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Pujol’s potential. Demorest contacted his British counterparts. When they
realised it was Pujol who was responsible for the Germans expending
considerable resources hunting down a non-existent convoy Pujol, MI5
nally realised his worth.
Pujol was sent to Britain on 24th April 1942 and given the code name
“Bovril”, after the drink concentrate. However, after he passed the security
check conducted by MI6 Ofcer Desmond Bristow, Bristow suggested that
he be accompanied by MI5 ofcer Tomás Harris, selected as he was uent
in Spanish. Together, Harris and Pujol wrote 315 letters with an average of
2,000 words. Pujol’s wife and child were to join him later in the UK.
He was placed in an ordinary suburb in North London. From here he
worked his network which consisted of 27 sub-agents including a waiter,
travelling salesmen, students and a secretary who was also a mistress.
One agent died in 1943 and was replaced by his wife. Another was found
to be a double agent and was eliminated. There was also a strong network
of fascists in Wales, the Brotherhood of Aryan. What united all the agents
in this network was that they were entirely ctional, inventions of Garbo’s
active imagination. This false network spanned the country feeding back
information that supported the main premise. The effort in keeping up with
this was enormous. On occasion, Pujol had to invent reasons why his
agents had failed to report information. For example, he reported that his
Liverpool agent had fallen ill just before a major eet movement from the
port, and so was unable to report the event. This agent then conveniently
died, with an obituary placed in the local newspaper as further evidence
to convince the Germans. The Germans were even persuaded to pay a