IC Operations & Tradecraft — 2026-07-15

Pentagon Contracts Anomaly 6 Surveillance Firm for $6M Havana Syndrome Investigation Using Smartphone Location Data

BLUFEmbedding a commercial firm that demonstrated bulk tracking of CIA and NSA employees inside the Pentagon's Havana syndrome task force creates a counterintelligence blind spot no disclosed oversight mechanism covers.

Documents obtained by The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request show Anomaly 6, a Virginia-based location-data broker, has been contracted to assist the Pentagon's Anomalous Health Incidents Cross-Functional Task Force, recently reorganized under the Office of the Undersecretary of War for Research and Engineering led by former Uber executive Emil Michael, in its Havana syndrome investigation 12. The Air Force-administered contract, Project Yellowfin, is worth close to $6 million, runs through September, and tasks Anomaly 6 with applying its "location intelligence" to identify actors and activities of interest and produce visualization products on patterns of life 12. Anomaly 6 buys bulk smartphone location data from apps and ad networks and in a 2022 pitch demonstrated it could track CIA and NSA employees' commutes and Chinese and Russian military movements 12. A 2025 intelligence community report found most constituent agencies consider it highly unlikely a national adversary caused the syndrome's symptoms, and the Air Force did not respond to questions on why it selected Anomaly 6 or whether the firm's data fed into prior Havana syndrome assessments 12.

Analysis
Embedding a firm that demonstrated bulk-tracking of CIA and NSA personnel inside the Pentagon's own Havana syndrome task force opens a counterintelligence exposure pathway running through the same commercial data pipeline Anomaly 6 used to profile US intelligence officers in 2022, and the Air Force's refusal to explain the selection or confirm whether its data touched the 2023 assessment leaves that exposure unverified from outside the program. Heavy redaction of the released contract signals the task force intends to keep "actors and activities of interest" queries opaque even to FOIA review; the contract may equally reflect routine Pentagon adoption of commercial location-analytics tools rather than a targeted hunt for a foreign adversary. Anomaly 6's defense footprint predates this deal: a 2020 Special Operations Command Africa contract made the Pentagon its second confirmed client. Reporting rests on a single Intercept account with no independent cross-outlet corroboration.

3 sources

Pentagon Hires Firm to Investigate Havana Syndrome - International Business Times
Anomaly 6 Hired to Investigate Havana Syndrome: The Contractor That Tracked CIA and NSA Agents Now Works for the Pentagon - Decrypted Matrix
Company That Bragged It Could Track U.S. Spies Hired to Investigate “Havana Syndrome” - The Intercept