Honey Trap, The (2024)

[bunniefuu]

Intense music plays

[Dwight D. Eisenhower] Good

evening, my fellow Americans.

First, I should like

to express my gratitude

to the radio and

television networks

for the opportunities they

have given me over the years

to bring reports and

messages to our nation.



[Eisenhower] We annually spend

on military security alone,

more than the net income of

all United States corporations.

In the councils of government,

we must guard against

the acquisition of

unwarranted influence,

whether sought or unsought

by the military-industrial

complex.

[Roger] President

Eisenhower used the term

military-industrial complex

in his farewell address,

and what that referred to

is this increasing alliance

between our industrial capacity

in the United States

and the military.

[Roger] w*r is fought

on the battlefields

with kinetic energy

and kinetic weapons,

but also, it's

fought in the mind.

It's fought in public opinion.

It's fought through public

relations and propaganda.

The military-entertainment

complex,

as a term, is

playing off of that.

It's suggesting that a similar

kind of alliance is forming,

not with industrial powers,

but with entertainment powers.

[expl*si*n]

[Roger] The really powerful

storytelling mechanism

that is Hollywood,

speaks to a

different part of us.

It speaks to an

emotional register.

It is the most powerful

storytelling mechanism

ever devised by human beings.

In the invasion of Iraq,

we found out a lot about

how the military massages

and manipulates those industries

to get its message out.

We must stop the terror.

Now, watch this drive.

[man 1] Do you

trust this person?

Yes, I do.

[man 2] Combat

boots and fatigues,

mingled with

stilettos and bling.

Good evening, Achmed.

Good evening... infidel.

[Roger] But, if you

can get history written

in Hollywood celluloid,

then you've really done your

job in selling the public

on the story that

you wanna tell.

[George W. Bush] In

the battle of Iraq,

the United States and our

allies have prevailed.

[crowd cheers and applause]

There are large dominant

military-entertainment

complexes out there,

but there's a lot

of small ones too

that are vying for

attention and brain space.

And !sis is one of them.



[male anchor 1]

!sis has released

a new propaganda video.

[male anchor 2] This production

displays glossy camera work

and high-level

production techniques.

[female anchor]

The !sis PR machine

is constantly making sure

the world is aware.

[male anchor 1] Denis

Cuspert is his real name,

a former German rapper,

a notorious !sis

fighter and recruiter.

Allahu Akbar.

[Emily] He was the face of !sis.

There were no celebrities

in !sis except for him.

They would put him on YouTube.

They would put him

everywhere, all the time.

They were constantly

broadcasting Denis.

Denis Cuspert had,

you know, basically

rock star status in !sis.

This individual had

a relative free rein

to encourage and

recruit others online.

[Souad] When I met

Denis the first time,

I could see he was

very charismatic.

I could clearly see

this is somebody

who was gonna become a leader.

[Meili] Denis Cuspert having

his own social media accounts,

creating propaganda, and

just trying to make it

more personalized

for people back home.

[Seamus] If I'm the FBI,

they've seen the videos.

They know he's a player.

It makes sense to target Denis.

[Seamus] Daniela Greene

was hired by the FBI,

as an FBI linguist,

a skill set they

desperately needed.

Allahu Akbar.

Allahu Akbar.

[man] Allahu Akbar.

The FBI thought, "Let's

take this young woman

and let's put her

up against him."

[Lindsay] But communicating

gives you their thoughts

and their motivations,

and it gives you kind of

a window into their soul.

Honey Trap operations,

they come with risks.

Humans all have vulnerabilities,

and there's no greater

vulnerability than sex,

and romance, and love.

[man] Allahu Akbar. Allahu.

Allahu Akbar. [laughs]

[Emily] I had heard of Denis

during my teenage years.

He was a figure who hung out

with people from my high school.

He was very charming.

There were girls who

had a crush on Denis,

but he was well-known as

someone who had a spectacular

kind of criminal past in

terms of very violent crimes

that he'd gone to

jail for repeatedly.

[Emily] Denis came out of

prison from a longer stint,

and he came out and decided

that he was gonna

do gangster rap.

[singing in German]



[Emily] In Kreuzberg, the

kind of most famous g*ng

was "36 Boys,"

which was a g*ng

of mostly Turkish

and Arab and Kurdish youth.

Denis was a member of the g*ng.

He hung with them.

[Emily] Denis grew

up in West Berlin,

which was occupied

by American soldiers.



[Emily] In 1945, the

US liberates Germany

from n*zi rule.

[Emily] Liberated, occupied.

It's important to

always add that.

When the US Army

occupied Germany,

the US Army was

still segregated.

Black American

soldiers were fighting

in a segregated US Army,

and occupying a country

where they were told,

"This is an enemy population."

There were

non-fraternization rules.

But they were starving

and living in bombed-out cities.

Black American G.I.s

were particularly

friendly and generous.

Within a year, you have children

born who are biracial kids.

So, that was part of

what was associated

with Blackness, was America.

[Emily] Denis' mom was a

young woman in the 70s.

She was living in

Kreuzberg at the time

in an unheated apartment

with no warm water,

that kind of thing.

She would go to night clubs

where American G.I.s

would hang out.

Then she met this DJ one

night at a night club

from Ghana, who

was playing there.

Denis' biological father

was deported back to Ghana.

And she never saw him again.

She said she had one

photo of him somewhere.

[Emily] Denis was born

then, very premature.

Denis had no relationship

to his biological father.

She actually showed

me an outfit,

the first outfit that

she dressed him in.

She had it pinned to the

wall in her apartment.

It was a Woolworth teddy

bear that she dressed him

in the... in the teddy

bear's like overalls.

They were really very tiny.

A couple of years later,

when Denis was three or four,

she met Benjamin Cuspert

who was an American

soldier in Berlin,

and they married, and had

a second son, Jermaine.

It's kind of interesting

that Germany's

most well-known t*rror1st

carries the name of

an American soldier.





[Maytha] The media, which

contains journalism,

which contains Hollywood,

and entertainment,

people have called that the

fourth branch of government.

Part of the storytelling

is how Muslims

are understood by Hollywood

and the American

political system.

Frequently, it's

so hard to get away

from the casting

of the characters

like Denis as the

Muslim boogeyman.

Now, what I find interesting

is how that story

can open us up to

talking about stories

that operate as propaganda

to consent to military action.

[Maytha] From the

earliest films,

there's been quite

a long history

of representing Arabs,

the Middle East, Muslims

in a certain kind of way.

[Sut] In terms of

the representations

of Middle East...

If you went to the Middle

East, you will find

incredible diversity,

like all human beings.

And yet, if you looked

at Hollywood films,

which for a long time

was the main propaganda

that was representing

American state power

and American corporate power,

you'd find a very,

very narrow range.

You'd better be able

to pay for that.

Do you know what the

penalty is for stealing?

[Sut] There is a scholar

called Jack Shaheen.

He went through Hollywood

films and documented

how Arabs were represented.

Very, very dehumanizing.

So you're sitting like

I am, for example,

watching Back To The Future...

Why does Hollywood inject Arabs

and/or slurs demeaning Arabs

in movies having nothing

to do with the Middle East?

Who? Who?

Who do you think?

The Libyans!

[Maytha] We have thrillers,

we have True Lies,

we have Executive Decision.

In some of these

Hollywood films,

you see a white

woman stripped down,

her clothes taken off, tied up,

and she's being sold

at an auction block.

You have a series of films

called The Delta Forces.

American marines k*lled

many of my friends

when they bombed Beirut.

[Maytha] This also

coincides with the obsession

around the alleged proliferation

of Arab hijackings of planes,

which happens decontextualized,

with these absurd

cartoonish characters

instilling fear in white

female stewardesses.

We even have these benign films

that have nothing to do

with Muslims or Arabs

portray cartoonish characters.

- What key?

- That key.

Who's taken the key?

[Meili] The negative

portrayal of Muslims

in Western countries and

how Muslims are treated,

it's "us against them."

Muslims are unfortunately

viewed as a monolith

by people who may

not understand,

and their only exposure might

be through shows like 24.

[Maytha] Stories

are at the center

of social cohesion.

We're gonna have to come

up with an alternative.

This is alternative.

[Maytha] Hollywood

doesn't happen

or create images in isolation.

There is a triangle of politics,

pop culture, and public opinion

that are at work.

They have dynamic relationships.

We better wake up and

smell the falafel.

[man] Islam is taking

over our country.

No, ma'am. No, ma'am.

He's a... he's...

he's a decent, family man.

You see,

there's no shades of gray

in this w*r against terror.

Either you're with

the United States

or you're not with

the United States.

[applause]

[Sut] When you decide

to destroy Iraq,

for example, then you've

got to prime a population.

If you look at the

propaganda following 9/11,

there is two years

of intense propaganda

trying to convince people

that 9/11 was connected

to S*ddam Hussein.

So that by the time the

Iraq invasion happens,

you have something like

83% of the population

in support of the w*r.

With horrible disastrous results

and a power vacuum created

into which !sis was thrust.

If you look at the propaganda,

you pick on the most powerless

people in the society

and you turn them

into scapegoats.

"These people

aren't really human.

They don't love their

kids like we love them. "

If you believe that, then

these are not real people.

These are not real human beings.

And therefore, you can

do anything to them.

Dramatic music plays

The invisibilized dominant power

is the American military.

It's the American empire,

how it pervades and influences

every part of his

and his community's

understanding

of what is just and unjust.

[Emily] In 2006, he

was meant to tour

with DMX in the US

after touring with him

in Germany and Europe.

[indistinct, talking to crowd]

So whoever the f*ck gets

on this stage tonight,

real dudes, we're doing

real f*cking things, baby.

[Emily] Denis flew to LA

to perform there with him,

but he wasn't allowed to fly in.

He thought they

didn't let him in

because he had like a kind

of knockoff Adidas shoe

with a plane flying in,

that was supposed to look

like the Twin Towers.

Dramatic music plays

[Emily] Denis kind

of jumped around

from subculture to

subculture in a way.

He went from rap to trying

to be an MMA fighter.

Dramatic music plays



[crowd reacts]

[Emily] Denis challenged

Ismail Cetinkaya.

He sort of very

publicly challenged him.

[man] Fight!

[Emily] The main guy

in the German context

who was recruiting Germans

to join the Salafist movement,

and many of them went to !sis,

was this guy called

Pierre Vogel,

who's a white German guy,

who was a boxing champion.

I do think that there

was a correlation

between Denis losing

and being humiliated

in that fight,

and then having this

meeting with Pierre Vogel,

where he was given an out.

There's a video of Pierre Vogel

where he's sitting with Denis,

and it's the video where he

convinces Denis to give up rap.

[Emily] Denis is very

humble and moved.

Dramatic music plays



[Emily] People thought it

was kind of ridiculous,

but he was serious about it.

Dramatic music plays



[director] Do you wanna

just introduce yourself?

Mm-hm. My name is

Souad Mekhennet.

I'm the international

security correspondent

for the Washington Post.

[Norah] For nearly 20 years,

journalist Souad Mekhennet

had... has covered

some of the world's

most dangerous conflicts.

She's gained rare access

to the inner circles

of groups like the Taliban,

Al-Qaeda, and !sis.

In 2015, she co-wrote the

blockbuster Washington Post

article that unmasked

!sis k*ller Jihadi John

as British citizen,

Mohammed Emwazi.

Her latest book,

recounts some of her

most dangerous

reporting assignments.

[Souad] The last book

I published is called

I Was Told To Come Alone:

My Journey Behind

the Lines of Jihad,

where I also wrote

about Denis Cuspert.

I met Denis Cuspert

before he joined !sis.

A young imam from Berlin

contacted me one day and said,

"Souad, there is somebody

who I think you should meet.

He's someone who

comes to my mosque

and I'm a bit

worried about him."

I went to Berlin

and I entered the

office of the imam,

and there was this

young man sitting

who then stood up when

I entered the office,

which I found very interesting,

to show his respect.

And we greeted each

other in Arabic

with, you know,

As-salamu alaykum,

and that was Denis Cuspert.

We had a very long conversation

where we spoke about

how he felt as a child

growing up with, you know,

a lot of discrimination

and racism.

I could relate to

that a little bit

because I grew up

in Germany as well

as the child of

so-called guest workers.

He was looking for

an identity like,

"Who am I? Where do I

belong? Where's my home?"

He felt like somebody who was

really looking for a path,

but he was also looking for

being able to talk to somebody.

Now, you have to understand,

in Germany or in Europe,

very often when young men

want to discuss these things,

imams feel a bit...

they're very careful

about having such

political debates

in their mosques

because they are afraid

that the intelligence

services would say,

"Wait a second, you're

allowing these...

this is extremism.

You're allowing people

to talk... discuss this

and to have anti-Western

views there."

This is where

recruiters understand

they can actually step

in and recruit somebody.

When I met Cuspert

in... Cuspert in...

at the mosque in Berlin,

he was still

somebody where I felt

there could have been a

chance to not lose him

into the hands of extremism,

but there was no one there

who would have these

conversations with him.

[reporter speaking

foreign language]

[reporter] [in English]

A g*nman fired shots

at US military

personnel on a bus

outside Frankfurt

Airport, Wednesday.

Two Air Force airmen are

dead and two more wounded.

[Barack Obama] I'm saddened

and I'm outraged by this attack

that took the lives

of two Americans.

I want everybody to understand

that we will spare no effort

in learning how this

outrageous act took place.

And in working with

German authorities

to ensure that all

of the perpetrators

are brought to justice.

[reporter] US and

German officials say

they have a better idea now

who the suspected g*nman

Arid Uka might be.

He apparently was a

prolific Facebook poster.

He visited a lot

of Jihadi websites.

When asked about the sh**ting

of the airmen, he said, simply,

"They're at w*r with us."

Which tells us something about

his mindset and possible motive.

[Souad] I learned that there

was an attack in Frankfurt.

I went to see Arid's family

after the attack happened.

I asked them if they

would speak to me,

and they said he was a quiet

but sometimes also very

depressed young man

who had also issues

trying to find his

way in the world.

His brother told me,

Arid told him that he

was following on Facebook

somebody who posted a video.

The video showed an Iraqi woman

was r*ped by US soldiers.

We're searching for evidence.

We're looking for, what?

Weapons of mass destruction.

You ready? Here you go.

Here you go. Come here, Salazar.

Come here. Take

her f*cking hand.

[Souad] And a message from

the person who posted it,

"We need to defend the

honor of our sisters."

And I asked him,

"Do you remember who

posted the video?

Like, who was the person

your brother was following?"

He said, "I think

it was somebody,

something like

Dogg, Deso, Deso."

And I said, "Deso Dogg?

You mean the former rapper?"

And he said, "Yes, yes.

He was a former rapper."

And I was actually in shock.

We see here is a

video he posted.

This young man, followed

him, watched the video,

and was emotionally

so upset about this,

thinking it was reality.

We know now today it wasn't.

[Souad] I spoke to

Cuspert about it later.

I said, "Did you know that

the video was not reality,

that it was actually

from a movie?"

And he didn't know that,

but he actually felt

that what Arid

Uka did was right.

And he congratulated

"the brother"

as he called him and said,

"Because you know, those..."

he said, "Those servicemen,

they were on their

way to... you know,

they were k*lling... they

would have k*lled Muslims,

so they were not innocent."

When the thing with

the video happened,

I understood, "Okay.

He actually crossed that bridge

into the extremism."

[Kevin] My name is

Kevin Gallagher.

I'm a special agent

with the FBI's

Washington Field Office.

My particular squad

focused primarily

on what we refer to

as t*rror1st use

of the internet,

which heavily relies

on investigations

into t*rror1st

media organizations

and their radicalization

and recruitment

of people in the United States.

Denis Cuspert was an individual

who I was aware of

probably in about 2011,

2012 timeframe.

Yes, he was a t*rror1st,

but he was also a

cult of personality.

This is an individual

who's had contact

with, you know,

American rappers.

The types of rappers that

I grew up in high school

and college listening to.

[Lindsay] The FBI

is interested in...

what are his communications

with people in

the United States?

Does he have followers here

who might have a

sleeper cell here?

[Kevin] At the FBI,

we broke up the world

into various areas

of responsibility.

The German language

radicalization movement

was one of those efforts,

and that is why the

Detroit Field Office

had the investigation

of Denis Cuspert.

Daniela Greene was assigned

to the Detroit Field office

as a contract linguist.

Her job was to accurately

translate information

as it was recovered

related to communications

that Denis Cuspert was having,

not only with people

in the United States,

but all across the world.

In the FBI, our

translators' perspective

and their professional

opinions is highly important

to the investigative team.

So she was part of that

investigative team,

and her information

and her input was vital

to tracking Denis Cuspert.

[Meili] Tracking is just

following their online chatter,

looking at their

propaganda releases

in various online spaces,

and also just observing,

kind of just being

like a fly on the wall.

She was assigned to the

case involving Deso Dogg.

Her goal was to lure him

out of Syria into Turkey

so he would be

subject to arrest.

But I have seen situations

in !sis chat rooms

where individuals seem

to begin to very strongly

emotionally bond

with one another.

And it does recall more

normal circumstances

like online dating.

I have seen that

type of relationship

resulting in people

being willing

to make really bad,

awful decisions

because of the social bond

that they create online.

[insects chirping]

[Kevin] I've seen

the tabloids that

lend to Daniela Greene

being a honeypot.

That couldn't be

further from the truth.

[Lindsay] To say that

Daniela was not a traditional

honeypot operation is very true.

But the reality is,

I think it was very deliberate

to use Daniela

to communicate

with Denis Cuspert.

When people are running

intelligence operations,

they're always thinking about

what is gonna be

the best tactic.

And I think that in

this particular case,

they recognized that

maybe Denis Cuspert

had a weakness for women.

Upbeat music plays



[Lindsay] He's likely

to respond to her

and wanna chat with

her, and Skype with her,

and maybe send her pictures

and tell her secrets.

He's not gonna do

that with a dude.

It's just human nature.

Everybody conducts

honeypot operations.

The FBI, the CIA,

the Russian Intelligence

Services, the Mossad.

Now, I should be clear

about that, because the...

often, there's confusion about

what a honeypot operation is.

A honeypot operation is one

where typically a woman

targets a man,

plays upon his male

vulnerabilities,

flirts with him, seduces him.

[singer] With nothing

but a piece of rope

[Lindsay] And gets him

to tell her secrets.

[singer] Dreaming

every night of you

[Lindsay] As an operative,

it was easy for me

to go up and talk

to a foreign man

and to express interest.

It is strictly forbidden for

CIA officers or FBI agents

to have romantic relationships

with their targets.

But that does happen.

It's happened

throughout history.

This was not the

first time it happened

and it certainly

won't be the last.

But we have to keep

in mind that Daniela

was not a trained CIA operative,

not a trained recruiter,

nor was she a trained FBI agent.

She was really conscripted

as a translator.

This is an FBI contract employee

with a top secret

security clearance.

There's a lot of trust

that the government puts

in the people that it hires.

These individuals

are granted access

to some of the United States

government's biggest secrets.

What is always the

risk in that case

is that there's going

to be some real romance

that emerges from that.

So the investigative team

was aware of two Skype accounts

that were being utilized

by Denis Cuspert

to communicate with

his associates.

Daniela Greene created

a third Skype account

and had direct communication

with Denis Cuspert

that was unknown to

the investigative team

and that's where she

went off the rails.

It's probably...

the most concerning

part of that case

is how do we defend

ourselves from our own?

[Seamus] You know, other aspects

to think about in this case,

her marriage to

her first husband

who was a US military officer.

How does someone go

from an FBI linguist,

to a military wife,

to joining a foreign

t*rror1st organization?

That's a hell of a

radicalization path.

[Lance] I first met Daniela

when she was a student

here at Cameron in

Lawton, Oklahoma.

She was extremely

intelligent, a hard-worker,

and kinda quiet and

very attractive,

which I normally

wouldn't mention,

but I think, you know,

she seemed out of...

this guy that she

hooked up with,

she was way out of his league.

[Renee] I'm an Air Force wife.

[Renee] And Daniela

was an army wife.

She is married to my

brother-in-law, Matt.

Being married to a

military man, in my view,

that's like an honor, you know?

Matthew got married to Daniela,

who was from Germany,

because Matthew was stationed

over in Germany, in

the army at the time.

[Lance] Got this American

soldier stationed in Germany,

meets a German girl, and

I hope it was true love,

but he must've been her

ticket out of Germany.

And I don't mean to be

critical or negative of him.

That was just an

impression I had.

She's young but she's

already married.

She's not from around here.

So she gets here

not knowing anyone.

[Renee] I'm sure it

was still hard on her,

for her to leave her family.

The military life for

the wife, you know,

it's not an easy lifestyle.

Not everybody can handle it.

[Lance] I met Matt

when she graduated.

It didn't seem like

a happy couple.

There was kind of a

sadness about her.

She just didn't seem happy.

We didn't know what

happened to her after that.

And, of course,

we found out later

she'd gotten hired by the FBI.

I don't think they cared

about her master's degree.

They liked the fact that

she was fluent in German.

[Renee] They had her talking

to this recruiter of !sis.

And with her talking to him,

I think she may have started

getting feelings for him.

Because that happens

to people, you know?

When you talk to people online,

you hear about it all the time.

I don't know if

she's having problems

with my brother-in-law,

but I think just with

her talking to him,

she may have seen him

in a different light

than what we see him.

I would never have imagined

her doing something like this.

I think she's a

traitor to our country.

[speaking foreign language]

[men speaking foreign language]

[Emily] After the terror

attack in Frankfurt,

Denis took part

in a demonstration

against the Danish cartoons.

Demonstrations that got violent.

And a policeman

was stabbed there.

But it's a very well-filmed

and well-produced video.

And Denis is sort of

like the star of it.

[Emily] That was the

last thing that happened.

And because a

policeman was injured,

he disappeared then.

One of the interesting aspects

of the German

state's role in !sis

is that German intelligence

encouraged German Salafists

to go to Syria for a while.

They encouraged and

they facilitated it.

So they encouraged

people to leave,

sort of to export the

problem of these people

like, "Oh, they're gone now.

Let them terrorize

people somewhere else."

And he, in fact,

resurfaced in Syria.

Which was, I think,

surprised a lot of people

because he'd always

basically been in Berlin.

He was this boy from

Berlin, this guy from Berlin

who we've all known about

through these various

episodes of his life.

[Souad] When he joined !sis,

they wanted you to do something.

You could either be a soldier

or you became a member

of the propaganda team.

He became a member of

the propaganda team.

[Fernandez] Denis Cuspert

becomes one of the most

prominent !sis influencers.

But something

happened over time.

The propagandists of !sis

were deeply influenced

by Hollywood.

!sis had been

producing these videos

terrifying people.

Their videos got more

and more extravagant,

better production values.

You see a kind of

cinematic creativity.

[Souad] What !sis did was

a totally different level.

I mean, !sis created videos

that really looked like

professionally-made

Hollywood movies.

[reporter] !sis has released

a new propaganda video.

[reporter] This new and very

glossy recruitment video

which looks professionally shot

and edited as though

!sis were taking cues

from Hollywood films

such as Zero Dark Thirty

and The Hurt Locker to

maximize the terror.

[Roger] !sis' media

production facilities

take a direct cue from

what has been going on

in the United States

for a long time.

They've watched

all the w*r movies.

They view the military

entertainment complex

as kind of the tail end

or the final maturation

of what scholars call "the

mediatization of w*r."

[Roger] The US government

is into our media sphere

in every possible way.

The DOD, in 1949, set up

the Entertainment Media

Production Office.

And if you wanna make a movie

that involves military equipment

or personnel, there's

only one place to get it.

[Roger] You have to

hand in your script.

Have them look it

over. Review it.

And the Pentagon responds

with script change requests.

You make those

changes and you get

a sort of clean bill of

health from the military

and you get access to the stuff.

And that's the core

of this relationship.

But, you know, this is

sort of industry-wide.

Really, when we

started digging in,

we had to make official

requests to the US government.

You do this through the

Freedom of Information Act.

And so we started doing

this by the hundreds.

It's happened, by our account,

2,500 to 3,000 times

that we can confirm.

My expectation was it's gonna

be a bunch of w*r films.

And it's not. Maybe 10%.

Pitch Perfect 3,

the military gave

them access to bases

and access to troops

and pretty much gave

them the whole set.

The military went into sci-fi.

So you see a lot of

Transformers and Iron Man.

There are, you know, some

hardcore representations

in Iron Man of

Afghani t*rrorists

who are antagonizing Iron Man

and k*lling children

and things like that,

that are, you know,

DOD-sponsored.

Iron Man and Transformers

become this way of talking

about the w*r, but not

really being a w*r movie.

My turn.

[Roger] There's an

entire apparatus at work.

Not just one individual

pulling the strings,

an interaction between

two large institutions.

You know, Hollywood's

driven by money

and they want the biggest

bang for their buck,

and obviously, they're gonna

go for this relationship.

And the US government is in it

to fill the recruitment quotas.

The military

entertainment complex

is going to wanna

maximize recruitment.

Top g*n is a good place to go

if you wanna talk

about recruitment.

Top g*n completely

turned the set of images

about what the military

is on its head.

You know, it's not wading

through the jungle muck

and watching your friend die.

It's about being encased

in this high-tech tube of steel

and rocketing through

the atmosphere

and high-fiving your friends.

And !sis' very powerful and

high-production value...

image making factory,

they very well understand

that, you know,

this empire over here is

doing that very, very well.

Our little empire

might try to, you know,

take a cue from them

and try it as well.

!sis' military equipment,

it's not F-22s,

it's little white pickups

with a bunch of AK-47s.

But they've got stuff.

They're using

established genres,

they're using

established storylines.

[Fernandez] Even though

they were against the West,

they were, in many ways,

deeply influenced by the West.

So you'll see an !sis

video, if you look at,

like, there's a bunch of horses,

and you slow the video

down and you broaden up,

and you see that they're

the Riders of Rohan

from Lord of the Rings.

Almost you can say

that they were fans.

You can say they're

wannabe Tarantinos,

taking this all in,

having it influence them,

and then wanting to put it back

in their own variation

of what they were

taking from the West.

But obviously, doing things

that Hollywood can't do,

which is actually

k*lling people on-screen.

[Souad] I spoke to one

of the people who...

he was responsible

for !sis' media.

He said sometimes,

when they were planning

a beheading, and I'm sorry

I have to speak about this,

but I mean, it was unbelievable

that even when they had

planned a beheading,

they would bring

in the camera team.

And the camera team, while

this person was kneeling,

while this man was kneeling

in front of the person

who was supposed to behead

him, they would tell this guy,

"Okay. You have to hold

the knife this way.

You have to, you know,

wait, turn this way

because the sun is better,

the lighting is there."

[Souad] !sis propaganda

films evolved to a place

where they had a

story and a plot.

In some films, they would

force their captives

to be actors. They would

perform reenactments.

And the prisoners

would play themselves

right up to their execution.

[Fernandez] !sis realized that

"media is more than

half the battle."

You have these incredible videos

released before

the fall of Mosul.

You could say an extensive

propaganda campaign,

kind of information

operations by !sis,

to prepare the ground

for the taking of

the city of Mosul.

And we know for example

that the !sis force

that took Mosul was

outnumbered ten to one or more.

They just melted away

in terror that these

guys were in the city

and that they were

coming to get them.

[Fernandez] The !sis

propaganda apparatus

saw that you wanted

not one approach,

but many approaches.

So, you know, for example,

we in the West often focus

on "the slaughter videos"

and those certainly

got a lot of eyeballs,

a lot of attention,

a lot of controversy.

But actually, the

slaughter videos

are only a small part

of what !sis produced.

!sis produced lots of

other types of videos.

[Seamus] The utopian

version of !sis,

the version they put

on their propaganda

and things like that,

is they're basically

pitching an American

dream, !sis version.

We'll give you a white

picket fence and the house,

and we'll build

this great society.

[Devorah] Fifty-three thousand

men, women, and children

joined the Islamic State

from over 80 countries.

That's a big number.

[Devorah] !sis' real goal

was this state-building project.

They took over large

swaths of territory

in Syria and Iraq.

A lot of their propaganda

that they were doing,

their videos, their magazines,

was a lot of

state-building propaganda.

They collected taxes,

they ran the police force.

[Seamus] Come to

Syria and Iraq,

we're gonna build a society

and we need you to join.

And you had these

charismatic leaders.

Denis is a great

example of that.

[speaking foreign language]

[Souad] I don't know what

was going on in her head.

I don't know if it

was part of her job

to pretend that

she was interested

in that part of the

messaging of the caliphate.

It was definitely something

Daniela was fascinated by,

how equal everything was.

That's what I was told

by somebody who

was close to her.

[Devorah] Daniela Greene

knew what !sis was.

She knew what !sis

was trying to achieve

and perhaps part of it had to do

with her relationship

with Denis Cuspert

and her wanting to explore that.

But there's wanting

to explore that,

and there's wanting

to travel to Syria

to join the Islamic State to

explore that with someone.

[Kevin] June 11, 2014,

Greene told her supervisor

her intentions to

travel to Germany

to visit her mother.

[Seamus] There's a normal

form that the FBI requires

everyone who's traveling

with a top secret clearance

to fill out.

She fills out the form, says

she's gonna go to Germany

to see her family,

and clearly doesn't.

[Emily] Daniela

Greene fell for him

and really wanted to go

and live there in Syria.

The FBI had not realized

that she had gone rogue.

I was at home with my

family and I received

a phone call from my

supervisor at the time.

He informed me

that Daniela Greene

had never had any intention

to travel to Germany,

but in fact to travel to Syria.

So at the time we started

the investigation,

we didn't really

understand why she left.

When the investigation

really got into it

and we were able to review

the Skype conversations

that she was having

with Denis Cuspert,

what we saw was not

just the communications

between one individual

and a t*rror1st,

but the communications between

Daniela and another human.

There were pet names

that were provided

to one another throughout

these conversations.

We don't know if she was, like,

genuinely in love with him

or just kind of lost and decided

that she would

take certain risks.

And maybe she was a rogue agent

who thought she was

gonna get a promotion

for doing really dangerous work

of being a honey trap.

At that time when Daniela

went to meet Denis in Syria,

Turkey was the obvious

place to go as a conduit.

[Seamus] You get to Istanbul,

you go down to the border towns,

you kind of wait until

someone vouches for you.

In this case, she

already had an in.

She had Denis to vouch for her.

So that pulls a lot of weight.

And so instead of

waiting weeks at a time,

which we saw a number of cases,

you know, she was able

to cross very quickly.

Daniela Greene

traveled over to Syria

and married Denis Cuspert

within a matter of days.

[Kim] Daniela came to Syria

the same day I arrived.

My name is Kim

and I went to Syria

from 2014 until 2020.

And I just got out

of jail in August...

the 1st August, this year.

The first time I met Deso,

so it was here in Germany.

He was handsome and the

people knew about him,

everybody knew about him.

I didn't see it like,

"Oh, I know Deso Dogg.

I talked with him."

So I was not like, "Oh, my God.

Deso Dogg is in town..."

Throwing my bra at him. No.

But the men were,

like, groupies on him.

It was very weird.

I don't know why.

I was over there in !sis area

with my ex-husband because...

problems in Germany.

Here, we have only a lot of

problems and sh*t around,

and the people called

my ex-husband also

and told him, "It's great here.

Come over. You'll get houses

and everything will be fine."

They talked about it like

it's a fairytale over there,

so it made the

decision very easy.

And it wasn't... it

wasn't the real life.

So when I arrived over there,

I was completely shocked

because it wasn't like this.

The foreign people,

they were more harsh

than Arabic people.

German people,

yes, they were very

harsh to the...

to the local people.

They were weird people

with not a lot of friends.

In Syria, they got power.

In the beginning

when I met Daniela,

she seemed like a

nice, polite person,

very quiet and calm.

But also a little bit weird

because I asked her about

how long she is in Islam

and she said, "Not that long.

Maybe few weeks, few months."

And she doesn't

know how to pray.

Daniela, she was doing a lot

of stupid sh*t, dumb sh*t,

and she was putting

her a*s in danger.

[Emily] !sis was at

the height of its power

when Daniela Greene

showed up in Syria

to marry Denis.

But it's not like a

stable environment

to have a honeymoon

with your boyfriend.

People like Denis were

going back and forth

between the front in Iraq

and then back to Syria.

And so she's left with

a bunch of other women

who aren't particularly

well-inclined toward her

because she's sketchy.

[Kim] She wanted to know

everything about everybody

and she was checking

on the window.

She was looking

inside of the room,

in the cupboards, and she

was, like, spying around.

It got very dangerous for her.

I don't understand why she

put herself in more trouble.

[Kim] He helped her because

I think he didn't want

to get her k*lled

if !sis catches her.

[Souad] The fact

that Daniela Greene

was able to leave is

very, very interesting.

If the version of

what the people

who were close to him...

what they told me is true,

he was able to get her out

even though so many people

were suspicious of her.

People say that he

loved her as well,

which is why after she

told him, supposedly,

that she worked for the FBI,

he still allowed her to...

or helped her to... to return

to Turkey... to

cross into Turkey

because he didn't want

her to get k*lled.

[Volkmar] My name

is Volkmar Kabisch.

I am working for the German

public broadcaster, NDR,

and I was quite

often in Syria, Iraq

since 2014.

[Volkmar] I was interested

in what happened

to people joining !sis.

I made films about this.

[Volkmar] Fared Saal

was pretty much involved

in the German Islamist

scene for quite a long time

before joining !sis.

And Denis Cuspert did the

same and they met in Syria.

And Denis was,

like, the big shot

and Fared was

not that famous as Denis.

But Denis wanted him

to be more famous,

so Denis planned

a public relation act,

which was filming very

brutal !sis video.

[man] There was a video

full of dead bodies,

Syrian bodies.

And Fared Saal was

standing just next to them,

and he was there

together with Denis

who filmed him.

So he was the director.

And it was all about

public relation.

[Souad] Denis was

still important.

The propaganda team had

quite a lot of power.

They were seen as important

as the fighters for !sis.

But it didn't mean that

you wouldn't have to also

k*ll somebody if

they asked you to.

I believe the fact that he

stayed there for so long

is that he... if they

would've asked him

to k*ll somebody, he

would've k*lled somebody.

Yeah.

[muted dialogue]

[Kevin] I've had a lot of

FBI cases come across my desk

and I've seen quite

a lot in the 15 years

that I've worked at the FBI.

But I had never seen

something like this.

I remember meeting

her at Dulles Airport

upon her arrival

and her being placed in custody.

I introduced myself to her,

said, "My name is

Kevin Gallagher.

I'm a special agent

with the FBI."

And she looked me in the eye

and she said, "I know you."

I came to learn that her and I

are actually in a

training course in 2012.

[Shawn] My name is Shawn Moore.

I was the attorney

for Daniela Greene.

I was a public defender

doing cases here in DC,

and it was in the courtroom

that I first met her.

They kept her at a

hotel near Dulles

for a couple of days,

interviewing her.

It wasn't as if I met her

immediately upon her arrival.

The prosecutors

approached me and said,

"Look, she's facing a

considerable amount of time,

she could help herself

if she could help us."

The charges against Daniela,

it involved making

a false statement

to the government, but

there was an enhancement

because the false statements

also involved terrorism.

Initially, when she started

doing the translating,

she was following the line

in trying to help

lure him to a place

where he could be arrested.

Now, aside from the romantic

conversations with Cuspert,

I don't know too much about that

and whether that was

true or false or what.

But my impression was that

because it wasn't working,

she became frustrated

and she decided to take

things into her own hands

and she got into something

way, way over her head.

[Stephen] You have a

high-ranking FBI employee

who had knowledge that

would've been restricted

and that right there is

enough to be criminal

in terms of the Espionage Act.

That law was passed

for the sake of

chomping down on people

who walk away with secrets.

The Espionage Act

does not require you

to go online and

distribute information.

It's enough to make

information available.

And her knowing information

and going to !sis-held Syria

would've been a slam

dunk court case.

And these are, like,

stiff sentences.

It's, like, ten years per count.

[Kevin] After she was

arraigned and brought to jail,

we immediately

went to an offsite.

We spent with her

over the course

of the next 24 hours,

probably about 12 hours,

interviewing her,

triaging that with focusing

on any potential threats

to the United States.

At no point did we feel that

she withheld information

from the United

States government.

And based on the

information that we received

in the sentencing memo,

the Assistant United

States Attorney

identifies that Daniela

Greene came very close

to skirting the line of

far more serious charges.

Ultimately, she pleaded guilty

and was given a

sentence of two years.

She was obviously relieved.

But it's almost as if she was

still kind of in

a state of shock

about what everything

that had happened.

But that said, throughout

this, she was always concerned

about how much of this

was going to get out

and if so, when.

[Scott] I've been in

the hotel business

for approximately 30 years

and there was a

great opportunity

for me to transfer to

a big brand new hotel

in downtown Syracuse as

director of sales and marketing.

Each night after work,

I would go to the

concierge lounge

and kind of unwind a little bit,

have a nice cold beer

and eat some dim sum.

And Daniela was

the hostess there.

When I first met Daniela,

she was quite an

attractive woman

with European characteristics,

straight blonde hair

and a slight little

German tint of an accent

to her voice.

She was well-poised and was

obviously in quite command

of the job that she was doing.

She was a person that I saw

as immediately overqualified

for the position she had.

So right away, I

started thinking,

"Gee, where can she fit?

Where does she want to go?"

I walked into the lounge one day

and Daniela was obviously upset

and she was really very shaken.

I knew that she was

previously married.

She was separated from

her husband, Matt.

It was really very tough.

She was going... obviously going

through a transitional period

in her life.

I asked her what the problem was

and she just blew it off

a little bit and said,

"Gee, it's just

something that happened

in my previous life that

I'm really sorry about

and I really regret."

[Lindsay] It's preposterous

to me that she only spent

two years in prison.

The fact that she went

rogue in this fashion,

that they had no

idea where she was,

that she was essentially

operating against the Bureau

without their knowledge of it,

it's very embarrassing

for the FBI.

The US government and the FBI,

they don't want the press

questioning Daniela.

They don't want her side

of the story to get out.

The FBI would have preferred

if no one knew about this case,

if it just kind of got

brushed under the carpet.



A bizarre story that really

does sound like something

straight out of Homeland

or a terrorism movie.

It's an FBI translator

who was investigating

an !sis fighter in 2014

and then fled the

United States for Syria

and married him.

[man] Love can make

us do strange things.

The story of an FBI translator

who married an !sis t*rror1st.

[woman] It's a story almost

too preposterous to be true.

The FBI translator who

runs off to the Middle East

to marry the t*rror1st

she was tracking

from the Detroit

FBI Field Office.

Drew, this is an

incredible story.

What's the FBI saying

about how it happened?

[woman] Greene, who still

had an American husband

at the time, wrote an email...

You know, was having an

affair with an !sis operative.

Given that Cuspert knew

she worked for the FBI.

The case got zero

publicity for months

because the records

were sealed by the court

and critics say Greene got

off with a light sentence,

two years and probation,

because she cooperated

with the FBI.

And like we said in our

report, most people facing

these type of

charges are getting

much more severe sentences

than this former FBI employee.

[man] Daniela got a great deal.

It seems that the government

is protecting itself

by protecting her.

She's back in the US

with her ex-husband,

Sergeant Matthew Greene,

and after serving

a short sentence,

she's now working

at the Home Depot.

[Seamus] So in 2014,

you have to remember,

our intelligence

on !sis was good,

but it wasn't great.

We knew the top leadership.

We could have a general

sense of the structure,

but anyone who could

light up the network,

who goes where, what

do you do in there,

that is immensely valuable.

[Kevin] Her cooperation

was extensive.

It provided

information about !sis

that we hadn't seen to date

and we had eyes on the ground.

While that was

not our intention,

it was a byproduct

of the situation

that we were presented.

[Lindsay] Maybe she's

savvier than we all think

and she was able to

negotiate that deal

by providing very

specific information.

[Shawn] The FBI agents,

they were very interested

in locations of houses,

where he stayed.

She provided as much

information as she could

about what Cuspert was doing,

led me to believe

that they were trying

to get information

to target him.

[Obama] Last night on my orders,

America's armed

forces began strikes

against ISIL targets in Syria.

[singing foreign language]

[man] Wars succeed by this

drumbeat of propaganda,

to feel people encouraged,

to inspire, and to

terrify, has real meaning.

To move the heart is power.

[man] Thank you.

Thank you too.

- That's good?

- [director] That's great. Yes.

- Thank you.

- Thank you. Thank you.