imminent danger. But then that changed. My presence in the enemy country became known. I called Jihee and said, "I'm coming home early."

Jihi (Jihee) Bustamante

And from that, I knew that something was wrong, because it is very real that you can be disappeared by a foreign adversary.

Andrew Bustamante

Or worse, being captured. And the president can plausibly deny that you're CIA. So, I had to try to escape the country, but everything went wrong.

Steven Bartlett

And what happens next?

Andrew Bustamante

A horrible story. So-

Steven Bartlett

This is the first time I'm setting you at home a challenge when you listen to this episode. Can you figure out which country Andrew and Jihee were undercover in as spies from what they say? But also, our team here figured out that the mole in the CIA was one of these three people. Can you figure out from what they say which person was the mole? It might make sense for you at this moment to screenshot these three faces and the details below so you can remember their profiles. And by the end of the conversation, I want you to comment below which country you thought Andrew was undercover in as a spy and which one of these people was the mole within the CIA. Let's do this. Listen, to my regular listeners, I know you don't like it when I ask you to subscribe at the start of these conversations. I don't like saying it, I don't like it being in there. None of us like it. It's frustrating. Do you know what's also frustrating? It's also frustrating when I go into the backend of the YouTube channel and I see that 56% of you that listen frequently to this podcast haven't yet subscribed, and so many of you don't even know that you haven't subscribed because I'll see in the comments section, you say to me, you go, "I didn't even realize I didn't subscribe." And that actually fuels the show. It's basically like you're making a donation to the show. So, that's why I ask all the time, because it enables us to build and build and build and build, and we're going for the long term here. So, all I'd ask you is if you've seen this show before and you like it, help me, help my team here. Hit the subscribe button and we'll continue to build this show for you. That's my promise. Thank you to all of you guys that do subscribe. It means the world to me. Let's get on with the show. Andrew, you've never told this story before, have you?

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