A version of this op-ed appeared in print on October 25, 2012, on page A31 of the New York edition with the headline: Spies and Co..
EXTRACT
Spying for profit continued in more recent times. In the late 1990s, the candy companies Nestlé and Mars engaged in an epic corporate war that included a confidential source nicknamed “Deep Chocolate.” Former government agents, working through a subcontractor for Nestlé, snatched garbage bags from the Mars headquarters, replacing them with dummy trash bags so the custodial staff wouldn’t catch on. Picking through coffee grounds and stale food, they found shredded documents that they were able to painstakingly reconstruct into readable corporate records.