Steven Lalas
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Steven Lalas was an American with a top-secret security clearance who was recruited to spy for the Greek National Intelligence Service (EYP) in a provocative operation run by Greece's conservative government in the mid-1990s. John Kiriakou has said he did not know Lawless personally, but gave a Greek newspaper interview about the case.

The recruitment was considered so sensitive within EYP that Lawless's handler reported directly to the service's director rather than through the normal chain of command, a precaution taken because EYP feared the CIA had recruited a mole inside the service and would expose the operation as a double-agent sting.

Lawless was eventually caught and served roughly seven years in prison. On his release he was granted Greek citizenship and settled in Greece. Kiriakou gave his interview about the case after Lawless began publicly complaining in the Greek press of poverty, saying he had no money and had to rely on the kindness of strangers; Kiriakou expressed no sympathy, remarking, "maybe you shouldn't have been a spy against your country."

The 2026 retelling

Revisiting the case in 2026, Kiriakou dated the recruitment to the 1990s and described Lalas as "a Greek American" who "gave them top secret NSA information on Turkey." His judgement on the act is unsentimental despite the sympathy the case attracts in Greece: "still, that is espionage."

He describes the aftermath as a kind of homecoming. On release Lalas was given Greek citizenship, moved to Greece, and "he's something of a hero in Greece," living in a village in the centre of the country.

The consequence Kiriakou draws is institutional: "the Greeks learned a lesson there and they stopped spying on Americans, just as a matter of policy."

> Kiriakou recalls the sentence as "decades in prison" in this telling and about seven years served in another; contemporaneous reporting records a 14-year sentence imposed in 1993.

See also

- Aldrich Ames
- Robert Hanssen
- John Kiriakou
