How to avoid abduction by a Mossad honeypot

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more.

Hi, I'm Patricia Carvelis, and every day on Politics Now, I'm joined by someone from the ABC's politics team for analysis on the news of the day.

And quite often, that's you, Jacob Gruber.

It's often your lucky day.

It is my lucky day.

Monday is my favorite day because it's my podcast day with you.

I love trying to bring what what I've found out to the audience, and it's always good fun chatting with you.

Politics Now, Jacob and I hang out.

I hope you can listen, let your friends know.

This podcast is recorded on the lands of the Awabakal, Darug, and Iora people.

G'day, Matt Bevan here.

I hope you enjoyed our episode on Israel's not-so-secret secret nuclear weapons program and the crazy story of Mordecai Venunu, the whistleblower who exposed Israel's nuclear weapons program to the world.

But at the heart of that story is what I would imagine is a classic Mossad honeypot operation, a mysterious agent who went by the name of Cindy, who lured Venunu to his capture in Rome.

But who was Cindy really?

My producer Cara is here to shed some light on her.

G'day Cara.

Hi Matt.

Now, just to introduce the story, I thought a lot of what we got for the episode the other day was out of the Four Corners story that was done on this just after the events actually happened in the first place,

produced by ABC reporter Peter Couchman, who at the time was kind of the ABC's top guy.

He reported from Sydney, from Israel, from London.

He went all over the world to put this story together.

And it was back in the day when the ABC had like reenactment money.

And so

the good old days.

It's a really well-produced thing.

They interviewed Peter Hownham, who was the Sunday Times reporter who was handling the story and interviewed him as part of this about the story of Venunu and Cindy.

But let's have a listen to Peter Couchman's report on this.

Yes, okay.

Then we can talk about it afterwards.

In Leicester Square, Venunu had what he thought was a chance meeting.

He met a woman.

She was later described as heavily made up with hair that was artificially dyed and curled.

She told him her name was Cindy and she was an American beautician.

She suggested a cup of coffee.

For people at home, you can't see this.

They've done Cindy an injustice with that fake wig that they have given to her.

They have given this actor who is playing Cindy in this scene in ultra-slow motion of her walking across Leicester Square, and she's in, like, I mean, describe the wig.

I don't even know the words.

She's wearing like a trench coat for a start, which is like kind of like a flasher trench coat almost.

And she has a like bottle blonde wig, which is probably 30 centimeters high.

Like the perm is something else.

It's an extraordinary.

I mean, I suppose it is 1986, but oh my goodness, looking at it in 2025, it looks so strange.

Benunu was totally unsuspecting because he thought he'd made the first contact.

They arranged to meet again.

Two days later, the Sunday Times found out about Cindy.

By now, Venunu had been won over by her.

They were meeting daily.

One of those meetings outside the Tate Gallery was witnessed by a Sunday Times reporter.

Max Prangwell was waiting in a taxi to take Venunu to the office.

He was able to give the first description of Cindy.

She was about 5'8.

She had blonde dyed hair.

She was wearing a brown kind of raincoat.

And she looked quite stocky.

She had a very full face as well.

What?

Sorry,

excuse me.

She looked quite stocky.

Is that what they said?

She looked quite stocky and she had quite a full face.

That's how women like to be described.

Stocky and full.

And this guy, by the way, just looks like the most dweeby dude that you've ever seen.

Exactly.

How dare he describe her as stocky?

No.

She arranged to meet him.

But so did Peter Hownam.

I said, well, you must realise it's quite possible that she's been planted.

I mean, can we arrange to meet?

And he said, well, not tonight.

But I suggested that we should have dinner with my wife and Cindy the following evening, on the Tuesday.

He said, fine, yeah, let's do that.

Let's all go out together.

But Benunu would never make that meeting.

I got him about half eleven, quarter to twelve at night.

And he said, look, I'm sorry.

I am going out of the city.

I'm not going very far.

I won't be able to make dinner tomorrow evening.

I told him it would be a terrible mistake if he set foot abroad because because he could easily be picked up.

The next morning, just after 10 o'clock, Venunu called Peter Hownham.

It was Tuesday, September 30.

He rang me at the office and said, Look, I am still going.

I'm sorry about tonight.

But I will ring you twice a day.

And that was probably the last time anyone heard from him.

We can stop it there.

So,

insane.

Venunu at this stage flies to roam with Cindy, whereupon Cindy is revealed to be a Mossad honeypot.

She's there with a team of Mossad spies.

Venudu is drugged and spirited away on a boat to Israel, where essentially he's kept confined to Israel until he still is now.

It's been nearly 40 years.

So that's the story of Cindy.

This is Cindy.

And I found myself wanting to know more about her, but expecting, I suppose, not to ever find out more about her because these sorts of stories often just end there.

There's no more information to be found.

But you've found a lot more, haven't you, Kara?

We have found a lot of information about Cindy.

And this is the thing.

I'm so excited to hear about it.

I'm so interested in a woman that's kind of so seductive and beguiling that she could.

Stocky.

Well, and stocky, exactly.

That she could practically love bomb Venunu.

And I mean, I don't mean to victim blame, but what's Venunu thinking?

Going to roam with a stranger, ostensibly, while he's being told not to leave the country is insane to me.

I mean, she must have been an incredible person.

Exactly.

It's just testament to how wonderful Cindy was as company.

So the crazy thing about Cindy is that we actually know more about her than really you would expect to know about any spy.

Venunu's disappeared six weeks.

Nothing.

And then all of a sudden, Israel comes out, as we spoke about in the episode.

The Israeli government comes out and says, look, we've got him detained.

He's broken these laws.

That's all you'll be hearing from us.

And then later in that year, Venunu is in an official car on his way to a court in Jerusalem.

And there's all these photographers around, and he puts his hand up against the window of the cab that he's in, and there is a message written on his hand.

And I've got that photo for you now.

If you could just describe what the photo looks like.

So, yeah, it's a photograph of Venunu's left hand.

And on it is written: Venunu M was hijacked in Rome, Italy, presumably Italy, 30th of the 9th, 86,

2100 hours, came to Rome by fly BA 504.

So I would assume that that is a flight number, British Airways flight 504 to Rome.

So why is this photo important?

This photo is important because all of a sudden Peter, who was there, he and his team were actually able to figure out what the heck has happened to him, where he was for those six weeks that he was missing.

And they were able to look at the flight logs of that particular flight and see that Venunu was on that flight with a woman called Cindy, full name Cindy Hannan.

Okay.

So they tracked down this woman and it turned out that there was a Cindy by that name living in Florida.

Okay.

But she didn't seem very Masadi.

She was just a normal woman who was due to get married in a few months.

And so they figured this probably isn't the girl we're looking for.

But she was Jewish.

Oh, okay.

And so Peter and his crew had a hunch that maybe there was some sort of family link and somebody might have actually been using Cindy's name.

And it turns out that Cindy did in fact have a relative called Cheryl.

Now she goes by her married name, Cheryl Bentov.

And so Cheryl was our Cindy.

Okay, so she's stolen the identity of someone that she is related to.

Yeah.

So her.

Okay.

So she really was American.

She's from Florida and

she was somehow recruited by Massage.

According to her father, she went to Israel as a young girl when she was 17 and she was studying abroad at this exchange program.

And like, I don't know if you've been on many holidays where you've had a great time, like so great to the point that you're willing to join the army of that country.

But that's

that's how good a a time cindy had on this exchange trip that she was like you know what i'm joining the israeli foreign intelligence that's quite a contiki tool like they must have really turned it up on the bus trip that she was on exactly um well done well done to the israelis okay so do we know anything about her family back in florida by the way well so we know that her father actually so his name was stanley and he actually runs a tire company and we've got the ad for said tire company which is also a bit weird if you want to have have a look at that I'll click it now it's your tires ain't pretty man you know tires are tough to advertise it's easy to advertise something good to eat something smells good something makes you look good like I say tires ain't pretty but you know it's very hard to advertise you can't go up and have a taste test with tires like you do with Pepsi and Coca-Cola and you know when a guy sells a guy a tire and he puts it on he ain't gonna say thanks I needed that you know tires are tough but we'll save you money anyhow you got to buy them you come to allied discount tires

Imagine making an ad where you have one take and they're like, and that's the ad.

That is one take.

So that for people who can't, I mean, by the, we should put a link to this in the show notes or something like that because unbelievable.

It's just an old Florida looking dude with kind of wild, unkempt hair

standing in front of probably a green screen photo of a tire shop, ranting like a drunk lunatic.

Yes.

Sort of staggering around.

His buttons, like his shirt buttons are undone.

It's like he's come in after like a big night and he's like, we've got one take to do this tire ad.

Let me add it.

That's the button.

Yeah.

We'll do it live.

Amazing.

All right.

That's Cheryl's dad's company.

So he runs this tire company.

And Cheryl's dad, Stanley, actually had no idea that Cheryl was even part of Mossad until he saw this 60 Minutes special on her, which is crazy to me.

Yep.

Because, I mean, I don't know.

I feel like that would be my biggest downfall if I was to be a spy is that I instantly would tell anyone really that asked that I was a spy.

That's got to be the worst part about being a spy is that you have to be like, oh yeah, I work in IT

at

the transport department.

So by this point, so it's 1985, we know that Cheryl's married to an Israeli intelligence officer, which is, I suppose, how she kind of got embroiled.

in Mossad.

So after figuring out who she was, Peter Haunen, a Sunday Times reporter, decided to basically fly to Israel to confront her.

Because again, this was a time where you just had money in media to be able to do things like that.

So Peter flew to Tel Aviv.

He tracks down their address.

It's this kind of run-down bungalow beside a highway.

kind of of a seaside town just to the north of Tel Aviv, which is actually apparently close to where Mossad HQ is.

And he knocks on the door.

Cheryl's obviously like, who's this guy?

But lets him in anyway.

And then Peter is like, yo, we know that you're Cindy.

We know that this happened with Venunu.

We know that you're Mossad.

You know, what do you say to that?

And she

apparently starts yelling.

She gets up.

She locks herself in the bedroom and doesn't come out.

And then basically just waits for Peter to leave.

And then he does.

That was it.

So he just like left, got on a plane back to London?

Yeah.

And we didn't hear from her again.

Well, basically, that's the last we did hear from her or about her at all until 2004.

And then an article appears in what is now called the Tampa Bay Times, which I've got for you to read these couple of lines.

Okay.

She drives a red cutlass convertible and lives in a gated community.

Like thousands of others, she worked in that quintessential Florida profession, selling real estate.

But of course.

Don't they all?

Of course she do.

Of course you do.

At 44, Cheryl Hanin leads an unremarkable life.

It's a far cry from the past when she was known as Cindy and had a very different career.

Okay, so she's now selling real estate in Florida.

So she's back in America and now she's selling real estate and apparently she lives down the road from a Disneyland.

Man.

So it's like fully American dream stuff.

This sounds dangerous.

Having someone with this kind of convincing power

working on commission sounds like a nightmare for people trying to buy homes in Florida.

Exactly.

And like her adeptness with a syringe filled with whatever the heck that was.

Terrifying to know that she's just walking around near a Disneyland.

I mean, you know,

she'd be quite a higher.

Okay.

Did the Tampa Bay Times manage to make contact with her?

So, yes, the Tampa Bay Times did actually make contact with her.

They found out where she was living.

They called the house and a woman answered the phone, presumably Cheryl.

She said, I've got no interest in talking.

And then

they seem to have pretty much just disappeared into thin air thereafter.

It's interesting because we've talked in the past in a previous episode, the one where we were talking about the assassination of Ismail Hania.

We talked about how Mossad

has the ability to bring people into their employees temporarily and then sort of let them go back out into society.

We sort of were talking about how they borrow people's passports in order to carry out international operations for their spies, and then they sort of just give the passports back to those people.

And they're like, all right, thanks very much.

Bye-bye.

And yeah, I mean, it's incredible that you can go to Israel on a holiday one day,

marry someone, join the Mossad, be a honeypot in one of the most extraordinary and high-profile intelligence operations of the 1980s and then just drift off back to florida to be a real estate agent exactly fantastic i love it i imagine i imagine her applying for that job trying to explain the gap in her resume oh yes

being like so what happened uh during these couple of years you know real estate and before that there's a bit of a um there's a gap here what were you doing then uh

none of your business um um i was in uh pharmaceuticals um we don't talk about that

so this is an extraordinary case a very famous one there was a movie made about it in 1990 with karen allen she was the female lead in raiders of the lost ark she was playing cindy in that movie version of it but Mossad kind of has a reputation for doing things like this,

for employing honey traps on people.

According to ABC America there was a rabbinical ruling in the Jewish faith basically saying that honeypots are kosher

and I don't mean that as a as a joke as in literally kosher saying that they are rooted in biblical law because there are stories of honeypot operations in the Bible in the Torah and so it must be fine for you to do yeah one of the things that the rabbi noted was that if the agent is married, then she should divorce her husband first, go and do the honey trap operation, and then remarry her real husband.

Sounds like a lot of paperwork.

I was just going to say.

The ABC America report notes that rules for male Mossad agents weren't mentioned in the report, but women make up a large proportion of Mossad agents.

Women make up 40% of Mossad employees as of 2017.

Sounds like an equal opportunity employer.

Yep.

Say what you like about Mossad, but at least they've got their gender quotas on track.

Yes.

And one of the Mossad leadership team sort of justified why this is the case, saying, quote, women can easily be in places where men have to make up a thousand and one excuses to be in.

It's much easier for women to blend in.

Who would suspect a woman?

Another former Mossad director said, a woman has skills a man simply does not have.

The history of modern intelligence is filled with accounts of women who have used their sex for the good of their country.

There's another really extraordinary example of this, a famous example of it, which also was made into a movie in 1988.

So apparently there was sort of a period where, you know, Mossad honeypot movies were really hot.

It was about a Mossad mission in the 1960s where a female Mossad agent managed to convince an Iraqi fighter pilot to defect to Israel, but more importantly, bring his plane with him.

So defect with his plane.

So a pilot, you know, great, whatever.

But a pilot with their Soviet MiG-21 fully intact was incredibly valuable to Israel and assisted them in their planning operations for their 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Must have taken quite a significant amount of beguiling charm, I would have thought.

A lot of stockiness.

Imagine the height of her hair.

Exactly.

The lengths that men will go to to maybe get a smooch from a woman is insane to me.

Like, it's deranged and wild.

I mean, neither of us have ever been subject to a honeypot operation, so neither of us could confidently say that we weren't able to resist it, you know?

I don't know.

I don't really like talking to strangers.

No, that is true.

I'd like to think if a woman approached me in a big old trench coat, I'd look the other way.

Well, I mean, the thing for me, and this is a really good example of why it's good that this show is made the way that it is, is I basically never leave my basement.

I work in my basement and I live upstairs.

And so I never really leave my house.

So I'm totally immune to honeypot operations.

I can't be honeypotted because I don't meet anybody.

No doubt, countless women waiting at the Newcastle Honeypot Mall, waiting for you to come in.

Yeah, they're there at Charlestown Square, yeah, just waiting.

The thing, of course, about making this podcast is we're constantly going down rabbit holes that we cut out of the show.

We come across stories that are really, really interesting, but just too big a tangent, like this one.

So, if you're into this kind of thing, or if there's ever something in an episode you want us to dig deeper on, you can send us an email at ifyourelistening at abc.net.au.

We would love to hear from you.

And another thing, a reminder, that we are going to be doing our live show in Canberra on the 21st of August.

That is at the Canberra Theatre Centre.

Tickets are available now, and the details are in our show notes.

Please don't honeypot me while I'm there.

Anyone that's wearing a trench coat will be turned away at the door.

Yeah, no.

Are you coming, Cara?

Are you there?

I will be there.

Okay, good.

I will be there.

I'll be batting them off.

Good.

Thank you very much.

Protect me.

It's important.

ABC policy.

No honeypots.

Thanks very much, Cara.

We're going to be talking sort of about honeypot operations in the context of, well, whether or not this was what Jeffrey Epstein was really up to in his multi-year operation and knowing all these famous people all over the world and bringing them on his plane.

Was it some sort of a honeypot operation?

That's what we're going to be talking about in our main episode on Thursday.

I'll catch you then.

Looking forward to it.