Topic: Businessmen

Mossad successfully duped the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo into a partnership through a shell company in Hungary to produce pagers for Hezbollah. The agency created fake YouTube advertisements and brochures touting the devices' robustness and battery life to encourage adoption. Hezbollah was unaware they were purchasing the devices from Israeli intelligence, even when offered "free upgrades" by a trusted saleswoman.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is reportedly expanding the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to create a secondary spy network that recruits American businessmen operating abroad. This move is seen as a direct competition with the CIA's existing operations. Concerns are raised that using businessmen as intelligence assets puts all American commercial travelers at risk of being suspected of espionage in foreign countries.

The discussion differentiates between various groups of Chinese businessmen, highlighting the "Malaysian Chinese" as particularly aggressive and influential in global trade. Dvorak suggests this group is behind many of the high-stakes deals in Africa and dominates the Malaysian economy.