[8] In the early days, kompromat featured doctored photographs, planted drugs, grainy videos of liaisons with prostitutes hired by the KGB, and a wide range of other primitive entrapment techniques.
[15][16] In the 1950s, British civil servant John Vassall was a victim of a gay honey trap operation, producing kompromat which could be used against him since homosexuality was illegal in Britain at the time.
[18] In 1997, Valentin Kovalyov was removed as the Russian Minister of Justice after photographs of him with prostitutes in a sauna controlled by the Solntsevskaya Bratva crime organization were published in a newspaper.
[19] In April 2010, politician Ilya Yashin and comedian Victor Shenderovich were involved in a sex scandal with a woman claimed to have acted as a Kremlin honey trap to discredit opposition figures.
[13] In cases of kompromat during the early 21st century, Russian operatives have been suspected or accused of placing child pornography on the personal computers of individuals they were attempting to discredit.
[19][22] During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, U.S. intelligence agencies were investigating possibly compromising personal and financial information on President-elect Donald Trump, leading to allegations that he and members of his administration might be vulnerable to manipulation by the Russian government.