Safe House

    Safe houses are often used by spies, criminals like mafias, or the police for the planning. A safe house can be one of many things --it...

    Safe houses are often used by spies, criminals like mafias, or the police for the planning.

A safe house can be one of many things --it can be the friend's house who willingly to support or sympathizes with whatever covert activities an agent may undertake; it can be a residential property of someone bribed, tricked, blackmailed or forced into offering their home for refuge; or as a safehouse which can be apartment, hotel room, business or other location for rent.

Types of Safehouses

1.  Defensive 
2.  Offensive. 

There are usually two types of uses for safe houses: Defensive and Offensive. A defensive safe house is one that hides agents and keeps them safe from investigation, capture or surveillance. An offensive safe house, on the other hand, would serve as a place for people to conduct covert operations. An apartment rented by FSB spies could serve as an offensive safe house if they were running surveillance on a member of the Mafia.

Requirement

Of course, regardless of the reasons for using a safe house: The most important rule is to keep the location secret and avoid any activities from the secret facility is the most golden rule. Once a secret location is no longer secret, the agents undercover must pick up and find another safe house or risk detection. Constantly moving around makes any operation difficult, so there are several basic requirements that define an effective safe house: Easy access/escape routes - A safe house must be easy to enter and even easier to get out of. Once a person becomes aware that someone is on his trail, leaving the location as quickly as possible is the only way to avoid capture, a compromised agent should be allowed to return to the safehouse otherwise the cover of other agents will also blowout.

Access to transportation - A getaway car is much faster than escaping on foot if the safe house is found or compromised. An exit to the nearby subway or bus system is also very helpful, especially because it allows a person to blend in with crowds quickly. Ability to observe approach - Anyone should be able to detect easily any suspicious activity going on near the safe house. Most professional spies prefer safe houses in the countryside or in the isolated crib situated in the remote farm since they provide easy access, privacy, good cover, few nosy neighbours and a good view of the surrounding area.

Of course, a safe house in the city may be the only option if an operation focuses on an urban area. Heavily curtained windows and thick walls are a super-plus, but the location should still appear ordinary to avoid suspicion. Too much movement around the facility must be avoided by all means.

Simplicity - Those operating a safe house shouldn't worry much about decorating. The less there is in a living space, the easier it will be to spot any changes from intruders, and it becomes harder for someone to place microphones and other surveillance technologies in the house. Hiding places - Documents, weapons and even people sometimes need a place to hide in a safe house. Attics, basements, crawl spaces and floorboards are great, and they can easily be covered by furniture or rugs.

Spook's Businesses and Corporate

Intelligence agency to obtain good intelligence is only when covertly run a civilian business or invested in front cover companies that collect data or providing services to the targets.  The intelligence can own fishing company in a disguise in order to monitor and collect the right information about foreign companies involving in illegal activities and enable bust people dealing in such business.  The CIA has invested in many civilian-oriented firms example the In-Q-Tel, a communication firm based in the USA and even Facebook is partially owned by the intelligence for the purpose to have a back-door to access to mass data of users worldwide.