Bravery and strategic brilliance converge in our selection of 15 Daring Spy Escapes. These captivating narratives showcase the remarkable measures spies will go to from Edward Snowden's world tour to the CIA's high-stakes journey with Cold War operative Ryszard Kukliński, and Airey Neave's daring breakout from Colditz Castle prison.
1. Soviet Top Gun Viktor Belenko
Soviet fighter pilot Viktor Belenko did the unthinkable during a 1976 training mission near Vladivostok in Russia’s far east. While flying his MiG-25 supersonic interceptor (named Foxbat), Belenko dove under radar detection range, flicked off his radio, and landed in Hakodate, Japan with only 30 seconds of fuel left. He narrowly missed crashing into a 727 Japanese commercial jet as he dove onto the tarmac and emerged with a gun, firing two warning shots in the air before authorities arrived. Belenko wanted to defect, he announced, and had brought his MiG-25 with him. George Bush, then the CIA director, called it an “intelligence bonanza”. Belenko moved to the US and died in November 2023, age 76, in small-town Illinois.
2. FSB officer Janosh Neumann
When Russian spy Janosh Neumann blew the whistle on FSB corruption, he was given three choices: i) ‘be an officer’ - ie, shoot himself in the head; ii) allow someone else to shoot him in the head, or; iii) get the h*** out of Russia. Janosh and his wife chose to run. The couple ditched their traceable electronics and booked multiple airline tickets with minor time variations to mask their escape plan. They flew to the Dominican Republic and headed to the US Embassy to defect. It was a thrilling escape but only the start of the journey, Janosh reveals in our True Spies podcast.
3. Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden stole thousands of NSA files in 2013 and ran, telling his employer he was taking sick leave for epilepsy. Instead, Snowden paid cash for an airline ticket from Hawaii to Hong Kong where he barricaded himself in the Mira Hotel and shared top-secret documents with journalists. The hunt to find him was on. “There was a target on my back,” Snowden writes in his autobiography. He fled again on a wild run to Moscow where he planned to stay overnight then fly on to Havana, Caracas, and his final destination Ecuador. The US revoked his passport while he was en route to Moscow, however. More than a decade later, Snowden is still there.
4. North Korea’s Kim Hyun-woo
In an astonishing break, a senior member of Pyongyang's DPRK intelligence agency defected to South Korea. Kim Hyun-woo said he was recalled to North Korea from a tour in Beijing in 2014 but stopped suddenly at the border. He realized that he was on the wrong side of a violent power struggle at the heart of North Korean intelligence and risked being executed if he returned. Instead, Kim Hyun-woo returned to Beijing, gathered his immediate family, and went on the run. Little more is known about his escape. He gave his first US interviews on a visit in 2023.
5. MI6-KGB Double Agent George Blake
KGB-MI6 double agent George Blake was sentenced to 42 years in a London prison in the 1960s and, with little to lose, escaped through a cell window with the help of a convicted burglar who removed one of the bars. He had a rope ladder made of knitting needles and leaped over the prison wall with just five minutes to spare before other prisoners would return to their cells at 7 pm. Guards sounded the alarm and prisoners burst into a round of For he's a jolly good fellow when they heard the news. The breakout concluded with Blake's rendezvous with East German handlers at the Helmstedt/Marienborn border crossing and his escape to the Soviet Union.
6. The CIA Extraction of Polish Asset Ryszard Kukliński
The CIA had a daring plan to extract Cold War spy Ryszard Kukliński from Poland, an asset who’d handed over intel on the Soviets and Warsaw Pact members. The Agency sealed Kukliński and his family inside large cardboard boxes, packed them in a US Embassy van, and bolted for the German-Polish border - their gateway to freedom. Unfortunately, the van’s license plates weren’t registered in Germany and border guards demanded an inspection while Kukliński and his terrified family were trapped inside. US officials finally prevailed and Kuklińsk was delivered to West Germany and later Washington, D.C. where he became the first foreigner to receive the CIA Distinguished Intelligence Medal.
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Bravery and strategic brilliance converge in our selection of 15 Daring Spy Escapes. These captivating narratives showcase the remarkable measures spies will go to from Edward Snowden's world tour to the CIA's high-stakes journey with Cold War operative Ryszard Kukliński, and Airey Neave's daring breakout from Colditz Castle prison.
1. Soviet Top Gun Viktor Belenko
Soviet fighter pilot Viktor Belenko did the unthinkable during a 1976 training mission near Vladivostok in Russia’s far east. While flying his MiG-25 supersonic interceptor (named Foxbat), Belenko dove under radar detection range, flicked off his radio, and landed in Hakodate, Japan with only 30 seconds of fuel left. He narrowly missed crashing into a 727 Japanese commercial jet as he dove onto the tarmac and emerged with a gun, firing two warning shots in the air before authorities arrived. Belenko wanted to defect, he announced, and had brought his MiG-25 with him. George Bush, then the CIA director, called it an “intelligence bonanza”. Belenko moved to the US and died in November 2023, age 76, in small-town Illinois.
2. FSB officer Janosh Neumann
When Russian spy Janosh Neumann blew the whistle on FSB corruption, he was given three choices: i) ‘be an officer’ - ie, shoot himself in the head; ii) allow someone else to shoot him in the head, or; iii) get the h*** out of Russia. Janosh and his wife chose to run. The couple ditched their traceable electronics and booked multiple airline tickets with minor time variations to mask their escape plan. They flew to the Dominican Republic and headed to the US Embassy to defect. It was a thrilling escape but only the start of the journey, Janosh reveals in our True Spies podcast.
3. Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden stole thousands of NSA files in 2013 and ran, telling his employer he was taking sick leave for epilepsy. Instead, Snowden paid cash for an airline ticket from Hawaii to Hong Kong where he barricaded himself in the Mira Hotel and shared top-secret documents with journalists. The hunt to find him was on. “There was a target on my back,” Snowden writes in his autobiography. He fled again on a wild run to Moscow where he planned to stay overnight then fly on to Havana, Caracas, and his final destination Ecuador. The US revoked his passport while he was en route to Moscow, however. More than a decade later, Snowden is still there.
4. North Korea’s Kim Hyun-woo
In an astonishing break, a senior member of Pyongyang's DPRK intelligence agency defected to South Korea. Kim Hyun-woo said he was recalled to North Korea from a tour in Beijing in 2014 but stopped suddenly at the border. He realized that he was on the wrong side of a violent power struggle at the heart of North Korean intelligence and risked being executed if he returned. Instead, Kim Hyun-woo returned to Beijing, gathered his immediate family, and went on the run. Little more is known about his escape. He gave his first US interviews on a visit in 2023.
5. MI6-KGB Double Agent George Blake
KGB-MI6 double agent George Blake was sentenced to 42 years in a London prison in the 1960s and, with little to lose, escaped through a cell window with the help of a convicted burglar who removed one of the bars. He had a rope ladder made of knitting needles and leaped over the prison wall with just five minutes to spare before other prisoners would return to their cells at 7 pm. Guards sounded the alarm and prisoners burst into a round of For he's a jolly good fellow when they heard the news. The breakout concluded with Blake's rendezvous with East German handlers at the Helmstedt/Marienborn border crossing and his escape to the Soviet Union.
6. The CIA Extraction of Polish Asset Ryszard Kukliński
The CIA had a daring plan to extract Cold War spy Ryszard Kukliński from Poland, an asset who’d handed over intel on the Soviets and Warsaw Pact members. The Agency sealed Kukliński and his family inside large cardboard boxes, packed them in a US Embassy van, and bolted for the German-Polish border - their gateway to freedom. Unfortunately, the van’s license plates weren’t registered in Germany and border guards demanded an inspection while Kukliński and his terrified family were trapped inside. US officials finally prevailed and Kuklińsk was delivered to West Germany and later Washington, D.C. where he became the first foreigner to receive the CIA Distinguished Intelligence Medal.
CIA officer Edward Lee Howard failed a routine lie detector test while preparing for an assignment in Russia, leading to suspicion that Howard was a KGB mole. Before an investigation concluded, Howard vanished. As the sun set over Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1985, Howard and his wife Mary - also a CIA operative - shook off their FBI surveillance team and used a CIA car trick known as the 'Jack-in-the-Box'. Howard rolled out of their car into the bushes while a fake head and torso popped up out of a box in the passenger's seat next to Mary. The maneuver set off a dramatic escape that led to Howard’s move to Moscow. Howard claimed he was the innocent victim of a setup. He died mysteriously in Moscow in 2002 at the age of 50, falling down the steps of his dacha and breaking his neck.
8. Norway's Sven Sømme
Norwegian zoologist and ichthyologist Sven Sømme, a daring member of the Norwegian resistance, narrowly escaped a death sentence imposed for photographing German U-boat bases during WWII. Facing a firing squad, he miraculously slipped out of his handcuffs and stealthily passed a sleeping guard. Evading pursuit by 900 soldiers with dogs, Sømme embarked on a treacherous journey through wild mountains, guided by locals and mountaineer Arne Randers Heen, before successfully reaching safety in Britain.
9. Daniel Abed Khalife
In a 2023 event that captivated Britain, Daniel Abed Khalife - a military computer engineer in his 20s - was accused of breaking free from London's Wandsworth Prison through the kitchen by allegedly strapping himself to the underside of a food delivery truck. Khalife, accused of spying for Iran under Britain’s Official Secrets Act and terrorism-related charges, allegedly evaded 150 counter-terrorism police for four days on the run. He has not yet been convicted, however, so his links to espionage, terrorism, and the escape remain unproven. He pleaded not guilty. A trial is set for late 2024.
10. Kim Philby, the Spy Among Friends
Kim Philby is the MI6-KGB spy who inspired the series A Spy Among Friends He is also the man suspected of tipping off Cambridge Five spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean before they defected to Russia. Philby revealed his espionage secrets in a 1981 talk to East German Stasi spies. He disclosed tactics like plying an MI6 archivist with alcohol to obtain files, orchestrating the removal of his own boss, and avoiding capture by denying all allegations. Philby moved to Lebanon to work as a journalist and, when MI6 began circling again in 1963, Philby left a written confession with MI6 friend and drinking partner Nicholas Elliott, then disappeared by boat to Moscow before facing charges.
11. Oleg Gordievsky
Operation Pimlico was a riveting mission to rescue British-Russian double agent Oleg Gordievsky from the KGB’s clutches. Gordievsky, secretly recruited by British intelligence, faced execution as Moscow suspected him of being a traitor. MI6 deployed an elaborate extraction plan that involved a Mars bar-carrying MI6 officer as a signal to start Gordievsky’s harrowing run for freedom. His escape to the Russian-Finnish border was by train, bus, and inside the trunk of an MI6 diplomatic car. There was a close call when Customs wanted to search the car but the wife of an MI6 officer decided she’d change her baby’s smelly diaper on the trunk. Suitably appalled, customs officers decided to forgo the inspection and waved them through the checkpoint.
12. Airey Neave, Escape from Colditz
British Lt. Col. Airey Neave was a 24-year-old POW in Colditz Castle during WWII, a jail the Nazis considered escape-proof. In 1942, he broke through the stage floor in the camp theater, descended into the guard room, and strolled out in a German uniform carrying forged papers and a compass. He was the first British officer to successfully break free of Colditz and he went on to work for MI9 intelligence, which assisted evaders and escapers. Neave, later appointed British Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, was assassinated in 1979 when Irish terrorists were blamed for placing a bomb under his car.
13. Franz von Werra
While the Allies fondly recall The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III (made famous by the Steve McQueen movie) the Germans have a few war stories of their own including the 1945 escape by 70 German officers from Camp 198 in Wales. The German prisoners, many elite SS Nazis, tunneled out beneath a bed in Hut 9. Evading guards, they emerged into the moonlit night, sparking one of the largest manhunts in UK history. They were eventually recaptured but Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe pilot, is known as ‘the one who got away’. Werra was sent to a Canadian prison camp. While being transferred, he leaped from a moving train and navigated icy waters across the frozen St. Lawrence River. After a circuitous journey through NYC, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, and Italy, he returned to Germany to fight again.
14. Espionage’s Real-Life ‘Americans’
The US was shocked in 2010 to discover at least 10 Russian spies were living next door and working for Moscow’s long-standing ‘illegals’ espionage program. Ten of them - including the notorious Anna Chapman - were traded in a Vienna spy swap for Brits and Americans but at least one dangerous Russian spymaster slipped through the cracks. Christopher Metsos, the enigmatic Moscow 'spy with 1,000 identities', is believed to have been their paymaster. Despite his arrest in Cyprus, Metsos was bailed for $30,000, left a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on his hotel room door, and promptly vanished.
15. The Falcon and the Snowman escape
Christopher Boyce, the notorious Falcon (of the movie The Falcon and the Snowman), was convicted of passing top-secret satellite technology intelligence to the Soviets along with co-defendant Andrew Daulton Lee. Before long, he orchestrated a daring escape from a California prison using a makeshift ladder and tin snips to cut through barbed wire. A worldwide manhunt initiated by the US Marshals involved multiple countries and 800 interviews. As the authorities closed in, Boyce was apprehended in the small town of Port Angeles, Washington, ending the most extensive and complex manhunt in the history of the Service in the 1980s.
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