How CIA is using viral recruitment videos to reach spies in China, North Korea and Iran

CIA is trying to reach out to dissatisfied individuals after success of campaign to enlist Russians

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) launched a new drive to hire potential spies in China, Iran, and North Korea after a similar successful campaign to recruit Russians.

The CIA posted instructions in Mandarin, Korean, and Farsi on Wednesday for individuals in these countries to be able to “securely” contact the agency.

Encouraged by the success of similar campaigns in Russia, CIA officials are attempting to reach out to dissatisfied individuals amid China’s broadening cooperation with Russia and Iran.

CIA shares messages and videos in Mandarin, Farsi and Korean on various CIA accounts (CIA)

The organisation said it posted instructions across social media channels such as Telegram, Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube to allow people to contact the CIA via public or Dark Web sites.

"We want to make sure individuals in other authoritarian regimes know that we’re open for business," a CIA spokesman said in a statement.

The CIA shared similar Russian-language messages after Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

A grab of CIA video shows instructions written for potential spies (CIA)

China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are known as the “hard targets” countries where governments have made it difficult for other nations to penetrate to gain insights into their workings or access other intelligence.

These nations block access to US social media platforms such as Facebook, deeming them unfavourable to the government. However, VPNs and other tools serve as a way to get around this censorship and surveillance. It has led to individuals becoming targets of authorities in some cases in the past.

The CIA shared instructions in their viral videos about how informants can contact US intelligence officials without putting themselves in danger.

It asked people to use the darknet, a part of the internet that can only be accessed using special tools designed to hide the user’s identity.

The tips, presented in text-only videos and infographics, include using a Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to circumvent internet restrictions and surveillance, and the use of a device that can’t easily be traced back to the user.

Another text-only video reads in Farsi language potentially for Iranian nationals (CIA)

The CIA also urged any potential informants to use private web browsers and to delete their internet history to cover their tracks.

A Mandarin-language video posted to YouTube featuring only written instructions advised individuals to contact the CIA via its official website using trusted encrypted VPNs or the TOR network.

“Your safety and wellbeing is our foremost consideration,” it said. It asked for individuals’ names, locations, and contact details not associated with their real identities, along with information that could be of interest to the CIA, cautioning that responses were not guaranteed and could take time.

"People are trying to reach out to us from around the world and we are offering them instructions for how to do that safely," the agency said in a statement.

“There are plenty of people who have access to information and who are disaffected from the Xi regime in China,” CIA deputy director David Cohen told Bloomberg.

“You’ve got people inside who see what’s happening, and for lots of different motivations fundamentally do not like the direction that Xi is taking the country and understand that there’s a path to helping their own country by working with us,” he added.

China has objected to the move, calling it “an organised and systematic” disinformation campaign against China by Washington.

Liu Pengyu, a Chinese embassy spokesperson, said: “Any attempts to drive a wedge between the Chinese people and the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) or to weaken their close bond will inevitably fail.”