False Flag

A "false flag" is the most difficult of intelligence operations to pull off, and requires a recruiter, in Zeev Avni's case for Mossad, to persuade a potential source that he would be working for a completely different organization and country. Though Mossad was impressed with Avni's professionalism, deploying him in Brussels and Belgrade against German technicians rebuilding Egypt's military strength, and later assigning him to Israel's Foreign Ministry, his true masters were the Soviet GRU. When Avni was unmasked as a Soviet mole, his arrest was considered so damaging that no public statement was made about his trial or imprisonment. Zeev Avni is the only known Soviet spy to have penetrated Mossad.