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This is probably risk management at its best. There are multinationals and Indian corporates that have a handful of select staff doubling up as moles for them in addition to the official duties.
Their reports centre round union activities, espionage and frauds to their ‘handlers', who in turn convey the message to the top brass.
These moles, planted in key positions, report to the security agencies that recruit them on a monthly basis. Companies into software development and automobiles, besides multinationals companies, in general, appear to prefer such risk coverage operations.
In addition to the salary they draw from the company, the moles are paid a fixed sum by the security agency for the classified information passed on.
MNCs, big clients
MNCs that establish large units in India always prefer such undercover agents in office, said Mr B.R. Lohia, Chairman, Eagle Hunter Solutions. “They collect information relating to internal and external threats.”
Eagle Hunters, which has over 630 clients, are ‘handlers' of over 700 such moles across the industry.
For FY 10, revenues were Rs 118 crore and net profit Rs 7.3 crore.
The organisational hierarchy of the moles vary. In MNCs, it could be as high as a General Manager, who generally gets over Rs 1 lakh for the information transmission. For a lower level shop-floor, supervisor the payment would be about Rs 10,000.
MNCs invariably look for people in the higher echelons as they may want to keep a tab on the Chief Executive Officer, who invariably is a local appointee, he said.
Needless to say, background checks of the moles are made ahead of such appointments by security agencies themselves.
Genext INTERESTED
Asked if family-run large corporates houses sought such services, he said while initially it was mainly the MNCs, the GeNext in the family-run businesses had a distinct preference for the service.
However, they were careful to exclude their existing companies, as it would be prove detrimental to employee morale if the strategy was exposed.
The obvious preference was for new ventures, as the entire team was new.
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