Honey potting
| “ | You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. | „ |
| ~ An old proverb. |
Honey potting, also known as honey trapping, is the use of seductresses by organized crime gangs. It involves the seductive female mobster to sleep with the target, which could be a male police officer, government agent, politician, judge, or lawyer; a rival mobster or other man who betrayed the gang; or even a man of the general public.
In the case of a public official, the seductress, or femme fatale, is usually assigned to either blackmail, threaten, or bribe them. In the case of a rival mobster or man who betrayed the gang, they are usually assigned to assassinate him. In the case of a general public member, they are usually assigned to recruit him as a new member of the gang. It can be done for other purposes, though these are the three most common.
The use of women to seduce men is obviously very powerful as the criminal organizations are taking advantage of a (typically weak) man’s sexual desires to gain power over them, destroy them, or have them on their payroll, and the gang behind the plot can now exercise the most intimate form of control.
It is NOT to be confused with bait cars (also referred to as honey traps) used by police to capture car thieves, or websites used by government agencies in order to capture hackers (which are also referred to as honeypots). Both are completely unrelated activities because seduction isn't involved and they are done by law enforcement and government officials, instead of mobsters.
Similar techniques are also sometimes used by certain corrupt governments. For example, in many anti-LGBT regimes, an undercover officer of a secret police agency will sometimes pretend to be homosexual or bisexual in order to arrest an LGBTQ+ community member from within their home country. Additionally, they may also use a seducer or seductress in order to gain information on a foreign politician or diplomat from a different country.