CEO 'spy' with S'pore link

By Bryan Huang

HE RAN a management company which claimed to have offices in Paris, Jakarta and Singapore. He was classmates with Mexican president Felipe Calderon.

Donald Heathfield, CEO and inventor of Future Map, is also accused of being a Russian spy, and using the false identity of a dead Canadian infant.

His company, Future Map, said its goal was to develop 'strategic proactivity'.

'Our mission is to help governments, enterprises and international organisations better prepare for the future and make better strategic decisions,' the company said on its website. 'We strive to establish Future Map as a global repository of information about anticipated events and a platform for collaboration in this emerging domain'.

A man at Future Map's Singapore headquarters, which the website lists at Heritage Place along Tan Quee Lan Street, said he was 'stunned' by the news, Bloomberg News reported. The man, who declined to give his name, said he was 'extremely surprised' and didn't 'know what to make of it'.

Heathfield studied for his masters on public administration in 2000 at Harvard University, which he used to cultivate ties, The New York Times reported.

Mark Podlasly, a classmate of Heathfield's, told NYT that the accused spy 'kept in touch with almost all of our international classmates'.

'In Singapore, in Jakarta - he knew what everyone was doing. If you wanted to know where anybody was at, Don would know,' Mr Podlasly was quoted as saying.

Prosecutors said Heathfield met a high-ranking US government official in 2004 'with regard to nuclear weapons research'.

Heathfield, one of 10 suspected Russian spies held in the US, had ties to organisations involved in forecasting emerging technologies.

A Canadian man, David Heathfield, said the accused spy had assumed the identity of his brother, who died in Montreal in 1963 at six weeks of age.

The AP reported that David Heathfield said he did not know how his brother's name turned up in the US court files, but believed the Russians singled out his brother's death notice in a Montreal newspaper.

Clivebenss

2 Jul 10, 00:51

dead brother id assumed.