A former Russian “sexpionage” trainee is warning Silicon Valley that foreign operatives are using romance scams and manufactured intimacy to pry loose trade secrets — and she’s laying out red flags she says engineers and tech executives should spot before they get burned.
Aliia Roza, a former Russian “sex spy” who defected from her native country after she fell in love with an intelligence target, told The Post in an exclusive interview that she was trained by authorities to seduce and manipulate her targets — and that she started studying the tactics as a teenager.
She says sex spies follow a sinister playbook designed to break down defenses before targets even realize they’re being hunted.
“They see the target, they need to get information,” Roza told The Post. “They need to manipulate the target, emotions, feelings, or whatever they can do, they will do it.”
Roza was responding to a recent report by the Times of London that said China and Russia were engaged in a sinister plot to deploy attractive female agents to ensnare tech executives. Russia and China have an “asymmetric advantage” since the US doesn’t use the same tactics, the report said.
Roza agreed, saying that unlike foreign governments, the US strives “to protect human rights”. The Russians and Chinese, she claimed, “manipulate their targets in a really bad way” and see their own agents as disposable.
She said the manipulation follows a predetermined script — and according to Roza, a seasoned agent never approaches cold.
“You first appear in their life — seven times, to be exact — before making contact,” she said. “You might show up at their coffee shop, their gym, or just keep liking their posts. When you finally meet, their brain already trusts you.”
Once that familiarity is built, the agent reels the target in.
“It starts with love bombing — messages full of compliments, selfies, bikini photos,” Roza explained. “They pretend to be weak or alone: ‘My parents were killed, I’m a student, I’m broke.’ It triggers the hero instinct. Every man wants to feel like the rescuer.”
Then comes what is known as the “milk technique,” she said, where operatives fake mutual connections to appear legitimate.
“The fake account follows your friends or says, ‘Bill is my brother’s friend,’ so you think, ‘OK, I can trust her.’ But it’s all fabricated.”
With trust established, the psychological manipulation escalates.
“The agent makes you doubt yourself,” Roza said. “She’ll say, ‘Your boss doesn’t appreciate you; your colleagues use you.’ It creates a bond where you feel you understand each other — and the rest of the world is bad.”
Finally, the agent begins to make threats if the desired information isn’t divulged.
“They’ll create stress — fear of losing the relationship,” Roza warned. “‘If you don’t send this information right now, I’ll disappear forever.’ Under that emotional rush, people give up things they never would otherwise.”
Roza said tech workers are particularly vulnerable because many are isolated and overworked.
“They may be very smart and geniuses in what they do, but regarding dating relationships … they spend a lot of time in the offices,” she said. “There’s a gap in between female interaction. And then it’s much easier for a female to target you.”
She added that operatives typically prefer single employees.
“They would target someone who is single … they don’t have this relationship, so of course, they become, like, very weak targets,” she said.
Roza urged Silicon Valley professionals to scrutinize sudden romantic attention — especially when mixed with probing questions, name-dropping and alcohol.
Roza said she moved to the US in 2020. Since relocating to the states, she has obtained her green card.
On her lawyer’s advice, she said she decided to be open about her past as a Russian intelligence agent in order to boost her chances of gaining legal status.
According to Roza, her intelligence missions were primarily in Europe and the United Kingdom, where she was sent to seduce human traffickers, drug dealers and oligarchs who ran afoul of the Russian government. She said the total number of missions she was sent on was fewer than 10.
“I would get into serious relationships with my targets, which at that time were, like, criminals,” Roza said.
Confirming the report in the Times of London, Roza said these relationships included “living together 24-7” — and even marriage.
“And then [I would] just report [them] to my commanders and bring [them], eventually, to justice.”
She said she never did any espionage against Americans or on US soil.
She said she is now focused on public education about manipulation tactics across work, dating and social media.
“I’m on a mission to educate people how to prevent manipulation,” Roza said.
She is working on a book and recently signed a deal with a studio to produce a documentary about her experiences.
Roza also does public speaking and has emerged as a self-improvement coach who helps people gain confidence by using some of the techniques that she perfected while being trained for espionage.
“I teach people to be positive and purposeful to your goals and aims, and not to be bothered or distracted by any other negative or toxic people or negative events in your life,” she said.
“So it’s a very precise, strategical thinking.”
She recently appeared alongside bestselling author Neil Strauss for a podcast called “To Die For,” a true crime series that explores the dark world of Russian “sexpionage.”
“Education is prevention of the problem,” she said.
Roza told The Post that for tech workers, the best defense is methodical skepticism: slow the interaction, verify identities offline and refuse any request tethered to secrecy or urgency.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
