A former Russian intelligence operative is pulling back the curtain on a secret world of espionage — one that looks more like a romance thriller than reality.
Aliia Roza, who defected to the United States in 2020 after falling in love with one of her targets, says Russian and Chinese agents are using what she calls “sex warfare” to seduce Silicon Valley tech professionals and steal valuable trade secrets.
“These operations can last years — even a lifetime,” told the New York Post. “Sometimes agents go as far as marriage and children just to keep access to the information they want.”
Roza says she was trained as a “seduction agent” from her teenage years and learned how to manipulate people’s emotions to get what she needed.
“Especially in Silicon Valley, men are very easy targets,” she explains. “They’re brilliant in technology but not so experienced when it comes to dating. Female agents know how to play on that — to boost their ego, to gaslight, to love bomb.”
According to Roza, agents often create fake online personas — sometimes using photos of attractive women — to make first contact. “A Russian male agent will create a fake account of a beautiful woman in a bikini. It’s all fake, but men believe it,” she says. “They’ll think, ‘Oh, she likes me,’ and that’s how it starts.”
Roza describes a step-by-step process operatives use to gain trust:
- The Seven-Touch Rule: Agents “accidentally” appear in a target’s life several times — at a coffee shop, the gym, or online — before ever speaking to them. “When you finally meet, their brain already trusts you,” Roza says.
- Love Bombing: Once contact is made, the compliments and affection start pouring in. “They flood you with attention and vulnerability,” Roza explains. “They’ll say, ‘My parents died,’ or ‘I’m broke,’ or ‘I’m all alone.’ It triggers the hero instinct — every man wants to rescue them.”
- The Milk Technique: Agents build credibility by following a target’s friends on social media to make their fake profiles look real. “You think, ‘She’s real, she knows my friend,’ but it’s all fabricated,” Roza warns.
Once the target’s guard is down, Roza says, the manipulation deepens. “They’ll tell you your boss doesn’t value you or your coworkers talk behind your back,” she explains. “They isolate you emotionally so you only trust them.”
According to Roza, Silicon Valley professionals often make ideal marks because they spend long hours in front of screens instead of socializing. “They may be geniuses in their field,” she says, “but many have little experience with relationships. That’s what makes them so vulnerable.”
Roza’s story is echoed by U.S. counterintelligence officials who say these operations can span decades. One former official described a Russian woman who infiltrated an aerospace firm by marrying an American employee.
“She’s trying to reach the top of the military-space community,” the official said. “Her husband has no idea. It’s uncomfortable to think about, but it’s so prevalent.”
James Mulvenon, chief intelligence officer at Pamir Consulting, tells The Times he’s seen a major increase in sophisticated approaches from Chinese agents. “I’m getting an enormous number of very sophisticated LinkedIn requests from attractive young Chinese women,” he said. “It really seems to have ramped up recently.”
Mulvenon recalled that at a recent business conference in Virginia, two women tried to enter the event despite not being invited. “We didn’t let them in,” he said. “But they had all the information about the event — everything.”
He added that the U.S. is at a disadvantage because “by statute and by culture, we don’t do that,” calling the strategy “an asymmetric advantage.”
Jeff Stoff, a former U.S. government analyst specializing in China and national security, described the current landscape as chaotic. “It’s the Wild West out there,” Stoff said. “China is targeting our startups, our universities, our DoD-funded research projects. But there’s not enough oversight and action.”
The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property estimates that the U.S. loses between $225 billion and $600 billion every year from stolen trade secrets — much of it linked to China’s push for global tech dominance.
Now living in the U.S. with a Green Card, Roza says she never operated on American soil. Her missions, she explains, targeted human traffickers, drug dealers, and Russian oligarchs in Europe.
Still, she feels a responsibility to warn others. “If someone online seems too perfect, too interested, too fast — that’s your red flag,” she says. “Real love doesn’t feel like manipulation.”
Roza, who now works as a consultant and speaker, says she hopes her story will make tech workers think twice about who’s sliding into their DMs.
“The U.S. tries to protect human rights,” she says. “Russia and China manipulate their targets — and they treat their own agents as disposable. I was lucky to escape.”
