Shell Spy Games: Big Oil’s Cloak-and-Dagger Circus Comes for the Donovans

Jun 28th, 2026
by John Donovan.

By John Donovan

A combined and satirical rewrite of three John Donovan archive chapters on Shell corporate espionage, later cyber-monitoring activity, and the sensitive Shell issues that may have kept the corporate-security boiler room bubbling.

Source chapters: Chapter 5: Shell corporate espionage in the run-up to the Smart trial, Chapter 12: Shell corporate espionage in more recent years, and Chapter 13: What prompted the more recent sinister activity?.

Chapter 5 screenshot exhibit concerning Shell corporate espionage
From the source archive: Chapter 5, on Shell corporate espionage before the SMART trial.

There are oil companies, and then there is Shell: part energy giant, part legal steamroller, part international archive of “how did that memo get out?” moments. According to the Donovan archive, when Shell found itself facing criticism, litigation and leaks, the response was not always limited to sober correspondence on heavy paper. No, this was Shell in spy-thriller mode: lawyers, private investigators, corporate intelligence firms, redacted emails, “legally privileged” battle-plans and enough cloak-and-dagger atmosphere to make a boardroom smell faintly of raincoats.

The three chapters combined here tell one broad story. First came the run-up to the Shell SMART High Court trial, when Don Marketing and the Donovans say witnesses and evidence were targeted by undercover activity. Then came the later era of global monitoring, when Shell emails and the Reuters report archived by ShellNews.net recorded Shell’s concern about the Donovan websites. Finally came the obvious question: what, exactly, had Shell so jumpy?

The answer, in the archive’s telling, is a full buffet: Shell’s corporate history books, Nazi-era material, Iran, Dr John Huong, Sakhalin II, Motiva, Shell employee leaks, and the general irritation of a critic who would not stay quietly in the corner while the oil giant adjusted its cufflinks.

Act One: The SMART Trial, Or Shell Discovers The Trench Coat

Chapter 5 begins in the late 1990s, when the dispute over Shell’s SMART loyalty-card scheme was heading toward the High Court. John Donovan had already written to Shell executives about investigative activity, including a 15 June 1998 letter to Dr Chris Fay and an earlier 23 April 1998 letter to Sir Peter Holmes MC. The timing was not casual. A breach of confidence writ had been served, and press coverage was already circling, including Financial Mail on Sunday and Marketing Week.

According to the source chapter, witnesses were approached by an undercover agent posing as a journalist, while evidence was accessed under false pretences. The archive says evidence was also scrutinised and tampered with during what police were said to have regarded unofficially as targeted burglaries. For a company whose published principles leaned heavily on “honesty, integrity and openness”, this was not so much brand alignment as brand gymnastics.

Shell later brought counterclaims against Don Marketing UK Limited, Alfred Donovan and John Donovan. The archive argues that the information-gathering and the counterstrategy were not separate weather systems. They were, in its view, part of the same storm front.

The Hakluyt Connection: When The Boardroom Grew A Secret Door

Chapter 5 places special emphasis on Hakluyt & Company, the London corporate intelligence firm founded by former senior MI6 officers and described in public sources as a private intelligence company. The archive notes that the late Sir Peter Holmes and Sir William Purves, both connected with Shell, were also linked with Hakluyt. If the Shell saga had a credits sequence, this is where the brass section would start getting excited.

Hakluyt’s name had already surfaced publicly in connection with Shell and environmental campaigners. The source chapter links to archive material on Hakluyt, Hakluyt coverage, Powerbase material, Shell and Hakluyt, and the Sunday Times front-page story on spying on green groups.

The point is not that every Shell executive was sitting behind a potted plant with a tape recorder. The point is sharper: Shell, a company that liked to talk in polished corporate language, had connections to a world where the language was intelligence, counterstrategy, sources, and deniable-looking activity. The archive’s satirical headline could write itself: “Oil Giant Shocked To Find Critics Still Criticising After Being Watched.”

The Correspondence Blizzard

One of the stranger features of the saga is how thoroughly documented it became. Letters flew between Don Marketing, Shell, Shell’s lawyers, DJ Freeman, Royds Treadwell, newspapers, police and senior Shell figures. The archive preserves, among many other items, a 21 May 1998 DJ Freeman letter, a 25 May 1998 response, correspondence from The European, Alfred Donovan’s letter to Mark Moody-Stuart, and a Suffolk Police letter.

There are also direct Shell legal communications, including a Richard Wiseman letter and trial material such as cross-examination material. The whole file reads like a paper factory having an argument with a litigation department.

Chapter 5 screenshot exhibit concerning Shell correspondence
One of the Chapter 5 screenshot exhibits from the correspondence-heavy Shell archive.

Act Two: The Internet Arrives, And Shell Appears To Need A Bigger Notebook

By Chapter 12, the story has moved beyond the High Court and into the era of websites, servers, employee leaks, internal monitoring and cyber-flavoured anxiety. The archive says Shell’s later activity targeted John Donovan, his website and Shell’s own employees. The centrepiece is the Reuters report, now retained here via a working ShellNews.net archived copy, about Shell concern over the Donovan website.

The line that deserves its own tabloid splash is the one from a Shell email quoted in the Reuters report: “no attempt to do anything visible to Donovan”. The phrase is short, chilly and gloriously bureaucratic. It is the sort of sentence that enters a room wearing sensible shoes and leaves carrying the curtains.

The same chapter links Shell internal material about a counter-measures team, including a 9 March 2007 internal email, a 19 March 2007 internal email, and a 20 March 2007 email. There are also annual “Focal Point” links for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

The archive also cites a Shell internal email about trying to “kill” a Sunday Times story, preserved as 2 February 2007 material, and an FT-related Shell email thread. If this was public relations, it came with a suspiciously large toolbox.

Chapter 12 screenshot exhibit concerning Reuters coverage of Shell and the Donovan website
Chapter 12 opens with the more recent, cyber-era strand of Shell’s interest in the Donovan website.

The Website Wars: BlueHost, Deactivation And The Digital Banana Skin

The later chapters also point to episodes involving the Donovan websites themselves. Chapter 12 links a 25 June 2007 email about BlueHost and deactivation, a related article on correspondence with Shell, a 2014 article on a denial-of-service attack, and a later account of Shell’s failed attempt to kill royaldutchshell.website.

For a multinational that could drill, ship, refine and lobby its way around the planet, the archive presents Shell as strangely flustered by a stubborn website. The grand irony is delicious: an oil major with global reach, pitted against an archive that survived partly because Shell kept creating material worth archiving.

Act Three: What Had Shell So Nervous?

Chapter 13 asks the obvious question. If the later activity happened as described, what caused the corporate-security kettle to boil? The chapter points first to CAS, described as a Shell Group Corporate Affairs unit populated by security and intelligence professionals. It also cites a June 2017 U.S. court document and related coverage of a falling-out among security professionals at Shell.

Chapter 13 screenshot exhibit concerning CAS
Chapter 13 begins with CAS, described in the source as a Shell corporate-security unit.

The chapter identifies several possible triggers. One was Shell’s own official history. Internal Shell emails from 11 March 2007, 19/20 March 2007 and 6 June 2007 showed concern that Donovan would scrutinise the new Shell history volumes, including Nazi-era material. This later fed into the Shell Nazi history strand, including Royal Dutch Shell, Tom Cruise, YouTube and Hitler and the article on whether Shell would block internet publication of its Nazi past.

Another trigger was Iran. Chapter 13 links the Wall Street Journal article Oil Trade With Iran Thrives, Discreetly, Donovan’s own article on Royal Dutch Shell Iranian treachery, an email to Bill O’Reilly at Fox News, and the resulting Shell Oil and Royal Dutch Shell correspondence. It also preserves a reactive press statement prepared by Shell.

Then there was Dr John Huong, the former Shell Malaysia geologist. The combined archive links to the Dr John Huong index, where Shell’s litigation against him and related documents are gathered. A critic with a website is one thing. A critic with whistleblower material, legal records and stubborn filing habits is quite another.

Sakhalin II also loomed large. Chapter 13 links How Chris Finlayson bungled the Mother of all Projects: Sakhalin II, the Financial Times-related Pipeliners All memo story, and the Daily Mail article Shell on back foot as gripe site alleges safety concerns. In tabloid terms: Big Oil met Little Website, then tripped over a leaked memo on the way out.

Motiva, Employees And The Leaky Pipe Problem

The archive also points to Motiva and employee commentary. Chapter 13 links Donovan’s email to Shell/Motiva vice president Tom Purves, a later article on a leaked Shell internal email from Tom Purves, a 21 March 2007 confidential Shell email, and a 17 June 2009 Shell email.

It also links a series of Shell Blog comments by posters including Jim Hartsock, Motivasux, Motivaman, JerrBear, another motivasux posting, grim reaper, and harley.

If Shell had a leak problem, it was not just geological. It was informational. The source chapters show employees, former employees, lawyers, campaigners and critics all feeding a public archive that Shell could not easily cap.

The Bigger Punchline: Shell Already Had Spies In Governments

Chapter 13 ends by widening the lens. It links the RoyalDutchShellPlc.com article Shell embedded spies in host governments of Nigeria, Dubai and Iraq and The Guardian’s WikiLeaks-based report Cables reveal Shell’s grip on Nigerian state. At that point, the Donovan story stops looking like an isolated feud and starts looking like a side window into a much larger corporate-security culture.

Of course, Shell would no doubt prefer the phrase “stakeholder management”. It sounds cleaner. It has PowerPoint energy. It wears a lanyard. But the archive trail says that behind the spotless phrases lay a harsher world: information-gathering, pressure, monitoring, counter-measures and legal muscle.

Final Word: The Petrol Pump With A Periscope

The delicious absurdity of the Shell-Donovan saga is that the more Shell appeared to watch, warn, threaten or manoeuvre, the more paperwork it generated. Every letter, memo, email, press clipping and court document became fuel for the archive. The company trying to control the narrative helped write it.

That is the tabloid moral of the tale: if you are a multinational oil giant with a reputation problem, perhaps do not behave like a spy novel with a compliance department. Because one day the filing cabinets open, the PDFs march out, and the public discovers that the petrol pump had a periscope all along.

Working Source Links Retained From The Three Chapters

The following working links are retained from the three source chapters, excluding social-share links, protected email links, and links that did not return a working response during the link check.

Chapter 5 Source Links

Chapter 12 Source Links

Chapter 13 Source Links

Screenshot Exhibits Retained From The Source Chapters

The source chapters included many screenshot exhibits. The direct working image links are retained below.

Chapter 5 Screenshot Exhibits

Chapter 12 Screenshot Exhibits

Chapter 13 Screenshot Exhibits

Related Donovan Websites And Background

shellplc.website and its sister non-profit websites royaldutchshellplc.com, royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellenergy.website, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net and shell2004.com are owned by John Donovan.

There is also a Wikipedia feature referring to RoyalDutchShellPlc.com.

*This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan - more information here. There is also a Wikipedia segment, the Shell DPA Files, "Shell and the Spies", the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan - Kindle eBooks. Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud. Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years. *All created and supported by internet wizz, Nick Gill.

Posted in: A History of Royal Dutch Shell, Alfred Donovan, Anti-Donovan Task Force, Business ethics, Business Principles, Codex, Don Marketing, Donovan Shell Feud, Donovan Shell Radioactive Archive, Dr. John Huong, Environment, Fox News, GoogleNews, Hakluyt & Company, Human Rights, Shell Business Principles, Shell Corporate Affairs Security, Shell Employee Safety, Shell Nazi History, Shell PLC, Shell Reserves Fraud, Shell Reserves Scandal, Shell Spies, Shell Spying, ShellNaziHistory.com, ShellNews.net, Sin Stocks, Sir Henri Deterding, Wkipedia.
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