Washington DC

After successful campaigns in Russia, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has now reportedly launched hiring drives in China, Iran, and North Korea. The US spy agency on Wednesday (Oct 2) posted instructions in Mandarin, Korean, and Farsi languages; for people to contact CIA operatives “securely”. The agency wants to reach out to ‘dissatisfied’ individuals in these nations who are willing to contact them with potentially useful information.

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The messages were posted on Telegram, Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube by the CIA, asking people to contact the agency via public channels or dark web sites.

"We want to make sure individuals in other authoritarian regimes know that we’re open for business," a CIA spokesman said in a statement.

Earlier, similar messages were shared by the US agency in the Russian language on Russian media platforms after Moscow launched invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is to be noted that China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are viewed as ‘hard targets’ by the CIA, where it is difficult for the agency to operate due to measures taken by the local regimes. That has propelled the US agency to look for local volunteers to aid the agency.

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CIA instructions clearly mention how people can contact agency operatives without putting their lives in danger.

Also read: Gaza war: CIA chief says more detailed ceasefire proposal due in days

The agency asks people to use darknet or dark web to contact CIA operatives. In some countries, darknet can be accessed using a Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass censorship measures taken by authoritarian regimes.

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“Your safety and wellbeing is our foremost consideration,” the CIA message read.

"People are trying to reach out to us from around the world and we are offering them instructions for how to do that safely," the agency said in a statement.

Watch: Gaza war: CIA chief says more detailed ceasefire proposal due in days

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“There are plenty of people who have access to information and who are disaffected from the Xi regime in China,” CIA deputy director David Cohen was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.

“You’ve got people inside who see what’s happening, and for lots of different motivations fundamentally do not like the direction that Xi is taking the country and understand that there’s a path to helping their own country by working with us,” he added

(With inputs from agencies)