Is Wellcome Trust an unofficial international intelligence gathering organization?

Some people reading this will be thinking ‘Well, he had a couple of good points in the beginning - but now he’s totally lost the plot’.

But let's take a look anyway ...

Wellcome:

• has operations in over 100 countries
  
• collects and centralizes data/intelligence
  
• vigorously prosecutes a globalization agenda
  
• promotes/employs bio-surveillance technology
  
• funds dual-purpose defense/weapons technologies including genomics and AI

In many Asian, African, and South American countries, Wellcome (and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) would represent the main foreign organizations on the ground. If you are a spy, you don’t just rock up and start spying - you need some sort of cover-occupation. Theoretically at least, Wellcome would make an excellent vehicle for spies in terms of its international penetration as well as its massive resources.

Also, it wouldn’t be the first time that an international charity has been involved in espionage:

Intercept (2015): (A)s Christian Hiramine crossed the stage to shake hands with President Bush and receive his award, he was hiding a key fact from those in attendance: He was a Pentagon spy whose NGO was funded through a highly classified Defense Department program. The secret Pentagon program, which dates back to December 2004, continued well into the Obama presidency. It was the brainchild of a senior Defense Department intelligence official of the Bush administration, Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin .. (who) settled on the ruse of the NGO as he was seeking new and unorthodox ways to penetrate North Korea.

But the skeptic would say: Wellcome is run by a collection of distinguished, high-minded scientists. How would you ever convince them to become a spy-front? It’s absurd.

Turns out that’s probably the easiest part.