Corporate and industrial espionage

Espionage is called the oldest profession in the world – not the other one! Earlier, kingdoms, empires, monarchs relied on a mix of military espionage, political espionage, social espionage and a cocktail of other issues. By far the most important element was military intelligence. Competing kingdoms kept a sharp eye on each other.

The earlier empires, Chinese, Indian, and Greek, were great users of military intel. Alexander the Great, when he started out, had enough intel to ignore Europe (underdeveloped farmland) and concentrate on the Silk Route, where real wealth abounded. So did Julius Caesar. This cocktail of intelligence set the tone for what has happened in the last 2000 years.

As the world industrialized, commercial & tech espionage came to play an increasingly greater role in the survival of nations. Today, tech intel appears to be the main driver of the espionage game with AI taking over (partly) more and more resources are being set on technology-backed power and growth.

But let us not forget that most wars of the 20th century; WW I & II too were financially driven by the likes of the Rothschilds, the Morgans, the Wallenbergs, etc. Financiers and investors will be central to what happens next.

Today, industrial espionage is a significant threat to businesses worldwide, including the theft of trade secrets, intellectual property and confidential information. This can lead to substantial financial losses, reputational damage and compromised competitiveness. Types of industrial espionage may vary from country to country, sector to sector.

• IP Theft: Stealing engineering designs, formulas or software codes.

• Property Trespass: Unauthorized access to competitor facilities or data.

• Wiretapping or eavesdropping.

• Cyber attacks and malware.

As WWI raged, great research was taking place in military, logistics, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, health and other sectors. Open research and very clandestine research. In both the camps – Allied & Axis.

After the Armistice was signed, the victorious Allied powers (especially the USA) laid claim to much of this valuable research & data.

All stratagems were deployed – bribery, legal recourse, threats, forgiveness for war crimes. Eventually, the USA walked away with the important booty.

The German cartels were broken up. I.G. Farben, the German chemical cartel, was broken into three entities, BASF, Hoechst, and Bayer, each big enough to compete with the international rivals – ICI and DuPont. After 1990 when Deng Xiao Ping encouraged China to compete internationally, the CCP (Communist Party of China) pursued industrial & commercial espionage as a state policy very successfully.

Earlier, in the 1950s Japan’s MITI followed the same strategy. History records that from 1950 to 1990 MITI was an unsurpassed powerhouse which propelled Japan to pre-industrial prominence by use of industrial and commercial intelligence, technical supervision and capital allocation.

In 2026, two big trends are playing out worldwide. One of these is technical domination. This is a battle of the giants. The big guys – sovereign states and near sovereign corporations. Industrial spying is at its highest. The large asset classes are deploying great resources to grow and to protect their assets. Competitors want info.

New entrants want data that only espionage can provide. The largest asset class in the world is real estate – USD 672 trillion. The big private investors have been buying. Bill Gates, Ted Turner. The second largest asset class is oil – USD 117.93 trillion.

The inside info on this sector is worth a fortune on a continuing basis. In the commodity sector gold & silver are humming.

Traders are buying and selling pricey data. Military intelligence has always been an important element to the Intel community as current developments in the world are shaking up the industrial defence sector.

The arms producers in Europe are on steroids. If I were a big punter I would take a position on Euro defence stocks. But also good news for Pakistan. The defence related factories in Wah are soon going to be humming full time.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026