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  • Published: 31 October 2014
  • ISBN: 9781775538059
  • Imprint: RHNZ Adult ebooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256

Spy



The inside story of the Bill Sutch spy scandal by the agent who potted him.

The inside story of the Bill Sutch spy scandal by the agent who potted him.

In 1975 Kit Bennetts was one of the youngest officers ever to serve in the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. Fresh out of training, on routine surveillance duty one night he followed a big Mercedes from the Soviet Embassy in Wellington and witnessed a meeting between a KGB officer and an unknown man. That man turned out to be Dr William Sutch, one of New Zealand's most eminent citizens. Five months later, after more surveillance and a major sting, Sutch was arrested and charged with passing information to the Russians.

A spectacular trial ensued — New Zealand's only epionage trail, ever — at which Sutch was acquitted, only to die seven months later. Thirty years aon, and with the recent release of the Mitrokhin archives, fascination with the case and speculation about whether Sutch was indeed a KGB mole endures.

Spy marks the first time an SIS officer has ever gone public. Fast paced, humorous, it details how the SIS got their man, only to lose the case against him in court.

  • Published: 31 October 2014
  • ISBN: 9781775538059
  • Imprint: RHNZ Adult ebooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256

About the author

Kit Bennetts

In a career spanning 43 years Christopher (Kit) Bennetts has worked as a pilot, an intelligence officer, a commercial investigator, an airline executive, a management trainer, a university lecturer and a police officer.

In 1972, Kit became the youngest person ever recruited into a Western Intelligence Service; the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. Forty years later he became one of the oldest front line officers ever sworn in by the Queensland Police Service (QPS). During his time with the NZSIS, Kit was involved in a major espionage case-the subject of his book Spy published by Random House in 2006.

The last five years of his intelligence career was spent on an operational exchange programme with an agency of the US Government. His short police career saw service as a first response officer in Brisbane and then a posting to the State Intelligence Group in State Crime Operations Command in Homicide - The Flying Squad and the Prostitution Task Force.

In between, Kit was a professional pilot, an investigator, a trainer and then the training manager of an international zirline operating in a less developed country.

After nine years police service he returned to Southern Cross University (Gold Coast Campus) where he lectures in International Management and Entrepreneurship (in China) and is studying for a PhD on the topic of ‘Critical Transport Infrastructure Security – a study of public value, decisions and trade-offs’.

From January 2012 until July 2014 Kit worked for the Office of the Governor as a Senior Adviser to Her Excellency the Honorable Penelope Wensley AC, Governor of Queensland.