Sue Mi Terry, a prominent voice on American foreign policy, had a refined palate, a love for top-shelf sushi and a taste for designer labels. She liked coats by Christian Dior, handbags by Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton, and Michelin-starred restaurants.
In Ms. Terry’s case, prosecutors say she began operating as a foreign agent in 2013, five years after leaving the C.I.A. She was first contacted by an intelligence officer posing as a diplomat for the Korean mission to the United Nations in New York City, the indictment said, and in return for her work over the next decade, Ms. Terry received handbags, clothing and at least $37,000 in covert payments to the think tank where she was employed at the time.
The indictment says that Ms. Terry handed over handwritten notes of a private group meeting in 2022 regarding the U.S. government’s policy toward North Korea that she attended with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
In an interview with the F.B.I. in June 2023, Ms. Terry, who was born in Seoul but raised in the United States, admitted that she had resigned from the C.I.A. in 2008 rather than be fired because the agency had “problems” with her contacts with members of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the indictment said.
