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Due to the nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder and assault. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. Picture a man in disguise. A glamorous globetrotter. A polyglot. He enjoys the occasional cocktail, has a dozen foreign girlfriends, and his boss answers to a single letter. They call him the Ace of Spies.
He's Riley. Sidney Riley.
Though if you were imagining James Bond, you aren't completely wrong. Riley's real-life adventures inspired Ian Fleming's books and might have influenced the latest Indiana Jones movie. Riley's story is a window into a secretive world operating under our noses. A world of confirmed government cover-ups. The world of espionage.
I'm Carter Roy, and this is Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. You can find us here every Wednesday, and be sure to check us out on Instagram at TheConspiracyPod. Stay with us.
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Hi there, Carter Roy here. If you're interested in true crime, especially unsolved murders, serial killers, and cold cases, you'll love my brand new show, Murder True Crime Stories. Each episode covers a notorious murder or murders with a special focus on those who were impacted the most. We'll always leave with the knowledge of why these stories need to be heard. You can listen to Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts.
True to his future as a spy, there are many conflicting versions of Riley's early life. It's nearly impossible to settle on a true version of events. This principle is true throughout most of Riley's life and career. From beginning to end, the account he gave is often at odds with the established facts. And the lies he told, in a way, reveal as much about him as the actual truth does.
So, throughout this story, we'll mainly follow Riley's own version of what happened, but we'll also point out any obvious untruths for the listener's benefit. The legendary intelligence agent known as the Ace of Spies claimed to be born in Odessa, Ukraine on March 24th around 1873, then a part of the Russian Empire.
In his early years, he was called Georgi Georgovich after his Russian father. It wasn't until 1893, when he was 19, that he said he learned his family's terrible secret: He was not his father's son. His mother had an affair with a local Jewish doctor named Rosenblum. He was the result.
And his real father had named him Ziegmund. All this was all hidden to protect his mother's reputation. When the truth came out, his identity changed overnight. However, Odessa's birth records show that Riley was likely born Shlomo Rosenblum.
The story of his mother's affair is reportedly still true, although evidence suggests it was his father's cousin and not a local doctor. Although the reasons are unclear, the boy was now known as Siegmund Rosenblum. He claimed that after discovering his family's lies, he left a letter for them implying he was going to hurl himself into the frozen sea near the port
writing that they "should look for him under the ice of the Odessa new harbor." However, Siegmund had no intention of killing himself. He just wanted to escape. He said he did go to the harbor, but instead of suicide, he stowed away on a British merchant ship bound for South America.
and quickly disappeared into the vast plantation lands of the Amazon, the perfect place to lose himself and find a new identity. By the time he resurfaced in Brazil in 1895, now 22, he had learned to speak fluent Portuguese,
This was not surprising, as even from an early age, Rosenblum demonstrated an incredible aptitude for languages. Like many spies, he was a polyglot. This meant he spoke many languages with near-native fluency, including Russian, German, English, and French, all of which would be imperative in his future missions.
But to find work in Brazil, it was better to blend in and avoid questions. Going by the name Pedro to hide his European background, he signed on as the cook for a British army expedition. Three officers were heading up the Amazon River with a native guide to explore the unmapped forest. According to Rosenblum, the expedition was ill-fated from the start.
The British explorers knew little of the native tribes or languages, had no exposure to the native diseases, and were poorly equipped for the heat and humidity. All three of them soon came down with fever. Then, the voyage became even more treacherous. One night, while the expedition party slept, Siegmund awoke to the sound of rustling leaves and approaching footsteps.
He got up from his tent to investigate and saw shadows moving in on their encampment. It was an attack. Siegmund launched into action. He grabbed one of the officer's revolvers and, with the help of gunfire, drove the hostile natives back into the dark trees, revealing another of his many talents. He was an expert marksman. And when the chaos subsided, the guide was nowhere to be seen.
His betrayal was clear. He had hatched a plot with one of the local tribes to kill the Brits while they slept, then steal their weapons and supplies. It was only Rosenblum's keen hearing and quick action that had saved their lives. While the journey was far from smooth sailing after this, it wasn't long before one of the British officers succumbed to the fever and died.
The other two men decided to turn back, and Siegmund offered to lead them out of the dense jungle. But even after his heroic rescue, the officers were suspicious of him. He could be a turncoat, just like the Brazilian guide. So he came clean, an unusual action for him, and revealed that he was not Pedro, but Siegmund Rosenblum, a Russian émigré who spoke English.
The officers were astounded and delighted. Finally, someone from their part of the world, generally speaking, someone they could talk to who knew the local language as well as their own. From here, the party got more cheerful. Rosenblum proved to be a capable river guide, and the leader of the expedition, Major Fothergill, was increasingly impressed with the young man's abilities.
When they returned to Rio de Janeiro, the grateful Major wrote a cheque for 1500 British pounds to the young man he now affectionately called "Zigi" and he also gave him an official British passport. With this passport, the 22-year-old Zygmunt Rosenblum had yet another chance to try on a fresh identity, to become someone even farther from that shamed young man he left behind in Ukraine.
He didn't hesitate to take it. Once again, this story likely isn't true. Evidence shows that in 1895, Rosenblum wasn't in Brazil, but had just arrived in London from France. No archive records show an Amazonian expedition during that time, and the only major father Gill retired in 1881.
Despite that, in London, Zygmunt Rosenblum was truly a new man. With money burning a hole in his pocket, he bought a new wardrobe of lavish suits and tailored shirts. He went to the gambling tables at high-end hotels, and he was always with a beautiful woman. However, this freewheeling lifestyle quickly depleted his funds and made him few real friends.
By the end of the year, Siegmund was almost out of cash and had no one to turn to but Major Fothergill. The Major supposedly proposed a solution to the young man's predicament. He mentioned that he had connections with the British Secret Service and suggested that Siegmund might return to Russia on behalf of the intelligence agency. Siegmund, however, refused.
The prospect of returning to his homeland, where he had supposedly lost his honor and his family, was too painful for him. Instead, he ignored his problems. He stayed in England and allegedly began a passionate affair with a writer named Ethel Lillian Voynich. She was several years older than him, and she was making her name in the British literary scene.
However, their relationship would not survive their Italian vacation. While in Italy, Siegmund discovered another love that would drive him for the rest of his life: the study of Napoleon. He was dazzled by the story of the little Frenchman who'd come from nothing but risen to the greatest heights of wealth and prestige on the back of his ambition.
As he contemplated his money problems on the hotel balcony in Florence, smoking his customary cigarette, Zygmunt thought of this new hero. Then he recalled Major Fothergill's offer to work for the British Secret Service. Perhaps the Secret Service was his path to glory, to wealth and prestige, even if it meant returning to Russia. By the time he'd finished the cigarette,
Siegmund had made a decision. He left Ethel a simple note saying he had been called back to London on important business. When he arrived, he went straight to Major Fothergill with an unsolicited but detailed report of the current state of Italian politics. The Major was impressed with the information Siegmund had retained from benign conversations and the telling details he had noticed in the newspapers.
Siegmund had a gifted memory, an invaluable skill for a spy. Fothergill was so impressed that he revealed his own secret to Siegmund. He was himself a covert agent, and he reported to a man known only by a code name, the letter C. The Major was going to introduce Siegmund to him.
Like Father Gill, C was duly impressed by Siegmund and his astute report on Italy. But he was cautious. He offered Siegmund a brief trip to Russia on behalf of the Secret Service as a trial mission. If it went well, he'd be a British spy. Siegmund was ecstatic. He needed the money. But with his newfound Napoleonic ambitions, this meant much more than that.
His grandiose dreams of prestige would be within reach as a member of the British intelligence community. Intelligence is defined by former CIA Deputy Director Vernon Walters as "information not always available in the public domain relating to the strength, resources, capabilities and intentions of a foreign country that can affect our lives and the safety of our people."
Allegiance to a particular nation is implied in the basic definition of intelligence. And intelligence agents typically work for national governments. However, when young Siegmund Rosenblum accepted his missions, he had one caveat. He said he would undertake the mission so long as it "was not harmful to his own country."
When he said this, he was referring to Russia as his country. Even though he was working for the British government, Siegmund's true loyalties remained ambiguous. From the very start of his career, Siegmund had no true allegiance to anyone but himself and his ambitions. And he would pursue them at any cost, even if it drove him to murder.
We'll hear about the brutal step Siegmund took to become a legendary spy in a moment. Now, back to the story. 23-year-old Siegmund Rosenblum was recruited by Scotland Yard's Intelligence Division in 1896. He was told to keep his ears open and report back anything of interest.
But this assignment indicated to Zygmunt that spy work didn't quite pay the salary he was hoping for. And in order to jumpstart the fabulous career he was already envisioning for himself, he'd need to come up with another source of income. A woman he met while on assignment in St. Petersburg seemed to provide him with the perfect solution.
23-year-old Margaret Thomas was a gorgeous Irish woman with deep red hair and penchants for adventure and drinking, and she was putty in Siegmund's hands. She immediately became his mistress. However, she was married and touring Europe with her 62-year-old husband, Reverend Hugh Thomas, a minister from Wales.
This was unfortunate, but it did not stop Siegmund. He'd just have to devote a bit of time to this side project before heading back to sea in London for a new mission. Siegmund offered to accompany Margaret and Hugh on their trip across Europe. The old minister never noticed that young Rosenblum's room was always directly across from the one he shared with his wife.
After the trip, Siegmund and Hugh Thomas met regularly. The Reverend was afflicted with Bright's disease, a chronic inflammation of the kidneys, and Siegmund claimed to have a miracle cure. But it never seemed to work. In fact, the Reverend's health only seemed to get worse. On March 4th, 1898, the old minister wrote out a will leaving all of his estate to Margaret,
And on March 13th, he died in a hotel on the British coast. There was no investigation into Hugh's death. Margaret insisted on an immediate burial. Five months later, on August 22nd, 1898, Siegmund and Margaret were married.
On the official marriage license, Siegmund wrote his name as Siegmund Georgievich Rosenblum. He was 24 years old. It was the last time he would use that name. After the wedding, Siegmund embraced a new identity as Margaret's husband, Sidney. He took the name Riley as his own surname.
The couple lived large on her inheritance, moving into a swanky new apartment in London. Their clothes were elegant, their liquor was nothing but the best, and a glamorous career of espionage was right on the horizon. In the summer of 1899, Sidney returned to the intelligence chief's office. C was surprised to see him. Sidney explained his reappearance,
He was ready to officially join the ranks of British intelligence in a permanent capacity. He had been gathering funds and a proper background. While Sidney had considered the pay of an agent to be simply too little to undertake intelligence work successfully, he now had plenty of money to spare. C was impressed and reassured of Sidney's commitment to a life in England over Russia.
The chief spymaster agreed to employ him. He was now officially Sidney Riley, agent of the British Secret Service. This is when Sidney's espionage career began in earnest. He was sent on several covert missions, the records of which are still either locked in Britain's archives or have been lost to time.
What is certain is that Sidney was present in Holland during the Boer War, posing as a Russian in order to spy on the Dutch. Then, in 1902, he was recalled and sent to Persia. Finally, he was dispatched to China in 1903.
His official assignment there was to collect intel on the Russian naval base at Port Arthur. But Sidney's own mission was to expand his network of business contacts. After all, he needn't just serve the Brits, and the political climate made a bit of light double-dealing so easy.
When Sydney arrived in China in 1903, relations between Russia and Japan were taking a turn for the worse. And Sydney, instead of taking sides, developed relationships with both Russian military officials and Japanese naval attachés. Then, all while providing intelligence on the burgeoning conflict to the British, he also sold information to both the Russians and the Japanese.
When Sidney got his hands on some of the security plans for the expanding Russian base, he spread them under a pane of glass and took photographs. Then, he returned the plans without the Russians ever knowing they were gone, and sold the copies to the Japanese. Then, after Sidney invested in a logging company, he discovered information about Japanese railways and timber supplies.
A perfect sale for the Russians. By the time war broke out between Russia and Japan in 1904, Sidney had plenty of money. But he was lacking excitement. The glamour of selling intel to both the Russians and the Japanese was wearing off. His actual mission for Britain was tedious, little more than writing reports.
His marriage was deteriorating thanks to Margaret's worsening alcoholism. This was a far cry from the life of Napoleon. It was time, once again, to take up his oldest habit: running away. He escaped from his problems in Port Arthur by disappearing into the obscurity of rural China for several years.
His time in the Chinese countryside remains a mystery. But he clearly didn't find Napoleonic glamour there either. Sidney returned to London in 1909 at age 35. By then, Margaret was long gone. She had taken all the money out of their joint bank account and disappeared. But Sidney was neither surprised nor saddened by the end of his marriage.
He was mainly irritated with Margaret for leaving him destitute. This meant he'd have to start working again. After more than five years away, Sidney returned to see his office at British Intelligence. As he sat across from the spymaster's large mahogany desk, Sidney only gave vague answers to questions about his whereabouts and an airy apology for his extended leave.
C was annoyed by this evasive attitude, but it was, after all, appropriate for a spy. Sidney was still a talented operative when he wasn't falling off the grid. So C gave him another assignment, an assignment that had already cost one agent his life.
Under the direction of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German military was expanding at a breakneck pace, building new armament factories as quickly as possible. Britain believed the Kaiser was preparing for war. See explained that they had placed an agent inside one of the German factories called the Krupp Works. The agent had only just begun to send back reports
when he vanished without a trace. See believed the Germans had discovered the spy and killed him. Now they needed a replacement. Sidney, despite the danger, was game. To prepare for the mission, he worked for a few weeks in a British welding factory. There he developed a competent set of trade skills to back up his new legend.
A legend is defined by the International Spy Museum as a spy's claimed background or biography, usually supported by documents and memorized details. It is essentially a false identity adopted to give a spy credibility in a new environment. Sidney's specialty.
This time, Sydney created the legend of Karl Hahn, a German-speaking Russian from the city of Ræval, or modern-day Tallinn in Estonia. Hahn's background included employment as a welder in the massive shipyards of St. Petersburg. As Karl Hahn, he had little trouble getting a job as a welder in Krupp's growing factory in Essen, Germany.
And Sidney actually did the job, working long, difficult hours on the plant assembly line for several months in 1909. He was simultaneously taking notes for his other job. He noticed that the arms factory had added several new workshops and had plans for more. These notes, however, were not enough. He needed copies of the plans to send to London.
Getting the blueprints and production schedules would not be easy, as leaving his station on the assembly line would quickly arouse suspicion. But Sidney came up with a solution. He would volunteer for the factory's fire brigade. The fire crew worked night shifts and patrolled the entire plant.
Sidney used the freedom of this new role to begin making nightly visits to the factory office, lockpick and flashlight in hand. But he was faced with another problem. He couldn't take the plans out of the office without raising an alarm, and he couldn't take photographs in the dark. At first, he tried tracing the plans on thin paper, but the process took far too long. Then he had an idea.
He convinced the fire brigade chief that they needed a complete set of plans for the factory to indicate where all the fire extinguishers and hydrants were located. All the blueprints were copied and moved into the fire chief's office, where Sidney could easily consult them and memorize each page one by one.
However, his frequent visits to inspect the plans brought questions. Pretty soon, Sidney had to back off. There was only one tactic left to try. He would simply steal the blueprints and disappear. It was easier said than done. Once he stole the plans, all of Germany would be looking for him. He would have to get out fast. So he reached out to London for help.
Sidney bought a train ticket to the city of Dortmund, where C had a contact waiting with a new passport, clothes, and money. Then it was time for action. After everyone had gone home for the night, Sidney slipped his lockpicks into his pocket and clicked on his flashlight. He approached the fire chief's office and snuck inside, expecting to be in and out within minutes. But the chief was still there.
Sidney quickly adapted. He leapt forward and wrapped his arm around the fire chief's throat, strangling him until he felt the man go limp. Sidney dropped him, grabbed the stack of critical blueprints, and began tearing them into quarters. He stuffed each quarter into a separate envelope he had smuggled in under his coveralls.
Each one was addressed to a separate contact in London, Paris, Brussels and Rotterdam. This way, even if one set of the plans were lost in transit, the other three parts would still arrive. Sidney stuffed the full envelopes back under his dirty coveralls and made his way to the Essen train station, dropping the envelopes in a mailbox before he boarded the train for Dortmund.
The next day, wearing a new suit and carrying a leather briefcase with a crisp British passport, Sidney boarded a train for Paris. He had escaped. While this story was heavily embellished by Sidney, he returned to London in 1911 triumphant. But C wasn't interested in celebrations. He was eager to send his most valuable agent back into the field.
Within weeks, Sidney was on his way to St. Petersburg to gather intel about Russia's efforts to rebuild its navy. Adopting the legend of wealthy businessman Solomon Gerasimovich, it didn't take Sidney long to strike up friendships with several high-level navy officers, boozing and dining with them regularly. His mission was long-term and would rely on these relationships all the way.
Their small talk helped him fill in the contours of Russia's current situation. After the war with Japan, the Tsar had ordered his armada to be rebuilt, even bigger than before. It was a massive task that Russian shipyards couldn't possibly handle on their own. So the contracts were being sent to German shipbuilders, Blom und Voss.
Due to his fluency in Russian and German, as well as his now extensive list of Russian naval contacts, Sidney was able to earn a management position in the German company's office in St. Petersburg.
As a manager, Sydney now had access to all of the communications and construction plans moving between Russian naval offices and the German factories. Then, Sydney requested access to the blueprints for German ships too.
The German owners were suspicious of his sudden interest in their ship designs. But Sidney knew how well ego and vanity could be used to persuade potential assets. He spun a clever story about comparing the lackluster Russian designs with cutting-edge German ships. The delighted German owners gave their full cooperation.
Thus, Sydney was privy to the technological developments of both the Russian and German navies during the build-up to war over the next three years. And a war was indeed coming.
By early 1914, political stability on the continent was crumbling. In June, a Bosnian assassin killed an archduke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On August 1st, 1914, war was declared in retaliation. The two largest military forces in Europe were now fighting each other. And Sidney Riley was caught.
right in the middle of it. We'll hear about Sidney's escape from Russia in a moment. Now back to the story. In the autumn of 1914, the European continent descended into the First World War. Sidney Riley was 41 years old and an experienced intelligence agent, but he was still a gambler and philanderer and always pursuing the next opportunity for glamour and money.
He was smart enough to know that a world war would provide ample opportunities for profit, especially if he could get to America, where many of Europe's wartime supplies were being produced. On December 26, 1914, Sidney boarded a ship bound for the United States,
He spent most of the war in New York City, organizing supply contracts via his Russian and British military contacts and taking hefty commissions for himself. Like Napoleon, Sidney's only loyalty was to his own ambition. But something drew him back to the secretive life of a spy.
In early 1917, 44-year-old Sidney returned to England and re-established contact with the British Secret Service. Many things had changed since he was last there. The intelligence agency was now known as MI1, a precursor to the modern-day MI6. And there was a new chief spymaster, though he was still known by the codename "C."
The new C was Mansfield Cumming, a 58-year-old veteran with white hair and a wooden leg. He and Sidney got along famously. But Cumming could never bring himself to wholly trust Sidney Riley, who he said was "a man of indomitable courage, a genius as an agent, but a sinister man." Still, Cumming knew that Sidney was a skilled spy.
He brought him back into MI-1 and gave him a code name: ST-1. Throughout the rest of 1917, Sidney worked wartime intelligence. His missions were shrouded in secrecy and remain so to this day. Very few of the agents he worked with in 1917 survived the war and the MI-1 records about agent ST-1 were reportedly destroyed.
But by late 1917, many of Sidney's thoughts were on Russia. His homeland was in the throes of a revolution. In October of that year, the Marxist proclamations of Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky led the Bolsheviks to take up arms against the government. Sidney followed the events in Russia closely. While he'd never had much loyalty to anyone, not even his homeland,
Sidney hated the communist Soviets. The cruel regime led with terror and barbaric punishments. They stood against everything Sidney believed in, namely wealth and ambition. The Bolshevik Revolution ignited a fury in Sidney that would drive him for the rest of his life. But even Napoleon had been defeated in Russia.
When Lenin took power on November 8, 1917, Britain was firmly in agreement with Sidney's disgust. Lenin's first order of business was to negotiate a peace treaty with Germany. Losing Russian support meant that the Allies, including Britain, could lose the war. The Soviet government had to be brought down.
Sidney was called into C's office at MI1 for a secret meeting in April 1918. When he arrived at the spymaster's office, he found British Prime Minister David Lloyd George waiting for him. Sidney was astounded, but he knew how to hide his emotions. He showed only confidence as he warmly greeted the Prime Minister. Lloyd George sized up the legendary spy
and then told Sidney he wanted to give him his next mission personally. It was top secret. Only the men in this room were to know the details. Sidney was exhilarated. This was a mission worthy of his skills.
Sidney was to go to Moscow, the heart of the Bolshevik Revolution, to meet with an agent named Bruce Lockhart, who had been in Russia since January. Then, together, the agents would take down the Soviet Republic. The mission, however, went awry from the start. Sidney's assignment was kept in such secrecy by MI-1
that upon his arrival at the Soviet port of Murmansk, he was arrested by British forces stationed there for having a forged British passport. Sidney was irritated and insulted. He understood secrecy, but this was ridiculous. He had to somehow prove his identity without exposing his mission. Luckily, he had the perfect piece of evidence.
A coded message written in microscopic letters and hidden under the cork of an aspirin bottle in his luggage. The message, written in a specific MI-1 code, was addressed to Lockhart at the embassy. When his captors recognized the high-level name and code, Sidney was released with no further questions. He made it to Moscow on May 7th, 1918.
But that wasn't the only location he had to worry about. The Bolshevik government was also operating in Petrograd, the Soviet name for St. Petersburg. Sidney realized he would need safe houses in both cities. This made him nervous. Moving between the cities meant more checkpoints, more lies to remember, more bribes he would need to pay. Plus, he needed to hide his trips back and forth.
But, as usual, Sidney delighted himself with his own cleverness. He would be a different man in each city. In Moscow, Sidney adopted the legend of Mr. Constantine, a Greek national. In Petrograd, he was Mr. Massino, a Turkish businessman.
When he boarded a train in Moscow, he used Konstantin's papers. When he arrived in Petrograd, he presented Mr. Massino's. This made him much harder to track. Sidney felt confident that his ruse would keep him safe from questions at checkpoints. But if he ran afoul of the secret police, Mr. Konstantin, Mr. Massino, and Mr. Riley would all be in trouble.
This police force, called the Cheka, was the predecessor to the KGB. They didn't have checkpoints, only interrogations. And many times the people they took for questioning were never seen again. Luckily, Sidney had an old contact in the police from his days working undercover as a shipbuilding manager. A few careful payments later, Sidney had an official Cheka pass.
Whenever he was stopped by agents, the stamped document kept him safe from interrogation. Sidney was now satisfied with his cover. He was ready to start the next step of his mission. For the next several months of 1918, he cultivated a network of anti-Bolshevik cells in both Moscow and Petrograd. Sidney sent coded reports on his progress back to London using his own cipher.
According to the International Spy Museum, a cipher is "a system for disguising a message by replacing its letters with other letters or numbers or by shuffling them. When Sidney's reports reached London, they were deciphered for the Prime Minister's eyes only." To maintain the high-level secrecy of his mission, Sidney kept few direct contacts at the British Embassy.
However, he did form a friendship with a naval attache stationed there named Captain Francis Cromey. The attache was developing contacts of his own, and Sidney regarded him as a brave and intelligent confidant. The world of spycraft was often lonely and only understood by other spies.
Cromie knew about his lies and deception tactics, and Sidney felt that he finally had a friendship that didn't require a backstory. He could relax with Cromie, and most importantly, he trusted him. During July and August 1918, Sidney prepared for the next, final step of his mission. He developed a plan for coup d'etat.
He approached the head of the Kremlin guards, a Latvian officer named Colonel Eduard Berzin. Sidney offered Berzin over a million rubles to move against Lenin, the very man the guard had sworn to protect. Shocked by the huge sum of money, the Latvian captain quickly agreed. Sidney, elated, sent the word to his anti-Bolshevik networks in Moscow and Petrograd.
The coup would begin on September 6th, as Lenin and the other Soviet leaders met in a Moscow theater. They would be arrested by Colonel Berzin and march through the streets, a signal to the rest of the conspirators to make their moves against the Soviet government in both cities. In the final days before the meeting, Sidney decided to visit Kromy in Petrograd. It was a decision that would save his life.
When he arrived in Petrograd on August 28th, Sidney found that two of his safe houses had been raided by the Cheka. How did they know where to find him? Sidney's web of lies and aliases should have kept him anonymous. For the first time, he felt a pang of fear. He was burned. Besides capture, being found out was the worst thing that could happen to an agent. Sidney had been very careful.
had he been discovered. Unbeknownst to Sidney, after he left Moscow, the Cheka had cornered and interrogated the head guard, Colonel Berzin. And Berzin spilled his guts. Not only did the secret police know about the coup d'etat, they knew it was Sidney who had planned it. Everything disintegrated quickly after that.
On August 30th, a woman named Fanny Copland fired two point-blank shots at Lenin as he left a meeting in Moscow. He was badly wounded, but he survived. That night, the Cheka moved with furious speed. Several of Sidney's contacts were arrested and executed. Lockhart was arrested at the British Embassy in Moscow as a key conspirator. The next morning, in Petrograd,
Sidney heard about Lockhart's imprisonment and knew his plan had crumbled. Now, he needed to protect what remained of his network. He skipped a shave, dirtied his face, and got a set of workers' coveralls. Then, he headed to the former British Embassy to meet Cromey. He was too late. The secret police had moved on the British outpost that morning.
Cromie met the armed Czech agents with two Browning pistols, emptying both guns and killing a Czech officer before going down in a hail of gunfire. His body was mutilated and dumped from a second-story window. Sidney was crushed, his friend was dead, and the world he had so carefully built was collapsing around him.
His glorious ambitions of bringing down the Soviet menace were dashed. All he could hope for now was to escape. He hurried to board a train back to Moscow before he was recognized. His pass got him on board, but he wasn't going to risk the Cheka inspections at the Moscow station. He got off in a village 40 miles outside the city and found a ride on a horse cart the rest of the way to Moscow.
When he arrived, he was horrified by what he found. All the newspapers had headlines about the British plot to overthrow Lenin. Berzin's confession had been published and worst of all, Sidney's real name and photograph were plastered on posters all over the city. They were offering a hundred thousand rubles for him, dead or alive.
the Cheka had orders to shoot him on sight. It was September 1st, 1918, and Sidney Riley was running for his life. Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast.
We'll be back next week with the rest of the story of Sidney Riley. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at The Conspiracy Pod. For more information on Sidney Riley, amongst the many sources we used, we found Britain's Master Spy, The Adventures of Sidney Riley, a narrative written by himself, edited and completed by his wife, by Sidney Riley and Pepita Bobadilla, extremely helpful to our research.
Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story isn't always the truth.
Conspiracy Theories is a Spotify podcast. This episode was written by Andrew Messer, with writing assistance by Kate Gallagher, fact-checked by Haley Milliken, and sound designed by Trent Williamson, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, and Freddie Beckley. Our head of production is Nick Johnson, and Spencer Howard is our post-production supervisor. I'm your host, Carter Roy.
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