In 2012, there were a lot of spy related stories in the news.
Anna Chapman (born as Anna Vasilyevna Kushchenko) had been deported from the USA in 2010, but her story was in the news again 2 years later, and with much greater interest.
This was thanks to the FBI’s counter-intelligence chief, Frank Figliuzzi, claiming that she had almost caught a senior member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet in a honeytrap.
A honeytrap is when a lady uses her feminine charms to get on a man’s good side in order to get something out of him – sensitive information in this case.
Chapman was part of a spy ring that had also planned to use their own children as agents once they were old enough, as they would pass background checks more easily and be able to infiltrate high-profile US institutions by getting jobs at them. Some of the older children had even received spy training back in Moscow.
This story hit the news at a similar time, so Russian spies were the talk of the town – which is the opposite of success for a spy I should imagine.
Anyway, this all led PaddyPower, everyone’s favourite novelty bet bookie, to create a book on the Next Country to Deport a Russian Spy.
Unlike a lot of the weird bets on this site, the market actually had some sensible odds too, and the outcomes weren’t as improbable either, with the USA being the favourite for obvious reasons.
It’s not known if anyone took the bets, although in all probability a few people will have. I wonder if any of them worked for MI5?