Of Honey Traps & Espionage: Are CEOs The New Targets?

The California Post’s catchy headline, “Huang Huang Bang Bang”, said it all. The man who took the tech world by storm with Nvidia, the company that produces some of the world’s most cutting-edge chips, was caught with his pants down. Jensen Huang, the charismatic, leather-jacket-wearing CEO, admitted to having an extramarital affair with Alice Huang, a former executive of Singapore-based data centre company Megaspeed, who is suspected of having links to Chinese intelligence.

The U.S. authorities are investigating allegations that Alice Huang was gathering information for Beijing after developing a close relationship with Jensen Huang. Amid the growing controversy, Jensen Huang resigned from Nvidia. However, the espionage allegations remain unproven.

Honey traps and corporate espionage occur all over the world, involving politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen. To a large extent, such activities have been more pronounced in defence and national security, as depicted in most James Bond films.

Talking about honey traps, there is the reported case of a well-known Indian political leader — scion of an illustrious family — who allegedly fell out of favour with the BJP government after suspicions about him reportedly reached Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the BJP's first term. It was alleged that the young politician had been honey-trapped and blackmailed into revealing defence-related information. Nothing was proved, but the politician subsequently found himself in the political wilderness. The alleged connection between these events remains unsubstantiated.

With regard to corporate espionage, the first case I heard about was the Coomar Narain–SLM Maneklal espionage scandal in 1985. It was one of the largest espionage scandals in independent India. If I recall correctly, The Illustrated Weekly of India, a Times Group publication, did a cover story on him.

Narain, who was associated with SLM Maneklal Industries, allegedly operated a network that procured classified information from government offices and passed it on to foreign diplomatic missions. Newspaper reports said he had spied for France, Poland, East Germany and the Soviet Union for 25 years.

The investigation implicated officials connected with the PMO, Rashtrapati Bhavan and other ministries. Twelve former government employees were convicted in 2002.

What makes this case particularly interesting is that a private-sector firm was allegedly involved in obtaining sensitive government information for commercial and foreign interests.

Corporate espionage cases are quite common in sectors such as FMCG, pharmaceuticals and automobiles. For example, in the detergent space, there have been allegations that a product being developed by a desi company, still at the R&D stage, found its way into the office of an FMCG giant.

I can also recall the cut-throat competition in the shaving blade sector. During the mid-eighties, there were strong allegations that a market leader would buy competitors’ blades, immerse them in water, repack them after they developed rust and distribute them. Unsuspecting customers opening the packs would be in for a rude shock. That was corporate sabotage of a different kind — denigrating competitors’ brands.

In the automobile sector, there have been notable disputes over confidential designs and proprietary information allegedly landing in competitors’ hands.

Like Bond movies, corporate espionage has all the ingredients — power, intrigue, sex, blackmail and national security. So, one wonders whether, in this age of AI, today's CEOs and corporate leaders are becoming the new targets of espionage, just as politicians, bureaucrats and defence personnel have been in the past.

Historically, in India, the media have reported cases involving politicians, military personnel, diplomats and others with access to sensitive information.

While surfing the net for this story, I came across quite a few interesting cases, mostly related to the defence sector and defence establishments. One common thread running through several of these cases was the alleged involvement of Pakistani intelligence operatives.

Take the case of Pradeep Kurulkar, a senior scientist who headed a DRDO laboratory in Pune. According to The Indian Express, he was arrested in 2023 for allegedly passing sensitive defence information to a Pakistani intelligence operative using the identity of Zara Dasgupta, who had cultivated him online. A Pune court framed charges in June 2026; the allegations remain subject to trial. This bears similarities to the current Nvidia controversy, as both involve access to strategic technology.

Similarly, investigators alleged that Indian Air Force Group Captain Arun Marwaha was connected with a Pakistani operative through Facebook. The case came to light in 2018. Apparently, the Pakistani operative used female identities. According to The Times of India, intimate conversations reportedly progressed to blackmail, followed by the alleged sharing of classified military information. The operatives exploited not just sexual attraction but also his professional ego. This is a textbook illustration of how a honey trap can operate.

Then, in 2010, we saw an Indian woman diplomat, Madhuri Gupta, making headlines. According to The Indian Express, Gupta, Second Secretary at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, became involved with Pakistani intelligence contacts. Investigators alleged that she had a romantic relationship with a handler. In 2018, a Delhi court sentenced her to three years in prison for passing sensitive information to Pakistan's ISI. She died in 2021 while her appeal was pending. Her case demonstrates that espionage and honey traps are not confined to men alone.

This one was quite a big exposé. In 2015, the country was rocked by the Petroleum Ministry espionage scandal. Reportedly, confidential documents were illegally leaked from the Petroleum Ministry to private-sector players ahead of the Union Budget.

Executives and staff associated with Reliance Industries, Essar, Cairn India, Jubilant Energy and Reliance ADAG came under the police scanner in connection with the alleged theft of confidential government documents. The alleged operation involved making duplicate keys, forging passes, accessing ministry offices after working hours and making payments for sensitive documents.

This case was different. It involved industrial espionage by an insider rather than an external spy. According to The Indian Express, Ahmedabad-based AIA Engineering filed a complaint against a deputy manager, alleging that he had passed confidential R&D information concerning heat-treatment technology to a competing company in Jamshedpur.

Another interesting case of espionage, reported by Business Standard, involved Tata Communications, then associated with VSNL. The Tatas complained that the managing director's executive assistant had allegedly transmitted confidential board meeting agendas to a rival via email. Reports also raised allegations of payments for information. This illustrates how someone with administrative access, rather than an R&D scientist or senior executive, can become a source of sensitive information.

This one relates to Pune-based Thermax. In 2005, four employees of U.S.-based Purolite joined Thermax. Purolite subsequently alleged that confidential information had been copied onto personal storage devices and accessed on Thermax computers. Thermax denied the allegations. This is another useful example of how hiring talent from a competitor can lead to accusations of industrial espionage.

All these cases show how different forms of espionage have been prevalent in the corporate world.

But the Nvidia case brings into focus how a CEO can influence national security without ever handling a classified government document. When the story broke, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, former IT minister in the Modi government, tweeted, “Why invest in R&D when you can get that tech through a honey trap?” He was bang on. Years of investment, effort and painstaking research can potentially be stolen by a rival at almost no cost. Industrial espionage is about stealing a competitive advantage.

Finally, yesterday, spies were interested in defence secrets, military movements and classified government documents. Today, the prize could be an AI chip design, a semiconductor breakthrough or a CEO's ability to influence government policy.

The tools of espionage may have changed, but the vulnerabilities remain remarkably familiar: ego, ambition, greed, loneliness and lust. The question is no longer whether a CEO can be targeted. It is whether corporate India has mechanisms in place to shield itself from honey traps and espionage.