Duško Popov

Dušan "Duško" Popov (; 10 July 1912 – 10 August 1981) was a Serbian intelligence agent, lawyer and businessman who served as a double agent for MI6 during World War II. Feigning to be an asset of the German Abwehr, he passed off disinformation to Germany as part of the British Double-Cross System while occasionally using cover as a diplomat for the Yugoslav government-in-exile in London.

Popov was born into a wealthy family and was practicing law at the start of the war. He held a great aversion to Nazism, and in 1940, infiltrated the Abwehr, Germany's military intelligence service, which considered him a valuable asset due to his business connections in France and the United Kingdom. Popov provided the Germans with misleading and inaccurate information for much of the war.

Deceptions in which he participated included Operation Fortitude, which sought to convince German military planners that the Allied invasion of Europe would take place in Calais, not Normandy, thereby diverting hundreds of thousands of German troops and increasing the likelihood that Operation Overlord would succeed.

Popov was known for his lifestyle and courted women during his missions, including the French actress Simone Simon. Apart from MI6 and the Abwehr, he also reported to the Yugoslav intelligence service, which assigned him the codename Duško. His German handlers referred to him by the codename Ivan. He was codenamed Tricycle by the British MI5 because he was the head of a group of three double agents.

In 1974, he published an autobiography titled ''Spy/Counterspy'', in which he recounted his wartime exploits. Popov is considered one of Ian Fleming's primary inspirations for the character of James Bond. He has been the subject of a number of non-fiction books and documentaries. Provided by Wikipedia