When you think about spies infiltrating Australia and which countries they’re coming from, you’re probably going to think of China, or Russia.

But we’ve just learned, for the first time, that India’s intelligence agency - known as the RAW - deployed secret agents to try and steal sensitive information from one its most important global partners, Australia. 

It comes as reports emerged from the United States that a hired hit team with links to the RAW was in the final phase of carrying out an assasination plot against an Indian activist.

Today, foreign affairs and national security correspondent Matthew Knott on what’s behind this global “nest of spies” and why this spy operation in Australia was kept secret until now.