Sidney Reilly

Sidney Reilly

Sidney George Reilly MC was a Russian-born adventurer and secret agent employed by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch. He is alleged to have spied for at least four different great powers, and documentary evidence indicates that he was involved in espionage activities in 1890s London among Russian émigré circles. Reilly disappeared in Soviet Russia in the mid-1920s, lured by Cheka’s Operation Trust. He was executed by Soviet agents in 1925, but faked his death aboard a British ship bound for Odessa, Brazil. Ian Fleming used him as a model for James Bond in his novels.

About Sidney Reilly in brief

Summary Sidney ReillySidney George Reilly MC was a Russian-born adventurer and secret agent employed by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch. He is alleged to have spied for at least four different great powers, and documentary evidence indicates that he was involved in espionage activities in 1890s London among Russian émigré circles. Reilly disappeared in Soviet Russia in the mid-1920s, lured by Cheka’s Operation Trust. The true details about Reilly’s origin, identity, and exploits have eluded researchers and intelligence agencies for more than a century. At different times in his life, he claimed to be the son of an Irish merchant seaman, an Irish clergyman, and an aristocratic landowner connected to the court of Emperor Alexander III of Russia. Ian Fleming used him as a model for James Bond in his novels. Reilly is considered to be \”the dominating figure in the mythology of modern British espionage\”. He was executed by Soviet agents in 1925, but faked his death aboard a British ship bound for Odessa, Brazil, where he worked as a dock worker, a road mender, a laborer and a cook for a British intelligence expedition. He allegedly saved the life of Major Charles Fothergill when hostile natives attacked them with a British officer’s pistol and killed the attackers with expert marksmanship. However, the record of Brazil indicates that Rosenblum arrived in London in 1895 and saved both the life and life of Charles F othergill. He was also involved in an abortive 1918 coup d’état against Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik government in Moscow.

After Reilly’s release, his father told him that his mother was dead and that his biological father was her Jewish father Mikhail A. Rosenblum. Distraught by this news, he adopted the name Pedro and worked in Brazil as a docks worker, laborer, and laborer. He died in Odessa in 1925 and was buried in a shallow grave in the town of Odessa. His father was a doctor and shipping agent, while his mother came from an impoverished noble family. According to reports of the tsarist political police the Okhrana, Rosenblom was arrested in 1892 for political activities and for being a courier for a revolutionary group known as the Friends of Enlightenment. He escaped judicial punishment, and he later was friends with Ok hrana agents such as Alexander Nikolaev Grammatikov, and these details might indicate he was a police informant even at this young age. In 1895, he was rewarded with 1,500 pounds, a British passport, and a sterling passport. He later became a British agent and lived in London where he became known as ‘The Ace of Spies’ He was killed in a plane crash in November 1925 and buried in an unmarked grave in a suburb of London. His death in 1925 made him a household name within five years of his execution bySoviet agents. His memoirs of his 1918 exploits to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in Memoirs of a British Agent became an international best-seller and garnered global fame for Reilly.