intelNews

Retired US colonel charged with smuggling weapons to Somalia

July 6, 2010 5 Comments

Somalia

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A retired US Air Force colonel, who was charged with weapons smuggling during the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, has been indicted again, this time for trying to smuggle automatic weapons into Somalia. US federal authorities accuse Joseph O’Toole, now 79, of conspiring with Israeli citizen Chanoch Miller, formerly an aeronautics engineer with Israeli defense firm Radom Aviation, to transport nearly 2,000 AK-47s from Bosnia to Banderal, Somalia. The smuggling operation, which employed forged end-user certificates issued in Chad, violated US weapons export control regulations, which are in compliance with a United Nations weapons embargo to war-ravaged Somalia. This is the second time O’Toole has been indicted with conspiring to smuggle weapons. In 1989, he was charged of working with fellow-American Richard St. Francis and Israeli alleged ex-Mossad operative Ari Ben-Menashe, to sell several US C-130 cargo airplanes to the Iranian government. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #386 (Israel edition)

July 5, 2010 4 Comments

IDF soldier suspected of spying for Hezbollah. A career Israel Defense Forces soldier is among several civilians suspected of spying for the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, Israeli authorities revealed on Wednesday.
Israeli, Turkish ministers hold secret meeting. The Israeli Foreign Minister has reacted furiously to reports that Benjamin Ben Eliezer, a Labor Party Knesset member, met secretly with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Switzerland.
Top Hamas spy set for asylum in US. Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of a Hamas co-founder and spy for Israel was set to be granted asylum after the US government withdrew its opposition to his request to remain in the country on Wednesday.

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Austrian probe finds Chechen president behind Vienna killing

July 5, 2010 1 Comment

Ramzan Kadyrov

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A report by Austrian government officials has found that the Moscow-appointed President of Chechnya ordered the 2009 assassination in Vienna of a Chechen dissident, who had been given political asylum by Austrian authorities. In 2009, Umar Israilov, who was once a bodyguard of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, alleged in Vienna and in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg that Kadyrov had “personally participated in the torture of detainees”. But on January 13, 2009, Israilov was shot dead by two men in broad daylight outside a grocery store located less than two miles from Vienna’s historic city center. Now the Vienna Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism has said in a detailed report that Israilov’s murder was a political assassination ordered personally by Chechen President Kadyrov, who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #385

July 4, 2010 1 Comment

Indian, Pakistani spy chiefs meet in Islamabad. The meeting between the Director of India’s General Intelligence Bureau, Rajiv Mathur, and his Pakistani counterpart Javed Noor, took place in the aftermath of the arrest of Madhuri Gupta, second secretary at the Indian high commission in Islamabad, Pakistan, who is accused of passing on secrets to Pakistan’s ISI spy agency.
CIA releases documents on Korean War. The US Central Intelligence Agency has released a document collection that includes more than 1,300 redacted files consisting of national estimates, intelligence memos, daily updates, and summaries of foreign media concerning developments on the Korean Peninsula from 1947 until 1954.
Lebanon to probe top government officials in Israeli spy ring case. The arrest of a senior Lebanese phone firm manager, who is accused of spying for Israel, has prompted prosecutors to ask that several senior government officials be stripped of their immunity so that they can be investigated in relation to a nationwide crackdown on alleged Israeli spy rings in the country.

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News you may have missed #384

July 3, 2010 1 Comment

India arrests Russian woman in connection with alleged German spy. Police in the Indian state of Punjab have arrested Olga Timoshik, a Russian woman accused of assisting Thomas Kuehn, a suspected German spy who was arrested in Punjab in early June.
UK Prime Minister raises ex-spy’s death with Russian President. British leader David Cameron raised the contentious issue of the 2006 assassination of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko in London, in his first meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last weekend. Litvinenko’s death triggered the worst dispute between the UK and Russia in recent years.
BP hires ex-CIA counsel as lobbyist. Stanley Sporkin, who was General Counsel for the CIA for five years under William Casey during the Iran-Contra years, has been hired by British Petroleum as ombudsman “to hear worker complaints from Alaska and elsewhere in the US”.

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News you may have missed #383 (Russian spy ring edition IV)

July 2, 2010 4 Comments

Analysis: Why Russia and the US still spy. The sensationalist media coverage of the FBI’s recent bust of a Russian spy ring in the US has failed to examine this development in light of the post-Cold War relations between Russia and the United States. The fact is that espionage will continue, even as the United States and Russia work out a new post-Cold War modus vivendi, says Peter Earnest, a 35-year CIA veteran.
Analysis: The lure of the SVR. For most Russians, getting a job in the country’s vast bureaucracy is a happy career step. Even more glamorous is the FSB, Russia’s ubiquitous domestic intelligence service. But the most prestigious agency of all is still the SVR, Russia’s equivalent of MI6, which is responsible for all foreign intelligence operations abroad, including the long-term, deep cover espionage ring just busted by the FBI. The Cold War may be over, but the SVR still offers a globe-trotting career for a small, elite group of ambitious graduates with the right connections.
Analysis: Was the Russian spy operation worth the trouble? The FBI has alleged no espionage or loss of classified materials as a result of the operations of the 11-member Russian spy ring. Indeed, much of what it maintains the Russians were seeking could be gleaned from a Google search. So the wider ramifications of the spy arrests may turn out to be primarily political rather than cloak-and-dagger.

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Analysis: What we know about the Russian spy ring case

July 2, 2010 2 Comments

SVR seal

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
If you are frustrated with the increasingly idiotic and sex-obsessed media coverage of the Russian spy ring recently busted by the FBI, you are not alone. Less than a week since news of the arrests in the US of ten alleged deep-cover agents of Russia’s SVR intelligence agency emerged, sensationalist media hacks have left no stone unturned. Thankfully, Stratfor Global Intelligence has produced an excellent early summary of this developing story, complete with a useful diagram of the known members of the SVR spy ring. The summary correctly points out some of the critical issues in the espionage case, including the fact that the 11 suspects appeared to be primarily run out of the SVR residence at the Russian mission to the United Nations in New York, and not out of the Russian Embassy in Washington DC. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #382 (Russian spy ring edition III)

July 1, 2010 4 Comments

What about the children of the accused Russian spies? The suspected spies have seven children among them, most of whom are thought to be younger than 18. But while plenty of details have emerged about the spying activities of their parents, very little is known about the children.
MI5 investigates Russian spy’s time in Britain. Russian alleged spy Anna Chapman lived in Britain for almost five years, working in a string of top London companies. Now MI5, which carries out Britain’s counterespionage work, is understood to be helping the Americans in their investigation.
Canadian identity was useful for Russian spies. The FBI affidavit charges that four of the 11 Russian spies arrested in the US last weekend, four claim Canadian birth or citizenship, including one who allegedly took the identity of a Montreal infant who died in 1963. The Canadian identity card has become a preferred commodity in the shadowy world of international espionage.

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News you may have missed #381 (Russian spy ring edition II)

July 1, 2010 3 Comments

Accused Russian spies lived perfect Boston lives. It is almost certain that the members of the Russian spy ring, arrested by the FBI last weekend, trained for years in Moscow’s most elite SVR intelligence school to pass as Canadians or Americans. Their real-life identities and backgrounds may never be learned.
Russian spies blended well, sought contacts. The 11 people arrested and accused of being members of a Russian spy ring operating under deep cover in America’s suburbs were active in the East Coast networking circuit.
Kremlin adopts calmer tone on US spy affair. Moscow on Wednesday softened its initially furious reaction to this week’s spy scandal in the US, when it said that the arrest of 11 people accused of working for Russian intelligence would not have a negative impact on bilateral relations. Earlier in the week, Vladimir Putin had accused US authorities of having “gone on a rampage”.

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Wanted Russian spy ring member skips bail in Cyprus

July 1, 2010 Leave a comment

Achilleos Hotel

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Police in the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus have issued an arrest warrant for a member of an alleged Russian spy ring in the United States, who had been released on bail following his capture on Tuesday. The FBI says that Christopher R. Metsos, who holds Canadian citizenship, was the financial go-between in the 11-member Russian spy ring, which was busted in a series of coordinated raids across several US states on Saturday. On June 25, Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for Metsos, who escaped arrest in the US because he was in Cyprus, where he had arrived on June 17. He was arrested at the island’s Larnaca International Airport on Tuesday, while trying to board a flight for Budapest, Hungary. Remarkably, however, Metsos was soon released on bail, awaiting an extradition request from Washington. Predictably, on Wednesday, he failed to report to Larnaca police, as stipulated in his bail release court order. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #380 (Russian spy ring edition I)

June 30, 2010 Leave a comment

FBI criminal complaint against Russian foreign agents (pdf). It is worth noting that the alleged Russian spies arrested by the FBI last weekend have not been charged with espionage, but rather with “conspiring to act as unauthorized foreign agents” and “conspiracy to commit money laundering”.
Russian spy ring member was preparing to leave country. Anna Chapman, the woman dubbed the ‘femme fatale’ of the alleged Russian spy ring uncovered in the US last weekend, suspected she had been uncovered by the FBI, and was preparing to leave the US.
Russian spy ring relied on ‘primitive’ spycraft. Arrested members of the Russian spy ring operating in the US communicated mostly through ‘old-school’ radio transmissions of Morse code messages, and surreptitious exchanges of cash in grocery bags. This (minus the cash) is reminiscent of the Walter and Gwendolyn Myers case, an American couple who spied for Cuba.

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Canadian politicians work for foreign powers, says Canada spy chief

June 30, 2010 Leave a comment

Richard Fadden

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Canadian state’s senior intelligence executive caused an uproar last weekend after he claimed that several Canadian politicians were under the control of foreign governments. In an interview for an investigative program on state-owned CBC television, Richard Fadden, Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS), said that his intelligence officers are aware of “some political figures who have developed quite an attachment to foreign countries”. He also claimed that CSIS investigators were aware of at least two cabinet ministers in two Canadian provinces, who were “agents of influence”, as well as other public officials that were secretly representing “foreign interests”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #379

June 30, 2010 Leave a comment

Lebanon arrests Palestinian for spying for Israel. Lebanese police have arrested a Palestinian refugee from the Burj al-Shemali refugee camp on suspicion that he was spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, a police spokesman said last week. More than 70 people have been arrested in a nationwide crackdown on alleged Israeli spy rings in Lebanon, launched in April 2009, some of them policemen and security officials.
US spy agency chief nomination held up by Congress. US Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein says she won’t hold confirmation hearings for James Clapper, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the next Director of National Intelligence, until she completes her top priority, namely congressional passage and presidential signature on the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Bill.

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FBI busts alleged Russian spy ring, 11 arrested [updated]

June 29, 2010 7 Comments

Anna Chapman

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Ten members of an alleged Russian spy ring operating in America’s East Coast were arrested in a series of coordinated raids on Sunday. US Department of Justice insiders said that the arrests, which took place in Arlington, New Jersey, New York, and Boston, marked the culmination of an FBI counterintelligence operation initiated during the second administration of President Bill Clinton. It appears that the alleged Russian agents were non-official-cover (NOC) operatives, otherwise known as ‘illegals’, a term used to identify deep-cover intelligence operatives not associated with the diplomatic representation of the Russian Federation in the United States. Eight of the arrestees were married couples and all were using fake identities. Almost all are fluent in several languages; they include “Vicky Pelaez”, who worked for a New York Spanish-language newspaper, another woman identified as “Anna Chapman” (see photo), and “Mikhail Semenko”, who is said to be fluent in English, Spanish, Russian, and even Mandarin. An eleventh alleged member of the spy ring, named as “Christopher R. Metsos”, remains at large and is wanted by the FBI was captured by Greek-Cypriot authorities at Larnaca airport earlier today, while trying to board a flight for Hungary. Read more of this post

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European Union targeted by Colombian intelligence, documents show

June 29, 2010 Leave a comment

DAS seal

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Several members of the European Parliament have voiced concern over the recent disclosure in Colombia of an alleged operation to undermine the European Union’s parliamentary and human rights bodies. The operation is reportedly mentioned in internal documents belonging to Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (DAS), which were recently confiscated by the office of the Colombian Attorney General. The confiscated documents describe a clandestine program codenamed Operation EUROPE, which aims to wage a “legal war” intended to discredit and “neutralize the influence of the European judicial system, the European Parliament’s human rights subcommittee, and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights”. Read more of this post