Ex-CIA Disguise Chief’s Top 10 Spy Tips for Undercover Ops
Listen to Jonna Mendez's True Spies Podcast I The Art of Disguise
Jonna Mendez’s job was as close as it gets to Q or Mission Impossible outside of Hollywood. For 27 years, Mendez worked as a CIA undercover officer creating prosthetic noses, wigs, and masks that could be peeled off like Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) in Mission: Impossible.
When it comes to effective espionage weapons, a spy’s face - particularly the ability to become someone else - can mean the difference between life and death.
“It could make you one of them and not one of us,” Jonna Mendez, the CIA’s former head of disguise, told the True Spies podcast. ”We could change your ethnicity. We could change your gender. We could make you whatever you needed to be around the group that you were targeting, and you could still be safe.”
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