Israel may have helped FBI nab American Jewish informant

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By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The government of Israel may have tipped off US federal agents about the activities of an American Jew, who was arrested by the FBI earlier this month for sharing confidential information with an undercover FBI agent. Elliot Doxer, a 42-year-old finance department employee of Massachusetts-based Akamai Technologies, is charged with providing inside company information to a Bureau agent posing as an Israeli spy. According to court papers, the FBI counterintelligence operation against Doxer began after he emailed Israel’s consulate in Boston, in 2006, identifying himself as a Jewish American “offering the little [information] I may have […] to help our homeland and our war against our enemies”. A year later, an FBI counterintelligence team posing as Israeli Mossad operatives contacted Doxer and offered to satisfy his request for $3,000 in return for inside information on Akamai, a company whose role in the architecture of Internet’s worldwide infrastructure is instrumental. But how did the FBI know about Doxer’s attempt to contact the Israeli consulate in Boston? According to veteran intelligence reporter Jeff Stein, it is likely that the Israelis were suspicious of Doxer and may have thought that the FBI intentionally used him as a dangle –an espionage term for a spy posing as an informant to supply intentionally misleading information to a target spy agency. Citing a former CIA counterintelligence expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Stein notes that the Israelis may have “suspected the volunteer letter was sent by a double agent set up by the FBI”, and that it was they who notified the Bureau about Doxer’s email. After being contacted by what he thought was the Mossad, Doxer supplied internal Akamai papers to his handlers over 60 times in 18 months, some of which involved contractual agreements between Akamai and the Department of Homeland Security. He now faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if found guilty.