# CIA cash room

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "CIA cash room," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-cash-room/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's description of the rooms at large CIA stations stacked floor-to-ceiling with cash — tens or hundreds of millions of dollars — from which an officer can sign out whatever an operation needs, as when he took $2 million to buy safe houses for the Abu Zubaydah capture.*

- **Found at:** Larger CIA stations
- **Contents (per Kiriakou):** $50-100 million in cash

A **CIA cash room** is, per [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou), a small room at the larger CIA stations stacked to the ceiling with cash — *"50 million, 100 million, whatever you happen to need."* An officer signs out what an operation requires and goes.[1][2] For the [Abu Zubaydah capture](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abu-zubaydah) he took $2 million, carefully counted into duffel bags, to buy two safe houses in Lahore and Faisalabad — mindful of the warning he got in his first week that finance, security and medical are the three offices that can *"send you to prison"* if a dollar goes unaccounted.[2][3]

Kiriakou says that when he was in the CIA, intelligence work was fundamentally a cash business — officers carrying pockets or duffel bags of cash to pay sources, occasionally resorting to diamonds. He says that has changed: since almost nobody uses cash anymore, cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin is now the preferred way to pay agents discreetly, sent directly from a secure phone with no one the wiser.[4]

## The saying and the duffel bags

The operational premise Kiriakou states is that intelligence is a cash business and cash is not a problem.[5] The practical shape of that is a van on the road to [Faisalabad](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/faisalabad) about two weeks before the [Abu Zubaydah](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abu-zubaydah) capture, carrying $2 million in two duffel bags, and a conversation between the two officers in it about why anyone would falsify twenty dollars of accounting paperwork when they were sitting on millions.[6][7] The mechanics of what happens to that money once it reaches an agent are set out at [agent payment mechanics](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/agent-payment-mechanics).

## See also

- [Abu Zubaydah Capture](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abu-zubaydah)
- [Cofer Black](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cofer-black)

## Sources

1. John Kiriakou speaking at Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE 2025), NYC (2025-08-18), at 20:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3tKmaylRrY&t=1200s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-18-hope-2025-kiriakou-talk/
2. John Kiriakou speaking at Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE 2025), NYC (2025-08-18), at 20:32. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3tKmaylRrY&t=1232s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-18-hope-2025-kiriakou-talk/
3. John Kiriakou speaking at Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE 2025), NYC (2025-08-18), at 21:02. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3tKmaylRrY&t=1262s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-18-hope-2025-kiriakou-talk/
4. #05 CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou: The Truth They Trie (2025-05-05), at 18:28. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-ZUFCx1omA&t=1108s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-05-05-austin-and-matt/
5. Top Secrets: The CIA Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou (2025-04-16), at 34:05. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev1ozulvly8&t=2045s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-16-the-dr-phil-podcast-top-secrets-the-cia-torture-whistleblower-john-ki/
6. Top Secrets: The CIA Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou (2025-04-16), at 35:38. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev1ozulvly8&t=2138s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-16-the-dr-phil-podcast-top-secrets-the-cia-torture-whistleblower-john-ki/
7. Top Secrets: The CIA Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou (2025-04-16), at 36:09. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev1ozulvly8&t=2169s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-16-the-dr-phil-podcast-top-secrets-the-cia-torture-whistleblower-john-ki/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-cash-room/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt