By Bryan Huang
HE RAN a management company which claimed to have offices in
Paris, Jakarta and Singapore. He was classmates with Mexican
president Felipe Calderon.
Donald Heathfield, CEO and inventor of Future Map, is also
accused of being a Russian spy, and using the false identity of a
dead Canadian infant.
His company, Future Map, said its goal was to develop 'strategic
proactivity'.
'Our mission is to help governments, enterprises and
international organisations better prepare for the future and make
better strategic decisions,' the company said on its website. 'We
strive to establish Future Map as a global repository of
information about anticipated events and a platform for
collaboration in this emerging domain'.
A man at Future Map's Singapore headquarters, which the website
lists at Heritage Place along Tan Quee Lan Street, said he was
'stunned' by the news, Bloomberg News reported. The man, who
declined to give his name, said he was 'extremely surprised' and
didn't 'know what to make of it'.
Heathfield studied for his masters on public administration in
2000 at Harvard University, which he used to cultivate ties, The
New York Times reported.
Mark Podlasly, a classmate of Heathfield's, told NYT that the
accused spy 'kept in touch with almost all of our international
classmates'.
'In Singapore, in Jakarta - he knew what everyone was doing. If
you wanted to know where anybody was at, Don would know,' Mr
Podlasly was quoted as saying.
Prosecutors said Heathfield met a high-ranking US government
official in 2004 'with regard to nuclear weapons research'.
Heathfield, one of 10 suspected Russian spies held in the US,
had ties to organisations involved in forecasting emerging
technologies.
A Canadian man, David Heathfield, said the accused spy had
assumed the identity of his brother, who died in Montreal in 1963
at six weeks of age.
The AP reported that David Heathfield said he did not know how
his brother's name turned up in the US court files, but believed
the Russians singled out his brother's death notice in a Montreal
newspaper.
