In a story that seems pulled straight from a spy thriller, German intelligence agents this week apprehended a German spy who'd not only been working as a double agent for an Islamic State terrorist group, but had also starred in a number of gay pornographic films.

Suspicions were first raised when agents noticed an unusual presence in the chat room of a regularly monitored digital hangout for Islamic militants. The anonymous source claimed to be one of them, but also stated that he was a German spy who could help his fellow Islamists infiltrate his agency in order to stage a strike.

Officials lured him into a private chat, where he revealed so many details about the agency and his own directives that they were able to identify him. The next day, authorities arrested the 51-year-old spy and learned about his double life.

The man quickly confessed that he'd been working on behalf of the Islamic state ever since he was first hired by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) in April 2016. He admitted that he'd converted to Islam in 2014, but had kept the news secret from employers as well as his partner and four children.

But that was't the only secret he was keeping—an online search of the alias he'd used in the private digital hangout revealed that the spy had also starred in a number of gay porn films.

“It’s not only a rather bizarre story, but also a quite scary one, that an agency, whose central role it is to engage in counterespionage, hired an Islamist who potentially had access to classified information, who might have even tried to spread Islamist propaganda and to recruit others to let themselves be hired by and possibly launch an attack against the domestic intelligence agency," said Hans-Christian Ströbele, a member of the Parliamentary Control Committee that oversees the German intelligence services.

He added: "The agency needs to tell us immediately what exactly happened and how it could happen that somebody like this was hired."

Intelligence agents insist that the man was thoroughly vetted before they hired him and that no interviews with former employers, friends or family revealed even the slightest hint of his eventual betrayal.

“With all the information coming out about this individual, the question has to be raised: how he was able to end up in the intelligence service and was able to hide all this from his workplace but also his family,” said an anonymous senior law enforcement official.

The 51-year-old has since been charged with preparing to commit a violent act and for violating state secrecy laws. As of this writing, it's unclear what his punishment will be.

h/t: Washington Post