Activities
In the early months of the war, the Germans asked for regular weather reports from him for the use of the Luftwaffe and also to test his credibility. At a meeting with the Abwehr in Brussels, Owens was given some cash and some detonators for use in sabotage. He had taken along another double agent, also a Welsh nationalist, who was instructed to start a postage stamp business so that the Germans could communicate through microdots on stamps.
From the spring of 1940, the Abwehr sent most of its British-based agents and contacts to see Owens. MI5 tried to make sure that Owens only passed on to the Germans the information that they had given him. One of the most important was supplying of false names and ration book numbers for the Abwehr agents who were parachuted into Britain. MI5 continued to be suspicious of Owens, who was known to exaggerate his importance and sent a second double agent, Sam McCarthy (codenamed BISCUIT) to test him. McCarthy reported back that Owens admitted he was also double-crossing MI5, which led MI5 to believe that Owens was primarily interested in making money from both sides and that probably neither trusted him entirely.
Owens helped deliver scores of German spies to MI5, who were then given the choice of becoming double agents or facing the firing squad. Most chose to work for Britain and delivered vital information to the Allies, including details about troop movements and the keys to cracking German codes.
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