10 tell-tale signs your neighbour is a spy

Everyone likes a good spy story and frankly I'm no exception. Let's face it: coded dead-drops and covert communications are cool. So when news broke this week that a ring of Russian spies had been arrested in an FBI sting operation, I was as intrigued as the next guy. Except this time, for me, the story was a little different...

It turns out that one of the alleged spies arrested - Anna Chapman, the headline-hogging so-called "femme fatale" of the American media - was an acquaintance of mine. Not exactly a lifelong friend, but with sufficient ties to warrant a number of calls from journalists looking to flesh out the detail of her time in London - to date, I've spoken to reporters from The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, Forbes, the Daily Telegraph, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, The Globe & Mail, Channel 4, CBS News, People Magazine, Global Edge, Associated Press and Inman News. Phew!

Fortunately, deciding whether or not she is any more than an innocent pawn in some grand global conspiracy will be left to others; it turns out that in spite of the time I have spent in Russia, spotting the signs of soviet-style espionage is apparently not a forte of mine.

So to make sure we can all sleep easier at night I thought a little bit of research was in order, to brush up on how to spy a spy when there's a spy to be spied. An avid fan of BBC's Spooks, my first port of call was of course MI5, who helpfully explained that there are 2 types of spy we should be on the look out for.

An officer is a person who is a member of an intelligence service. In some cases they may operate in "deep cover" under false names and nationalities. Such spies are dubbed "illegals" because they operate without any of the protections offered by diplomatic immunity.

In the UK, an agent, more formally known as a "covert human intelligence source," is an individual who clandestinely provides information to an officer. He or she will probably not be a professional "spy" but may have some basic instruction in espionage methods. An agent may be motivated by a wide variety of personal or ideological factors.

So to recap and de-clarify:

In the UK, a spy is a partially-trained, amateur agent who is good at disguises and sometimes supplies information to an officer. Officers are also spies, but of an altogether more professional nature. Though they may also be known as illegals, officers are not to be confused with immigrants, who are people that don't have the right visa documentation to live and work in the country. Those people may also be referred in some quarters as illegals, but they are definitely not spies. Well maybe the odd one. But not as a general rule.

Meanwhile in the US, spies are informants who supply information to agents. These agents are not like the ones in the UK - who are spies - these are in fact government officials who don't do any spying themselves, though they do regularly meet with covert human intelligence sources.  I'm not quite sure whether they do this publically, in secret, or in disguise, nor whether they discuss their various assets or whether those assets may or may not also be people. Or spies.

Anyway, it's all a little confusing and I can't help wondering if the security services around the world would have an easier time of it if everyone was just a bit clearer about their job title...

So if business cards and job titles can't be relied upon to identify a spy, what other options are there?

Below are a number of things that I think you could look out for if you think that your neighbour, associate or colleague may in fact be a spy:

1)      They are always wearing the most convincing outfit at a fancy dress party.

2)      "Working away" frequently, they tarmac over their lawn to "keep it manageable".

3)      When you excitedly show them your brand new iphone 4, they can barely conceal their contempt for your pathetic little toy.

4)      Their sense of humour is epitomised by t-shirts adorned with slogans such as: A weapon unused is a useless weapon.

5)      Their house has recently been adorned with a satellite dish somewhat larger than those fitted by Sky Digital. And you know they don't like sports...

6)      Their computer is the only one in the office that never gets a virus.

7)      You talk casually about the weather. They rant about the injustice of farming subsidies in South America and how forced regime Change would bring an end to the suffering of millions.

8)      After a suspiciously long lunch break you catch them changing out of a wig before coming back into the office. And it has happened more than once.

9)      When reluctantly persuaded to give you a lift home, they bundle you into the boot, drive dangerously fast, run 3 sets of red lights and instinctively Change lanes every 5 seconds before finally going round the block 3 times, letting you out and curtly apologising.

10)   After a "night out", they get dropped off by friends. In a helicopter.

So be on your guard. Without even realising it, you may be living next to or working with a spy. And you wouldn't know it - after all, that's the thing about spies, they're terribly hard to spot!