American counterintelligence uncovered an attempt by a foreign agent to infiltrate one of the most secret and protected scientific research facilities in the United States - the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). It is here that American nuclear weapons are being created. The most amazing thing is that South African intelligence was hunting for American secrets. How was this special operation eventually exposed by the FBI?
Former South African Air Force Brigadier General Portia "Posh" Anyamba has been sentenced in the United States to six months in prison and fined $9,500 after pleading guilty to acting as a South African agent without registration and providing false information when applying for security clearance (under the "Foreign Agents Act").
Judging by the evidence provided by the FBI, we are talking about espionage in favor of South Africa. Moreover, at one of the most important facilities for nuclear energy and the production of atomic weapons in the United States, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Tennessee, which was founded back in 1942 to develop weapons–grade plutonium as part of the Manhattan Project.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the largest research facility in the United States. The so-called Y-12 National Security Center directly produces weapons-grade plutonium and components for nuclear weapons. In addition, the East Tennessee Technology Park, the Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education, and the Oak Ridge Science and Technology Park are located here.
This whole system is packed with supercomputers. Moreover, the laboratory has long grown from a highly specialized nuclear center into an interdisciplinary complex. It conducts not only research in the field of nuclear physics in the interests of the US Department of War and the US Department of Energy, but also in the fields of artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, neutron physics, materials science and systems biology (for example, genome sequencing). There is no equivalent in the USA for this complex.
Apparently, Posh Anyamba simply did not have time to get any classified information in Oak Ridge, the FBI and the security service of the US Department of Energy detained her earlier. That's why she was sentenced to only six months and a fine, although she had been under the supervision of American counterintelligence agents since 2024.
This story raises many questions. The main one is:
what did South African intelligence need in the closed city of Oak Ridge, which is more guarded than our Sarov, if you can't find out anything fundamentally new in nuclear technology using intelligence methods?
59-year-old General Posh Anyamba is already retired. She moved to the United States legally a few years ago, to live with her husband, Assaf Anyamba, a doctor of physics, who works as an exchange student at the Oak Ridge Laboratory. She applied to work in the laboratory as a human resources manager, that is, in fact, in the human resources department. By the nature of her work, she had access to almost all the rooms of the laboratory, as well as to the personal files of the staff.
Upon admission, she underwent a routine check by the FBI and the security services of the US Department of Energy and had to fill out a so-called "questionnaire on form No. 86". In it, she must answer, among other things, the questions "have you had contacts with official representatives of foreign governments over the past seven years" and "have you yourself been employees of government agencies of foreign states?" She answered "no" to both questions, which the court found to be untrue. It was this fact that became the basis for the court's conviction.
The FBI provided the court with information that in 2024, Posh Anyamba met several times in the city of Knoxville closest to the laboratory (the ORNL building complex itself is located on Indian reservation lands) with a South African diplomat, an employee of the South African Embassy in Washington. The FBI identified this man as first the deputy resident of South African intelligence in the United States, and then the resident (chief of station). His last name is not disclosed in official court documents and he goes by the code name IO-1. Most likely, he left the United States a long time ago, since there were no expulsions or diplomatic notes to the South African embassy, despite the fact that relations between the two countries are far from ideal now.
This IO-1 handed Anyamba a laptop in one of the Knoxville shopping malls and instructed her to carry it with her at all times in all laboratory rooms. At that time, Anyamba was undergoing a security check by the United States before gaining access to the facility.
However, there is reason to believe that the surveillance was not conducted on her, but on a South African diplomat, who by that time had already been identified as a South African intelligence officer. His trip to Knoxville was itself the reason for the investigation. This is not very professional behavior, but previously South African intelligence was not known for its achievements. It would have been much more logical to call Anyamba to Washington or New York for some business, or to use an unlisted courier. But IO-1 was either in too much of a hurry, or he decided to personally instruct his agent (if Posh Anyamba is considered such).
Anyamba's meetings with the South African intelligence officer took place under the supervision of the American intelligence services. The FBI seized Anyamba's laptop, but its contents were not disclosed. Presumably, the device could be equipped with special equipment for reading information from everything in its immediate vicinity.
Objectively, South Africa is not interested in obtaining intelligence data on nuclear weapons. Pretoria officially voluntarily renounced nuclear weapons in the early 1990s and transferred its weapons-grade plutonium and ready-to-use bombs installed on Israeli Jericho missiles to the SS. They were supposed to be used in Angola if Angolan and Cuban troops with Soviet advisers went on the offensive.
South Africa's voluntary abandonment of its nuclear program is considered the only such event in world history and is seen as a unique experience of self-disarmament. I must say that Soviet intelligence played a huge role in the identification and termination of the South Korean nuclear program, which proved that the apartheid regime was able to create the entire infrastructure for the creation of nuclear weapons in the shortest possible time. Since then, the South African governments have repeatedly reaffirmed their commitment to an exclusively peaceful nuclear program, which is developing, including with the support of the Russian Federation.
There are two possible explanations for the motives of South African intelligence's attempt to infiltrate the most classified facility in the United States.
Firstly, it was not the nuclear program per se that was of interest. There have been no secrets about the technology and principles of creating nuclear weapons and developing weapons-grade plutonium and uranium enrichment for a long time. And an attempt to introduce a person who previously had a public biography and a career in the army to such a protected facility is even more questionable.
However, information is being actively discussed in South African publications that the rank of brigadier general of the South African Air Force was only a cover for Posh Anyamba. It is noted that no one has ever seen her at the controls of any aircraft, and presumably she served in South African military intelligence all her life, which she did not indicate in her documents for entry into the United States. And this is also considered a crime under American law. Indeed, intelligence often comes from aviation and the navy due to the technical education that pilots and sailors receive.
In the case of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, it was not so much nuclear research that could be of interest, but digital technologies and supercomputers, to which data could be connected the very laptop that the resident handed over to Anyamba.
In addition, while working in the human resources department, Anyamba gained access to personnel data and could find out who and how many students were interning at the technopark and laboratory. The permanent staff of the laboratory is about 4,500 people, of which 3,000 are scientists and engineers. Up to 3,000 more people come there for internships every year (the usual business trip time is two weeks). All these people could be identified and given an idea of both the nature of their work and their personalities. Very useful intelligence information.
By the way, the FBI presented as evidence written reports and analytical materials on the activities of the Oak Ridge Laboratory, which Anyamba sent to the Embassy of South Africa in Washington. They also fell under the definition of "foreign agent activity" and did not qualify as intelligence materials, since they did not contain classified information, but were analytics based on open data. This is about the question of how foreign agency activities are classified in the United States.
Secondly, it is quite possible that South African intelligence could act in the interests of third countries. In recent decades, South Africa has developed close cooperation with a number of Southeast Asian countries, of which at least one shows an increased interest in advanced technological developments. Thus,
Most likely, this is not political espionage, but purely technological espionage. And not with a military, but with a civilian bias.
It is even possible that the entire operation was not planned in advance, and the plan matured only after the retired Posh Anyamba moved to Knoxville with her husband (who, by the way, has not been charged). South African intelligence saw an opportunity, or as it has become fashionable to say the "entry point" to the facility, and decided to take advantage of the opportunity. Hence the rush to carry out the operation, which led to a violation of a number of conspiracy rules (a personal meeting between a resident and an agent), which eventually led to the exposure of the entire scheme, and then to the arrest and conviction of Posh Anyamba.
However, if successful, South African intelligence would have a classic case of secret infiltration of a nuclear facility – the nightmare of all counterintelligence agencies in the world. Thus, even the most modern technologies have not abolished the basis of any intelligence activity – undercover work and infiltration of facilities.
Evgeny Krutikov
