Ethics: Moral Ambivalence - Former CIA Agent Discusses Providing CSAM as a "Specialized Gift" to Foreign Targets

Andrew Bustamante states that he and his wife are former CIA agents. He has posted many videos and been interviewed widely on YouTube where he describes his exploits and explains some CIA operations.

In the following excerpt from a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkOwKkivJ1E) he describes how the CIA would facilitate CSAM as a "specialized gift" to foreign targets who wanted it.

Here is the excerpt, with time stamps from the video:

21:47 INTERVIEWER: You land in this friendly country. You're making your way into the hostile country. What was your objective? What were you trying to do in that hostile country?

 

21:54 BUSTAMANTE: The first thing that we were trying to do was find targets. And then we knew that as we found targets and built targets, we would also need to support the operations against those targets. And there's a logistical element to espionage where you need to have encrypted phones, you need to have satellite uh satellite phones or SIM cards, you need to have money, you need to have specialized gifts. Like there's there's a there's a logistical supply chain that needs to be built.

 

22:21 INTERVIEWER: Specialized gifts?

 

22:21 BUSTAMANTE: So, um, things that are appealing to a target that they may not be able to get themselves, gold, bullion, high-end liquors, child pornography, uh, foreign currency, whatever they need, your job is to make sure they have a way of getting it.

 

22:38 INTERVIEWER: Child pornography?

 

22:40 BUSTAMANTE: Some some targets, especially in the in the world of drugs and uh, and terrorism and weapons, they they feed off of the strangest things.

 

22:54 INTERVIEWER:  Mhm. So the CIA would supply that pornography?

 

22:55 BUSTAMANTE: In a way. Um we would more like facilitate the transfer. Some other friendly country might actually be who acquires it. So for example, Germany might actually uh have a raid where they where they carry out a raid against a pornographer and they have terabytes of porn, right?

And then the UK might have a case where they need porn to pay an Iranian. So now they can trade with BND so that BND can use this cache of porn and they can give it to the Brits who give it to the Iranians and that can be a currency of types.

Again morally ambivalent the goal is to protect your people at the end of the day right so when it comes down to it that's the same way CIA works.

If we're giving gold, if we're giving minted American gold coins to an evil person in North Korea, do we really care if it's keeping Americans safe?

There are some people who would say yes. And there are other people who would say whatever the price is, let's keep Americans safe.

Reference

Bustamante, A. (10, Sept, 2025). We Found a CIA Mole. What Happened Next Nearly Got Us Killed. YouTube Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkOwKkivJ1E