The French government bugs the seats of Air France planes and hotel rooms to listen to corporate leaders' conversations. Chrysler workers sneak off with proprietary documents to take to their new jobs with Volkswagen.

     These are just two of many real-life examples of corporate espionage.

     A Palm Beach resident and former CIA intelligence officer is organizing a conference in Miami to address such problems and show how companies can protect themselves.

     “Business is war. And in war it is a matter of survival of the fittest,” Fred Rustmann wrote in a think tank publication associated with the University of Arizona. 

     Rustmann, who recently pondered a run for Town Council but decided against it, worked for 24 years in the CIA’s Clandestine Service division.

     He is organizing the event with late CIA director William Casey’s nephew Larry Casey, and former Wyoming Sen. Malcom Wallop. 

     The corporate Intelligence of the Americas Conference is scheduled from Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 19-21 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

     “In order to survive in today’s cutthroat business environment , we must be properly armed," Rustmann wrote. “And one of the most important arrows in the executive's quiver is accurate knowledge competitors and their business environment.” 

     Experts at the event will share their knowledge of how best to protect the assets of corporations and government. The exposition will also feature more than 500 exhibits from around the world of services, equipment , and technology.

     Casey, who has relatives in Palm Beach said the conference should interest island residents. "It is relevant to people on the island whether they are creating or protecting wealth,” he said.

     Rustmann agrees. “Twenty-four percent of the wealth in America is in Palm Beach," he said. "These [executives ] are the doyennes of industry. They ought to know about business intelligence.”

     Casey said it is easy for a corporate spy to infiltrate a large corporation. “Microsoft is hiring all sorts of people from many different countries” he said. "The company may [unknowingly] be hiring someone who is an agent, whose sole purpose is to find out what Microsoft has.”

     “This information that is coming out at the conference has never been said before,” Casey said.

     What is shocking, Rustmann said, is how much industrial espionage is hurting the American economy. "One hundred billion [dollars are] lost each year in the American economy through industrial espionage,” he said. “I don’t know of any other single issue, maybe other than welfare, that can create such a drain on the American economy.”

     Instead of investigating for the Pentagon, White House or high-ranking government officials, Rustmann works for company CEO’s top gather business intelligence information. His CTC International Group is based in West Palm Beach.

     The chairman of the event is former Sen. Wallop, who served in the Armed Services Committee. “There are a lot of conferences about security," Wallop said. “But this is about corporate intelligence.”

     Wallop, who served in the Senate for 18 years and retired in 1994, said that, after the Cold War, government officials discussed having the CIA getting involved in corporate intelligence gathering and espionage.

     He said the idea was rejected. “Everyone didn’t want the government to get involved in that. It is not the sort of thing we wanted government to do. It can play favorites," he said.

     Rustmann’s CTC International Group is writing the program and picking the experts for the program. World Expositions, which has organized other events, is handling the logistics.

     Casey said organizers are inviting the director the CIA and other government intelligence leaders to speak.

     Rustmann said there is much more to security than counterintelligence. He said background checks on people who represent themselves as being from foreign countries with which corporations are doing business can reveal a lot.

     “If IBM was opening a branch in Asia, it would first deal with individuals, and you would want a background check on the individuals to see if they are who they say they are," he said.

     Rustmann said gathering business intelligence is a must for companies before opening up shop in other countries. “I liken business intelligence to walking into a dark room with a flashlight. It illuminates the obstacles , but it does not remove the obstacles in your path,” he said.

     Wallop said simple steps to protect proprietary information will be discussed. For example, some companies may want to protect confidential documents by not allowing employees to leave with them and requiring them to use a special viewing room. “A lot of it is common sense,” he said.

     He also said procedures exist for finding out if a company's phones are tapped. “Perhaps the most difficult and most important [of the investigation phases] is counterintelligence, which has to do with protecting your business data from competitors,” Wallop said.”