The Super League

Boyd & Beautiful

A Confederate spy in American Civil War, Isabella Marie Boyd, alias Belle Boyd, made the most of her great body and winning ways.

A gutsy woman, she didn’t mind bullets flying around her, while delivering messages. She was arrested thrice but was released on all occasions.

Boyd died of a heart attack at the age of 56. She got the Southern Cross of Honour for her contributions.

Femme fatale

Easily the most famous woman in the history, Mata Hari’s intriguing life has inspired reels of both films and literature.

A successful courtesan, this Dutch woman was close to many high-ranking military officers during World War I.

In 1917, she was arrested in Paris on charges of spying for Germany and later executed by a firing squad.

Warrior princess

Noor Inayat Khan, better known as Nora Baker, was a British Special Operations Executive in World War II.

Her fluency in French and expertise in handling wireless operation made her a fit candidate to transmit messages from Nazi-occupied France.

She was arrested in 1943 and executed in 1944. Baker, a descendent of Tipu Sultan, was posthumously awarded for her gallantry.

Madhuri Gupta (53), a diplomat in India’s Islamabad mission, was arrested in April this year and booked under the Official Secrets Act.

She is charged with spying for the ISI and revealing the identities of RAW agents to Pakistan. A ‘reverse honeytrap’ did her in.

In her defence, Gupta said she wasn’t happy with her seniors.

Social butterfly

The uber-cool Russian mole, Anna Chapman’s arrest last month sent shockwaves in the US.

Chapman (28) was a known face in the American party circuit and used to hang out with many celebrities.

She has also sent the British security agencies into a tizzy after her links to the royalty — Prince Harry and Prince Williams — have surfaced.

She was a part of the Russian-US spy swap — the biggest since Cold War — that took place recently.

Roxana Saberi, an American journalist in Iran, was arrested in January, 2009, for buying a bottle of wine, an act banned under the country’s Islamic law.

Later, she was charged with espionage and possessing classified information. She was given an eight-year prison sentence. Saberi denied all charges.

Later, her term was reduced and subsequently the Iranian government had to release her in May 2009 under international pressure.

Saberi penned a book — Between Two Worlds — on her experiences in Iran.