Did you know about the only (known) QUINTUPLE spy in World War II?

Espionage has always been a part of warfare, and so have been double agents, who pretend to serve one side but really help the other. Even triple agents are known to have existed. But a quintuple agent, ostensibly serving five sides but betraying some for the benefit of the others, is a bizarrely rare occurrence. Today’s article is about Bhagat Ram Talwar, the only known quintuple agent in World War II.

Talwar was born to a wealthy but politically charged family in the northwest of British India. His father was originally pro-British, but turned against colonial rule after a 1919 massacre of over 379 Indians by British soldiers. A decade later, Talwar’s brother was hanged for trying to assassinate a British governor. Talwar himself became radicalized and joined a communist organization in India.

In January 1914, Talwar helped Indian revolutionary leader (and national hero to this day) Subhas Chandra Bose escape from his house which was under British surveillance. Bose was disguised as a deaf and mute Muslim pilgrim, and Talwar as his secretary. Wearing costumes, they made their way to Afghanistan, from where Bose traveled on through the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany (the two countries were not at war yet) to seek foreign aid to kick the British out of India.

Talwar remained in Asia and started working for Fascist Italy as a spy, charting British troop locations and opportunities for subversion. Italy eventually started sharing Talwar’s services with Germany and Japan as well, and he even received a radio set from the Germans so he could broadcast reports directly to Berlin. He was also paid well for his work, raking in around 3.4 million USD in today’s money.

Germany invaded the Soviet Union in late June 1941, causing Talwar’s loyalties to shift. As a communist, he could no longer aid the Axis in good conscience, so he started working for the Soviets. The Soviets found themselves in an unlikely alliance with Britain. Still playing their cards close to their chest, they only shared a single spy with their new ally – Talwar. Finding himself working for the hated British, Talwar continued sending military information to the Axis, only it was now all fake information broadcasted from the garden of the Viceregal Palace in Delhi. On a sidenote, Talwar’s British handler was one Peter Fleming, the brother of Ian Fleming, the later creator of James Bond and himself a member of the British intelligence community.

Once the war was over, Talwar added a hefty British payment for his services to the wealth he got out of the Axis powers, and disappeared into the wilderness of Northwest India, only surfacing again and settling down more than two decades later.