No, because in that case he wouldn't need to be a spy. The church could just send anyone to go and ask around.
Well, without being too candid, generally speaking there will be a person, or persons, within a ward or within a stake who will happily report back when asked to do so. These people are usually long standing members, will probably be ex stake presidents, ex mission presidents, who will have interacted with General Authorities and Apostles over the years and will have proven their loyalty. They can be asked about Person X or to chat in oblique terms to person Y to suss them out. That sounds a bit far fetched I know, but I have experienced it first hand. It's how it happens. Every Stake has one or two people (men, obviously) who are prepared to act as spies.
I'd be staggered if the Church used undercover police to integrate wards when there's a few members already in place that will happily do the job.
Yes, I also have first hand experience with this. I have a very close relative who is also a former General Authority, and he happened to reside in the same Stake as Denver Snuffer. This was about 12-13 years ago. I had mentioned to my relative that I'd read some of Denver Snuffer's books and visited with Denver in his home one time, but at the time my relative was non-plussed, unaware of who Snuffer was. A couple of months later, my relative approached me and, in deliberate fashion, quizzed me about Snuffer, his beliefs, his message, etc. It was very clear as the conversation progressed that this quiz was an information-gathering assignment given to him (he alluded to this vaguely), and I assume he was given the assignment based on his presence in Stake and former leadership experience & connections.
I suspect that for high profile apostasy candidates, these types of inquiries and informal information-gathering assignments are probably commonplace to facilitate "information flow" between local and top level leaders.
