Redazione RHC : 20 September 2025 08:18
Former CIA agent Dale Britt Bandler is at the center of a high-profile criminal case: he used his access to the agency’s top-secret systems, turning them into a “personal Google” for private profit. Court documents reveal a scheme under which the 68-year-old returned to the agency as a contractor after retiring in 2014 and began exchanging data with lobbying firms and foreign clients.
From 2017 to 2020, Bandler earned approximately $360,000 while remaining a CIA agent with Top Secret/SCI clearance. This status granted him access to some of the U.S. government’s most closely guarded secrets. Among his clients was a foreign national suspected by his country’s authorities of embezzling funds from a government fund.
According to the indictment, Bandler earned $20,000 a month by sourcing information from classified databases and helping build a campaign to refute his client’s allegations. His schemes included posting materials online, attempting to influence public opinion in the United States, and exploiting personal contacts within the National Security Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The documents he compiled contained classified information SECRET//NOFORN, the sharing of which was strictly prohibited.
Another case involved a defendant suspected of laundering money for a terrorist organization. Again, Bandler used the CIA’s resources to uncover what intelligence agencies knew about his client. Investigators note that he acted with a dual advantage: using the secrecy of his work as a tool to extort information and as a cover to hide traces of criminal activity. The indictment emphasizes that it is precisely this “dualism of secrecy” that makes the case emblematic of the entire intelligence community, where the temptation to profit from privileged positions remains high.
Prosecutors are insisting on severe penalties, arguing that it is necessary to limit such practices among former intelligence officers with privileged access to government information. The court’s decision in the Bandler case should signal the inevitability of liability for the commercialization of secrets entrusted to government officials solely for the protection of national security.
Redazione