From shadowy surveillance to political sabotage, the Bureau's darkest operations are now in the spotlight. Join us as we reveal the most shocking classified operations the FBI tried to keep hidden from the American public! Discover covert programs, controversial tactics, and government overreach that changed the course of history and raised serious questions about power and accountability.
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00:00They went down this corridor, past the local draft board, and somehow got through this door into the FBI office.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most salacious, eye-popping, horrific, and in some cases, hair-brained operations and secrets in the history of the FBI.
00:18The FBI is now watching the Panthers' every move.
00:22Number 10. Operation Shocker
00:25What do you do when you can't stop Soviet spies? You feed them lies.
00:28For 23 years, the FBI ran Operation Shocker, a covert deception program designed to mislead the KGB with fake intel, especially about U.S. nerve agent research.
00:40It all started with Army Sergeant Joseph Edward Cassidy, a planned defector the Soviets fully bought into.
00:47Cassidy handed over forged documents, all approved by top U.S. brass, to throw Soviet analysts off track.
00:53But the real shocker? Two FBI agents died in a plane crash tied to the operation's surveillance.
00:59The truth was kept from their families for years.
01:02Even worse, some experts believe the fake intel may have helped the Soviets develop Novichok, one of the deadliest nerve agents ever made.
01:10Novichok attacks the central nervous system, disrupting communication between the brain, the main organs, and muscles.
01:16Number 9. Abscam
01:18It started with a fake company, a fake investor, and some very real bribe money.
01:24Abscam was an FBI sting operation, where agents posed as representatives of a wealthy Arab sheik offering cash in exchange for political favors.
01:33The targets? Public officials, from local to federal.
01:36At the end of the operation, six congressmen and one U.S. senator were caught on hidden cameras accepting bribes.
01:42This tape shows Representative Michael Myers of Pennsylvania taking a $50,000 bribe.
01:47Originally dubbed Arab Scam, the FBI later claimed it meant Abdul Scam.
01:52Ultimately, the branding didn't matter.
01:54What mattered was that it worked.
01:56The footage was damning, the trials swift.
01:58The government's need to unmask such conduct more than justified the investigative techniques employed.
02:05Every single prosecution ended in conviction.
02:08Abscam pulled back the curtain on corruption in high places.
02:11Sometimes, the best way to catch a crook is to just let them cook.
02:15We put the big honeypot out there, and all the flies came to us.
02:19Number 8. The 28 pages.
02:21For years, they were the stuff of rumor and rage.
02:2528 classified, redacted pages of a 2002 congressional report on 9-11.
02:30They were sealed from the public for over a decade, sparking years of questions and speculation.
02:3528 redacted pages, which stick out like a sore thumb.
02:39In 2016, the pages were finally declassified.
02:43Their contents were damning, if not surprising.
02:46The FBI explored possible links between the Saudi government and the 9-11 hijackers.
02:51It said the following.
02:52While in the U.S., some of the 9-11 hijackers were in contact with and received support from individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government.
03:00The FBI uncovered potential financial ties, never disclosing them to the public.
03:05Was it a cover-up, or was the government just trying to prevent an international incident?
03:09Well, just five years later, President Biden declassified another 16-page report linking the hijackers to Saudi nationals in the U.S.
03:17To the families, it shows that there was direct government contact between some of the hijackers, which proves their view that the Saudi government was involved.
03:25Number seven.
03:26Operation Monopoly.
03:27What do you get when you mix Cold War propaganda with a shovel and a blank check?
03:31Operation Monopoly.
03:33The FBI's ill-fated boondoggle to tap into Russian intelligence straight from the source.
03:38In 1977, the FBI began digging a massive tunnel dug directly under the Soviet embassy.
03:45This is straight out of spy fiction, to build a tunnel underneath the Russian embassy in the United States, in Washington, D.C.
03:51It was wired for surveillance, but over the course of a quarter century, provided no valuable intelligence whatsoever.
03:58In 2001, the FBI discovered why.
04:00Robert Hansen, one of the worst moles in FBI history, told the Soviets all about the tunnel while it was still being dug.
04:08He had access to a treasure trove of information.
04:11For over 20 years, the FBI spent hundreds of millions of dollars to dig and maintain a tunnel the KGB already knew about.
04:19Using the alias of Ramon Garcia, Hansen made 22 dead drops in five years.
04:25Number six.
04:26Hollywood informants.
04:27During the Red Scare, the FBI didn't just investigate Hollywood, they infiltrated it.
04:33As Cold War paranoia swept the U.S., Hoover's bureau worked closely with studios to root out suspected communists.
04:40We were using the same methods that Hoover accused the Communist Party of using.
04:46He found his most useful tool by using industry insiders as informants.
04:50The resultant purges left a chilling effect on the industry.
04:53Careers were derailed, lives were upended, and Hollywood became an unlikely battleground in America's ideological war.
05:01Two of the bureau's biggest collaborators were Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan.
05:06Disney's motives were calculated and capitalist.
05:09He spent decades calling animators communists in order to derail their fight for workers' rights.
05:14Reagan's actions were more ideological, if not egregious.
05:17As president of the Screen Actors Guild, he reportedly informed on his own members.
05:23That small clique has been referred to, has been discussed, as more or less following the tactics that we associate with the Communist Party.
05:33Number five.
05:34Dubious counterterrorism tactics.
05:36After 9-11, the FBI ramped up their counterterrorism efforts.
05:41Sometimes they used controversial tactics to keep the homeland safe.
05:45Steve Anthony, the FBI agent in charge of the Cleveland office, says the plot was uncovered by an informant.
05:51According to the ACLU and other legal scholars, the bureau often relied on dubious sting operations.
05:57These efforts didn't just uncover terrorist plots.
06:00They manufactured them from whole cloth.
06:02The FBI leaned heavily on paid informants who targeted vulnerable individuals.
06:07Often, these people suffered from serious mental health issues and had no prior criminal history.
06:13So far, Abdirahman Bashir has been paid more than $40,000 by the FBI, a fact that has enraged many in the Somali community.
06:20These informants would steer targets into fake terror schemes, which the FBI would then swoop in to foil.
06:27A 2014 report found that agents were directly involved in many of the, quote-unquote, terror cases they later prosecuted.
06:34The FBI called it prevention.
06:36Critics called it provocation.
06:38What are the chances that Ferdas will claim that he was entrapped?
06:41Well, he's going to try, Scott.
06:43But the agents say that over a period of months, they gave him multiple opportunities to back out.
06:47Number four.
06:48FBI surveillance planes.
06:50In 2015, journalists uncovered that the FBI was flying hundreds of low-altitude surveillance flights over American cities.
06:58A review by the Associated Press published this week reported that the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states over a 30-day period.
07:07They kept these planes off the proverbial radar with a clever trick, registering them to fake companies.
07:12The aircraft carried high-resolution cameras and cell site simulators.
07:16These stingrays trick phones into connecting by posing as real cell towers, allowing FBI access.
07:24The ACLU raised alarms about the program, especially when planes flew over protests in Baltimore and Ferguson.
07:31The FBI claimed the flights were tied to specific investigations, but the scope was broad and the oversight minimal.
07:38It's a very, very important program to support either criminal investigations or terrorism investigations.
07:43In one case, agents logged nearly 430 hours of surveillance on a single suspect.
07:50No warrant, no transparency.
07:52Critics say the program is dragnet in disguise, flying low but watching everything.
07:57At this point, people have gotten hold of the videos that they actually shoot from those planes, so you can see exactly what they're looking at.
08:06Number three.
08:07Operation Watchtub.
08:08In the early Cold War, the U.S. had a big fear.
08:12With Alaska under U.S. control, the Soviets were almost in their backyard.
08:16What if they invaded Alaska?
08:18So, the FBI and Air Force launched Operation Watchtub.
08:22Working together, they forged a secret plan to train everyday Alaskans as deep-cover spies.
08:27They recruited miners, bush pilots, and fishermen, focusing on locals who knew the land and could blend in.
08:33If the Soviets ever moved in, these agents would stay behind.
08:37As sleeper agents, they could gather intel, reporting back through hidden radios and coded messages.
08:43The FBI got out of the program after only a few months, but it continued under the Air Force's guidance until 1959, when Alaska became a state.
08:52Number two.
08:53The murder of Fred Hampton.
08:55White people need some peace.
08:57And we are going to have to fight.
08:58We're going to have to struggle.
09:00We're going to have to struggle relentlessly.
09:01On December 4th, 1969, Fred Hampton, the 21-year-old chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, was shot dead in his bed during a police raid.
09:11Official reports called it a shootout.
09:14The evidence said otherwise.
09:15Hampton was drugged by an FBI informant the night before.
09:19Police fired nearly 100 rounds, while Panthers inside fired one.
09:24Hampton never left his bed.
09:25Based on film, that all the bullets coming into that apartment came from one direction, and that was from the police side.
09:34The FBI and Chicago PD coordinated the raid using detailed floor plans and intel supplied by that same informant.
09:42A federal investigation later revealed that the bureau had actively tried to neutralize Hampton's influence.
09:48To this day, his murder is seen as one of the most blatant and chilling acts of politically motivated state violence in modern U.S. history.
09:56What happened to Fred Hampton made us think that they weren't coming in just to do arrests, they were coming in to murder people.
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10:14Number one, COINTELPRO.
10:19But of all the stolen files, that one would have the most far-reaching impact.
10:23Short for Counterintelligence Program, COINTELPRO was the FBI's secret war on American activism.
10:30For 15 years, the bureau spied on, infiltrated, and sabotaged political groups it deemed subversive.
10:36COINTELPRO had started back actually in 1956 with a program that J. Edgar Hoover had initiated,
10:43involving the Communist Party.
10:46They targeted civil rights leaders, anti-war organizers, and liberation movements.
10:51The bureau's tactics were invasive, and often illegal.
10:54Warrantless wiretaps, forged documents, threats, and disinformation campaigns.
10:59The Black Panthers were a top target, as was the American Indian Movement.
11:03The FBI planted informants, stoking internal division.
11:07They aggressively pursued AIM leaders, like Leonard Peltier.
11:10COINTELPRO was exposed in 1971 after activists burglarized an FBI office and leaked its files.
11:17What they uncovered shocked the public, and showed how far the government would go to crush dissent.
11:23Many believe such activities have continued, even after the program's exposure.
11:27It was un-American. It was harmful. It was a disgrace to our country. It hurt the reputation of the FBI.
11:36In its more-than-century-long history, the FBI has done both incredible things to keep Americans safe,
11:42and terrible things in the name of freedom.
11:45Do you know some of the FBI's dirtiest secrets? Let us know in the comments below.
11:50I find it difficult to understand how the congressmen were as, in effect, easy.
11:56They weren't easy. We were just good.