[2] Prieur worked in the intelligence-gathering and evaluation wing of the French Secret Service, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE).
[3] Cabon was posted to Auckland in April 1985, where she infiltrated the Greenpeace office and gathered information for Prieur and her fellow agent Alain Mafart.
[3] In July 1985, Prieur and Mafart entered New Zealand from Corsica on Swiss passports issued to their aliases Sophie and Alain Turenge, a newlywed couple on honeymoon.
[4][5] Their instructions were to sink the Rainbow Warrior as the French government suspected that it would be used to protest the upcoming nuclear tests at Mururoa atoll in the South Pacific.
[9] Prieur pleaded guilty to charges of manslaughter and wilful damage in the Auckland District Court, and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment on 22 November 1985.