Gordon Carrera

There are claims that perhaps he had some kind of protection so that when you go back to that 2008 prosecution of sorts that happened in the plea deal, was that the result of some kind of protection or deal from intelligence agency?

I think there's also the way he acted and behaved, isn't there?

There's elements of the way he moved around the world, which again have made people go, that looks like a spy.

It does.

Spy adjacent is exactly the word.

And, you know, that fits in with this idea that he was able to move across borders, you know, in his private jet, get to interesting places with little friction, which again fits into this theory that, you know, he had kind of protection or support from somewhere.

So a lot of that is very, very vague and suggestive rather than hard fact.

But I guess one of the central claims is that his value, if you like, as an intelligence asset is precisely because of his use of those residences

for some kind of compramat or collection of blackmail information against some of those influential people.

And I think that's one of the ways in which it's argued that he might have or could have been a spy.

In some ways, you can see why this is potentially a more plausible part of the theory, because there is historical precedent for this.

And we know about compromise, as you said, it's a Russian term.

Collecting compromising material against influential people is well established in lots of countries, but we think of it particularly in Russia.

I mean,

the diplomats in Moscow.

Famously, if you go back to the 60s, you had a British ambassador honey-trapped by his maid.

You had a Conservative MP, Anthony Courtney, who was honey-trapped by a tourist guide while he was in Moscow.

French officials and ambassadors being kind of honey-trapped, and in one case, one actually who took their own life after they'd had compromising material collected on them by, in that case, the KGB, who then basically

try to blackmail them and say, you know, you work for us or this material will be exposed and it will be the end of your career.

So it is an established kind of technique, isn't it?