Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Intelligence is a silent world. To obtain information, intelligence agencies usually assign special agents.

In the future, agents will also have to obtain information by disguising themselves using new identities. At least, that’s what Arnon Milchan did.

Milchan is an Israeli businessman. However, apparently, he was also secretly an intelligence agent.

How could that be?

Life Like James Bond

In the business world, Arnon Milchan is now known as a film businessman in the biggest cinema universe, Hollywood. Since entering Hollywood in 1977 or at the age of 33, there have been 120 films made under his production house, New Regency Enterprises.

Of the hundreds of films, several of them were nominated for Oscars, and some even won the title. It’s not surprising, if Los Angeles Times (February 28, 1992) named Milchan the most influential and successful film producer in Hollywood.

From here he began to build his wealth until he became a successful Israeli entrepreneur. Forbes (2023) noted that he has assets of US$ 3.2 billion or Rp. 50.2 trillion and is in the 922nd position of the richest person in the world.

Even so, Milchan’s steps were not only accompanied by success, but also various controversies. One of them concerns accusations of involvement in sending illegal weapons from the United States to Israel.

Referring to reporting Los Angeles Times, This accusation stems from the testimony of Richard K. Smyth, a defendant in an illegal weapons transfer case. He admitted to sending 800 krytons or spare parts for making nuclear weapons to the Heli Trading Co company owned by film producer Arnon Milchan.

Milchan asked the kryton to develop Israel’s military defense system. However, when the news emerged in the late 1980s, he denied the accusations.

As a result, the news became a thing of the past. However, the issue of this case emerged again in 2011 after Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman released a book

As explained The Guardian, his beginnings as an intelligence officer began when he was recruited by a shadow organization formed by Israeli President Shimon Peres after graduating from college in the 1960s. The recruitment aimed to investigate and smuggle weapons for Israel’s military defense program.

He is finally assigned to go undercover as a young businessman who is frantically looking for clients all over the world, while tasked with achieving that goal. During his time as an intelligence officer, it was discovered that Milchan operated 30 companies in 17 different countries. Not only that, he also managed to seal a secret arms deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

All this was done quietly and silently. No one knows his movements. People only know that Arnon Milchan is a film entrepreneur.

Further, quote Insider, Milchan also said that he was almost caught in the 1980s, seeming to confirm the accusations described above. This incident began when he was caught sending nuclear triggers from a California company to Israel for the purpose of making missiles.

Luckily, during the investigation he survived the lobbying and President Ronald Reagan pardoned him.

Until finally, Milchan’s duties as an intelligence officer ended in 1986 or after 26 years following the end of the shadow organization’s operations. During his duty, he admitted that he was very happy.

“Do you know what it’s like to be a 20-year-old kid [dan] his country allowed him to be James Bond? Wow! The action! It’s very exciting,” Milchan said.

Now, Milchan is the only person in the world who has ever claimed to have served as an intelligence officer. Apart from that, during his 20 years as an intelligence officer, Milchan took part in the development of Israel’s defense system in the 20th century, which at that time was being prepared to repel enemy attacks, as well as to repel repression from the Palestinian camp.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(mfa/sef)