On October 18, 2001, Pollari sent a one and a half page letter to the CIA indicating that "the news about Niger comes from a reliable source, even if it is not possible to assess its quality" (Italian: "le notizie sul Niger arrivano da una fonte affidabile, anche se non si è grado di valutarne la qualità").
[4] Martino played a major role in the fabrication and the dissemination of the Yellowcake Forgery,[3][5][6][7][8][9][10] when he approached CIA Rome station chief Jeffrey W. Castelli with documents on Niger government letterhead describing secret plans for the sale of uranium to Iraq.
[citation needed] Although claiming to be an intelligence/disinformation conduit on his own account, it is likely Martino was deliberately deployed as a double agent by SISMI, Italian military intelligence, originally to spy on the French.
[citation needed] According to Nicholas Ruffard of the Sunday Times, Giacomo admitted that he received documents from the Nigerian embassy.
[1][13] On Sept. 9, 2002, Nicolò Pollari gave the forged documents directly to Stephen Hadley, who was the United States deputy national security advisor.