Trepper Group
Leopold Trepper was an agent of the GRU. In early 1939, he was sent to Brussels, posing as a Canadian industrialist, to establish a commercial cover for a spy network in France and the Low Countries. Trepper established the cover firm the "Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company" in Brussels, an export firm with branches in many major European ports. Following the fall of Belgium in May 1940, he moved to Paris and established the cover firms of Simex in Paris and Simexco in Brussels. Both companies sold black market goods to the Germans and made a profit doing so. Belgian-born socialite Suzanne Spaak joined the Trepper Group in Paris after seeing the conduct of the Nazi occupiers in her country.
Trepper directed seven GRU networks in France, and the network steadily gathered military and industrial intelligence in Occupied Europe, including data on troop deployments, industrial production, raw material availability, aircraft production, and German tank designs. Trepper was also able to get important information through his contacts with highly-placed Germans. Posing as a German businessman, he held dinner parties at which he acquired information on the morale and attitudes of German military figures, troop movements, and plans for the Eastern Front.
In addition, contacts between the Simex company and its main customer, the Todt Organization, provided information on German military fortifications and troop movements. As a further bonus, these contacts supplied some of Trepper's agents with passes that allowed them to move freely in German-occupied areas.
In December 1941, German security forces shut down Trepper's transmitter in Brussels. Trepper himself was arrested on 5 December 1942 in Paris. He agreed to work for the Germans, and began transmitting disinformation to Moscow, which may have included hidden warnings. In September 1943 he escaped and went into hiding with the French Resistance.
Operations by the Trepper ring had been entirely eliminated by the spring of 1943. Most agents were executed, including Suzanne Spaak at Fresnes Prison, just thirteen days before the Liberation of Paris in 1944. Trepper himself survived the war.
Read more about this topic: Red Orchestra (espionage)
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