Introduction
Naveed Jamali (born February 20, 1976) is an American expert on national security and former FBI operative. He works for the U.S. Department of Defense as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve. He is the author of the non-fiction book How to Catch a Russian Spy.
Biography
Jamali was born to a French mother and Pakistani father who met attending graduate school in New York. They later opened a store in Dobbs Ferry, New York, called Books & Research, Inc., which specialized in getting books and documents in the pre-Internet age. Starting in 1988, they cooperated with the FBI, which was interested in Soviet (and later Russian) intelligence agents who came into the store seeking hard-to-find U.S. government documents.
Jamali graduated from New York University in 1999 with a degree in political science and government. After 9/11, he reached out to the FBI to offer his services, as his parents were nearing retirement. He later became a double agent when a Russian GRU member named Oleg Kulikov attempted to recruit him. The ruse lasted from 2005 to 2009, during which time Kulikov paid Jamali for what he thought were classified documents. The operation ended with Jamali being "arrested" by the FBI in front of Kulikov, blowing his cover as a diplomat in the United States.
Following the operation, Jamali was sworn in to the United States Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer. He is a contributor to MSNBC and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, an American think tank.
In 2015, Jamali and Ellis Henican co-wrote a book, How to Catch a Russian Spy: The True Story of an American Civilian Turned Double Agent. 20th Century Fox purchased the film rights for the book; it was announced that Mark Heyman will write the screenplay with Marc Webb directing.
Personal life
Jamali is married to Ava Brent-Jamali, a biologist at Columbia University, and lives in Manhattan.