INTELLIGENCE AGENTS
Former spies find a home for skills in private sector
A UK-based private investigations company CIEX, headed by former spy Michael Oatley, secured a contract to investigate apartheid plunder, writes Chris Stokel-Walker
Cameron Colquhoun delighted his audience with a big reveal. The 33-year-old former spy for Her Majesty’s government had uncovered a hidden asset. The asset wasn’t a turncoat, but a yacht. The client? A telecommunications company researching a potential takeover target, and the yacht had been left out of financial disclosures. The dossier raised enough concerns to help kill the deal. "I really get a kick out of — when we’ve done an investigation — meeting a client and saying, ‘This is what we’ve found’, and seeing the surprise on their face," Colquhoun says. "We enjoy telling people things they don’t know." A job in British intelligence services — the birthplace of the modern spy agency — can be thrilling, stressful and challenging. What it can’t be is lucrative. Starting salaries are as low as £30,490 a year. So after a few years on the job, many agents leave for the private sector. Instead of hunting terrorists and despots, they’re chasing cheating husbands and a rival’s intellectu...
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