Confessed Spy Alexander Yuk Ching Ma Evidently Did Not Beat the Polygraph

On 18 August 2020, AntiPolygraph.org reported that Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, a former CIA officer and FBI contract linguist charged with espionage, had evidently beaten the polygraph to penetrate the FBI. It now seems clear that this was not the case. On Friday, 24 May 2024, Ma pled guilty to “Conspiracy to Gather and Communicate … Read more

Espionage Act Conviction of Former FBI Intelligence Analyst Kendra Kingsbury Raises Questions About the FBI’s Personnel Security Polygraph Program

On Wednesday, 21 June 2023, U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough sentenced former FBI intelligence analyst Kendra D. Kingsbury, 50, of Kansas to 46 months in prison to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. Kingsbury is to begin serving her 46-month sentence no later than 21 July 2023. On 18 May 2021, Kingsbury … Read more

Accused Russian Spy Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins Evidently Beat the Polygraph to Penetrate INSCOM and the DIA

On Thursday, 20 August 2020, a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted former U.S. Army Special Forces officer Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins of Gainesville, Virginia on a single count of “Conspiracy to Gather or Deliver Defense Information to Aid a Foreign Government.” Debbins was arrested on Friday, 21 August 2020. The indictment … Read more

Accused Spy Alexander Yuk Ching Ma Evidently Beat the Polygraph to Penetrate the FBI

On Thursday, 13 August 2020, FBI Special Agent Chris Jensen filed under seal a criminal complaint against Alexander Yuk Ching Ma of Honolulu, Hawaii, charging him with “Conspiracy to Gather and Communicate National Defense Information of the United States to a Foreign Nation.” On Monday, 17 August 2020, the complaint was unsealed. In an accompanying … Read more

Senior Official at Federal Polygraph School Accused of Espionage

Scott W. Carmichael, a recently retired counterintelligence investigator with the Defense Intelligence Agency, has accused Donald Krapohl, Special Assistant to the Chief, National Center for Credibility Assessment (NCCA) and longtime editor of the American Polygraph Association quarterly, Polygraph, of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. In an e-mail message to retired FBI polygraph examiner Robert … Read more

Accused Cuban Agent Marta Rita Velázquez Allegedly Sought Polygraph Training from Cuban Intelligence Service

On 25 April 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed the existence of a previously sealed indictment (455 kb PDF) against former U.S. Agency for International Development employee Marta Rita Velázquez, who is charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit espionage. The indictment alleges that it was Velázquez who recruited Ana Belen Montes, … Read more

Cuban Spy Nicolás Sirgado Passed CIA Polygraph Three Times

On 17 April 2013, Cuban intelligence officer Nicolás Alberto Sirgado Ros1 died at the age of 77 years according to a short notice published on 19 April by Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba. Cuban website CubaDebate published a lengthier profile of Sirgado, noting that he worked as a double agent … Read more

The Polygraph and the Confession of Jonathan Pollard

Former Naval Investigative Service agent Ron Olive, to whom convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard provided a confession, writes about the circumstances leading up to the confession in an article titled, “Detecting a lie: Agent recalls role in catching a spy” that was published 18 November 2006 by the Arizona Republic: I was the assistant special … Read more

“Who’s Lying?”

In their “Inside the Ring” column, Washington Times reporters Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough question a recent New York Times report that the FBI has begun polygraphing DoD civilians regarding an alleged leak of classified information: Who’s lying? The breathless headline in a major daily newspaper read yesterday, “Polygraph Testing Starts at Pentagon in Chalabi … Read more