Naveed Jamali was an ambitious but bored young man working at his family’s business when he had an idea.
Somewhat mysterious Russians had been amongst the clientele of his family’s document and record-fetching business for decades. The FBI had been interested in what the Russians were researching and Jamali offered to find out more.
“I naively made my pitch,” he tells Steve Fast. “I was looking at this as an internship.”
The skeptical FBI gave Jamali the green light to show them something. Thus began a three-year clandestine relationship with a Russian military-intelligence officer named Oleg. The Russian operative thought he was grooming Jamali as an “asset.”
The life of a double agent, however, lacked the glamor of James Bond.
“Spy aficionados might be disappointed to know that the Russians certainly had a penchant for meeting at mainstream chain restaurants like Pizzeria Uno and, by the way, Hooters.”
Naveed Jamali’s memoir, “How To Catch a Russian Spy,” is being developed into a movie by 20th Century Fox.
Listen to the interview: Naveed Jamali on The Steve Fast Show
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