Italian police seize largest amphetamines shipment ever found, bearing ISIS markings

July 2, 2020 Leave a comment

Guardia di Finanza Italian policePolice in Italy have announced the seizure of the largest shipment of amphetamines in counter-narcotics history, containing drugs believed to have been manufactured by the Islamic State in Syria. The drugs shipment  was intercepted at the port of Salerno, located south of Naples in southwestern Italy.

Italian police announced on Wednesday that it had made “the largest seizure of amphetamines in the world”, both in terms of quantity and street value. The latter is estimated at approximately $1 billion. Drug traffickers are rarely known to transport such large volumes of drugs in a single shipment, due to the risk of capture by the authorities. However, the lack of supply in Europe due to the coronavirus pandemic has prompted suppliers to take unusual risks, according to experts.

The amphetamines —approximately 84 million tablets— were found hidden inside three containers filled with paper cylinders. More pills had been placed inside the hollow parts of agricultural machinery products, according to police. The confiscated tablets are marked with the logo for the drug Captagon, which is better known by its generic name, Fenethylline. Captagon was a popular drug in the Middle East in the 1990s, and today amphetamines produced by the Islamic State bear its logo, according to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.

The drug is regularly given to Islamic State volunteers prior to battles and terrorist attacks, in order to help reduce their inhibitions, including susceptibility to fear, and to prevent them from feeling physical pain. Security agencies in the Middle East refer to the substance as “the jihad drug”. It is particularly prevalent in Syria, which has become the global leader in the production of illicit amphetamines in the past decade.

Italian police said the shipment was most likely intended for distribution by “a consortium of criminal groups”, who would then traffic the substance to illicit markets across Europe. It would be unthinkable for a single distributor to be able to afford a $1 billion single purchase, according to officials. The largest buyer among these distributors was probably the Camorra —the organized crime syndicate based in the region of Naples. The Camorra has international links through which it can channel the illicit drugs in much larger volumes than other crime syndicates, according to experts.

Asked about the clues that led to the seizure of the amphetamines, a spokesman for the Italian police said the force knew when the shipment was coming in, due to “ongoing investigations we have with the Camorra”. He added, “we intercepted phone calls and members, so we knew what to expect”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 02 July 2020 | Permalink

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Chinese state-linked operatives funded Trump campaign to gain access, says report

June 30, 2020 3 Comments

Trump and Xi JinpingA report in The Wall Street Journal claims that individuals and groups with ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army donated substantial funds to the re-election campaign of United States President Donald Trump, in return for access to the White House.

The paper claims that nearly half a million dollars were donated to Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign on behalf of Chinese-linked interests soon after he was sworn in as president in January of 2017. Some of these donations were allegedly among the biggest made to the campaign. The list of donors is headed by four men, according to The Journal, some of whom are naturalized Americans of Chinese background, and at least one is a Chinese citizen and American permanent resident, which means he does not get to vote in the United States. He is believed to have donated $150,000 to the Trump re-election campaign.

Many of these donations are gathered through an organization that was created in the United States in 2017 to help the president get re-elected in 2020, says the paper. Funds raised by the group are funneled to Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee. However, according to The Journal, the people behind the organization have ties to Chinese diplomats in the United States, as well as to the Chinese state.

The paper claims that the money given to the Trump re-election campaign earned some of these donors physical access to the White House and the president in at least one occasion, in May of 2017. Among those who were invited to visit the White House was a personal adviser to Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Others have ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, said the paper. It added that some of these donors have also attended Trump re-election campaign strategy meetings and meetings of the Republican National Committee.

The Wall Street Journal allegations came just days after Mr. Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, claimed in a new book that the president solicited his Chinese counterpart for help in securing his re-election. In his new book, The Room Where it Happened, Mr. Bolton claims that the American president asked Mr. Xi to have China purchase billions of dollars of American soybeans, so that farming communities in the Midwest would continue to support the Trump ticket come 2020.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 30 June 2020 | Permalink

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Tension in Iraq as government arrests members of powerful Shi’a militias

June 29, 2020 1 Comment

Popular Mobilization ForcesThere was growing tension in Iraq over the weekend, as the government in Baghdad announced it had arrested over a dozen members of a powerful Shi’a militia backed by Iran. The arrests marked the first time that the Shi’a dominated Iraqi government moved to curtail the growing power of these heavily armed groups, which some say are threatening the cohesion of the country’s fragile state institutions.

Most of Iraq’s paramilitary groups are members of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a collection of around 40 different Shiite militias consisting of over 150,000 armed fighters, who helped the Iraqi government defeat the Islamic State in 2017. The militias began to form in the summer of 2014, after Sayyid Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of the Iraqi Shiite community, issued a fatwa (religious degree) that called or the destruction of the Islamic State. The Iranian-supported PMF proved instrumental in the territorial defeat of ISIS. However, the group’s leadership is ideologically aligned with Iran, and many of its members have called for the end of American military and diplomatic presence in Iraq.

In January of this year, many of these groups declared war on the United States, after Washington launched a drone strike that killed the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of the Kita’ib Hezbollah (KH). KH is one of the most powerful Shia militias in Iraq, and controls much territory around the country. In a surprise move on Thursday, Iraqi counterterrorism forces announced they had arrested 14 members of KH, after receiving an intelligence tip. According to the government, the KH members were planning to launch large-scale attacks on Baghdad’s Green Zone, a heavily fortified area of the Iraqi capital that houses the headquarters of most ministries, as well as several embassies.

The arrests were reportedly ordered by Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, former director of Iraq’s National Intelligence Service, who assumed his new duties on May 7. His appointment ended a prolonged political impasse, as the country had struggled to replace the government of his predecessor, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who resigned in 2019 following a wave of popular protests. Al-Kadhimi is known to have good relations with Washington, while also being in good standing with Tehran. However, he vouched last month that he would “crush” the paramilitaries, who he views as enemies of Iraqi democracy.

In response to al-Kadhimi’s pronouncements, Shi’a militias have been launching constant small-rocket attacks targeting the Green Zone in recent weeks. Observers warned on Saturday that arrests of KH members have never been known to take place before, so this may be the opening shots of an open war between al-Kadhimi and Iraq’s Shi’a paramilitaries.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 29 June 2020 | Permalink

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Close American ally UAE is secretly training Syrian intelligence units, report claims

June 25, 2020 Leave a comment

KBZACThe United Arab Emirates, one of the United States’ closest Arab allies, is training Syrian intelligence and military officers and is giving financial aid to government-owned civilian facilities in Damascus, a report claims. The UAE broke off diplomatic relations with Damascus at the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011. But relations between the two countries were restored in 2018, when the oil kingdom reopened its embassy in the Syrian capital.

According to an investigation by the French-language Arab-affairs publication Orient XXI, which was reported on by the Middle East Monitor, Abu Dhabi began providing logistical, technical and financial assistance to the Syrian government soon after the embassy of the Emirates was reopened in Damascus. Orient XXI said that Emirati instructors are currently training around 40 Syrian military intelligence officers. Of these, 31 are non-commissioned officers, while at least 8 more are information technology and communication systems engineers.

Another group of Emirati instructors are allegedly training members of the Syrian Arab Army’s general staff, including at least five Syrian fighter pilots. The pilots are currently attending an all-expenses paid course at the UAE Air Force’s Khalifa bin Zayed Air College (KBZAC) in Al Ain. Orient XXI reports that the duration of the courses range from 60 days to a year, and are supervised by the intelligence services of the Syrian government. The Syrian supervisory mission at the Khalifa bin Zayed Air College is reportedly headed by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s cousin, Lieutenant Colonel Jihad Barakat, who previously commanded Syrian paramilitary units. Washington has tried several times to kill Barakat.

The report by Orient XXI also alleges that the Emiratis have been providing substantial financial aid, medical provisions and food supplies to Syrian government-owned hospitals and welfare centers in Damascus and other regions of the country, which are controlled by al-Assad’s forces. The UAE has already helped rebuilt several public buildings, electric power stations and water plants in Damascus, which were damaged during the war, says Orient XXI. Read more of this post

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Turkey arrests four members of alleged French spy ring in Istanbul

June 24, 2020 Leave a comment

French consulate in Istanbul TurkeyFour men have been arrested by Turkish authorities in Istanbul, allegedly for being members of a spy ring operated by an agent who collected information on extremist groups for France’s external spy agency. The arrests were reported on Tuesday by a newspaper with close links to the Turkish government. It is worth noting, however, that the reports have not been confirmed by Turkish officials. If true, the incident points to further deterioration in the relations between the two nations, which are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The Turkish daily newspaper Sabah said on Tuesday that the leader of the French-handled spy ring is named Metin Özdemir. He is reportedly a Turkish citizen who worked in the security department of the French consulate in Istanbul. According to the paper, Özdemir admitted to Turkish police that he was sent to France where he took an eight-month-long surveillance and counter-surveillance training course. He was then sent to Georgia by France’s General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), where he gathered intelligence for his French handlers. In exchange for his services, the DGSE allegedly gave Özdemir regular cash payments and offered him a job in the French Foreign Legion.

Özdemir eventually returned to Turkey and was allegedly handled by two DGSE officials that he named as “Virginia” and “Sebastian”. He recruited three more Turkish citizens, including two utility workers, who formed a spy ring. The spy ring members were supplied by the DGSE with forged credentials, identifying them as employees of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT). According to Sabah, the spy ring supplied the DGSE with information on 120 individuals, most of whom were members of ultra-conservative religious organizations with alleged links to the Islamic State. The spy ring also allegedly spied on the Directorate of Religious Affairs, Turkey’s state-funded religious authority. Recently, however, Özdemir reportedly fell out with his French handlers and approached Turkish authorities, who promptly arrested him and the rest of the members of his spy ring.

The Sabah report comes just days after France filed a formal complaint with NATO, alleging that one of its warships was threatened in the open seas by a Turkish Navy vessel on June 10. According to French officials, the warship Courbet attempted to approach a Turkish Navy ship named Cirkin, which was believed to be smuggling weapons to Libya. The Turkish vessel refused to identify itself to the Courbet, which was inquiring on behalf of the NATO alliance. It also flashed its radar lights at the French ship, which is usually seen as a sign of impending confrontation, while its crew members were seen wearing bullet-proof vests and standing behind the ship’s mounted weapons. Turkey has denied the French allegations, but NATO said it will launch an investigation into the incident.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 24 June 2020 | Permalink

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Spy report urges Israel to annex occupied lands now, in case Trump loses election

June 23, 2020 1 Comment

PNA police West BankA leaked report produced by analysts at Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence urges the government to annex occupied territories in the West Bank as soon as possible, in case Donald Trump loses the upcoming United States presidential elections in November. The report advises the Israeli government that it “should not expect” a widespread outbreak of violence in the streets. It also forecasts that “a wave of diplomatic protests” will gradually give its place to acceptance, as “the international system acclimates itself to annexation”.

The report was leaked to Israel Hayom, a rightwing publication, which is currently Israel’s most widely read newspaper. It discusses the so-called Netanyahu Annexation Plan, which was first unveiled by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 10, 2019, just days before Israel’s legislative elections. It proposes the annexation by Israel of several Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, which are viewed as illegal by the United Nations. The plan has been condemned by the United Nations and many Western countries, but has the approval of the White House.

Palestinian groups and several Arab countries have warned Israel that there will be serious consequences if it proceeds with the proposed annexation. But the Intelligence Ministry report, authored at the request of the Intelligence Services Minister Eli Cohen, claims that these warnings should not worry the Israeli government. A possible annexation of the Israeli settlements will cause some demonstrations throughout the Arab World, it says, but it won’t substantially “rouse the Arab street” against Arab governments. This, it claims, “will make it clear to Arab leaders that the Palestinian issue is not a threat” to their political survival.

The report goes further, suggesting that an aggressive move by Israel may bring Arab governments closer to it, once Arab leaders realize that the annexation of Palestinian lands by the Jewish state will not prompt major reactions among their citizens. Additionally, it suggests that the timing for the annexation works in Israel’s favor, as the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, has been substantially weakened by its disagreement with the White House. Additionally, it says, Hamas “lacks appetite for another round of fighting” and most Palestinians are “mostly concerned with the troubles of day-to-day-life”. Other countries are mostly preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic, and the Arab public outside Palestine has “more pressing concerns at home”, the report opines.

In its concluding section, the report appears to dismiss the conventional thinking that the annexation of the settlements will destroy even the remotest possibility of a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. It report argues that “after a period in which the international system acclimates itself to the annexation”, the Palestinians and their supporters in the region will be compelled “to return to peace talks”, and even seek “solutions and arrangements that aren’t affixed to the 1967 lines and primarily territorial aspects”. In its concluding section, the report suggests that the Israeli government would have more to gain by proceeding with the annexation as soon as possible, rather than waiting, because it is “impossible to know how the US presidential election in November will unfold”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 23 June 2020 | Permalink

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Analysis: A look at the CIA’s half-century-old ‘disease intelligence’ program

June 22, 2020 Leave a comment

CIAThe general discussion about how and when the White House was alerted by its spy agencies about COVID-19, points to the existence of ‘disease intelligence’ programs in the United States Intelligence Community. Relatively little is known about the history and current state of these programs. Last weekend, however, ABC News’ investigative correspondent Lee Ferran brought to light an article from 48 years ago in a declassified intelligence publication that sheds light on the roots of the Central Intelligence Agency’s disease intelligence effort.

The article was published in the declassified edition of Studies in Intelligence, the CIA’s in-house research publication. Written by Warren F. Carey and Myles Maxfield, the article appeared [.pdf] in the spring 1972 issue of the journal, and is titled “Intelligence Implications of Disease”. It discusses the 1966 outbreak of meningitis in China’s Guangdong Province, which prompted the CIA to begin tracking diseases in a systematic way. The outbreak first appeared in the city that is today known as Guangzhou, and within weeks it had resulted in a military takeover of the Chinese healthcare system. The latter collapsed in places, and prompted the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence (known today as the Directorate of Science and Technology) to begin collecting data in order to assess the political fallout of the disease.

The article states that the CIA cryptonym for the disease was Project IMPACT. Its scope was limited, but it expanded 1968, when the world health community began to issue alerts about the so-called Hong Kong flu. Known officially as Hong Kong/A2/68, the virus spread around the world in a few months, and is believed to have killed between 1 and 4 million people, including around 100,000 Americans. At that time, according to the article in Studies in Intelligence, the CIA’s Project IMPACT “went global”, and was combined with BLACKFLAG, an ongoing effort by the Agency to “computerize disease information and derive trends, cycles and predictions” on a global scale.

Project BLACKFLAG tracked the spread of the disease in the Soviet Union and in North Vietnam, and issued regular analyses of the political ramification of the epidemic. That was not easy, say the authors, given the fact that most nations of the communist bloc tried to conceal information about it. The CIA was also able to issue warnings to its teams of operatives abroad, instructing them to shield themselves from the flu as it spread around East Asia and, eventually, the world.

According the authors, the CIA’s early disease intelligence projects were able to demonstrate that data aggregation was critical in helping monitor and forecast outbreaks. It also showed that these such forecasts could have “an initiating and vital role” in political, military and economic intelligence. Today, says Ferran, the CIA’s disease intelligence program has the same twofold mission it had when it was first conceived: first, to collect intelligence about the actual extent of the spread of diseases abroad —which may differ from the official information provided by foreign governments; and second, to try to forecast the consequences of these trends for American interests in the regions impacted by an ongoing epidemic or pandemic.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 22 June 2020 | Permalink

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NSA director claims Bolton’s book would cause ‘irreparable damage’ to US secrets

June 19, 2020 3 Comments

Paul NakasoneThe director of America’s largest spy agency claims in a signed affidavit that a forthcoming book by John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, would critically compromise intelligence secrets if published. Bolton served in that capacity from April 2018 until September 2019. His memoir of his time as President Trump’s national security advisor, titled The Room Where It Happened, is scheduled for publication on Tuesday.

But the White House has sued Bolton, claiming that he did not follow the requirements of his pre-publication screening process by government officials. President Trump’s legal team also claims that, if published, the book would damage critical areas of United States national security.

On Wednesday, the White House’s stance on the book was affirmed by the director of the National Security Agency, General Paul M. Nakasone. In a signed affidavit filed in US District Court in Washington, Gen. Nakasone said he had been asked by the legal adviser of the National Security Council to review “a limited portion” of the draft manuscript of Bolton’s book. He added that he had identified “classified information” in that portion of the manuscript, some of which was classified at the Top Secret/Sensitive and Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) level.

According to Gen. Nakasone’s affidavit, “compromise of this information could result in the permanent loss of a valuable SIGINT source and cause irreparable damage to the US SIGINT system”. SIGINT refers to the gathering of intelligence by intercepting communications signals in the form of information exchanged orally between people or mediated via electronic means.

Gen. Nakasone goes on to state that the unauthorized disclosure of the information contained in Bolton’s book could “reasonably […] be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage” to US national security. This includes causing “considerable difficulties in US and allied relations with specific nations”. The NSA director does not detail the precise damage that Bolton’s revelations could cause to US national security, stating only that the information would compromise an intelligence-collection “capability” that “significant manpower and monetary investments have been and continue to be made to enable and maintain”.

Alongside Gen. Nakasone’s affidavit, the Department of Justice submitted an emergency filing on Wednesday, seeking to block the publication of Bolton’s book on national security grounds. Another affidavit was filed on Wednesday by John Ratcliffe, President Trump’s newly appointed Director of National Intelligence.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 19 June 2020 | Permalink

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Cybersecurity researchers uncover first-ever use of LinkedIn to spread malware

June 18, 2020 Leave a comment

LinkedInCybersecurity researchers have uncovered what is believed to be the first-ever case of hackers using LinkedIn to infect the computers of targeted users with viruses, according to a new report. The hackers appear to have been sponsored by government and to have targeted employees of carefully selected military contractors in central Europe, according to sources.

The existence of the alleged cyberespionage operation was revealed on Wednesday by researchers at ESET, a cybersecurity firm based in Bratislava, Slovakia, which is known for its firewall and anti-virus products. The researchers said that the operation was carried out in 2019 by hackers who impersonated employees of General Dynamics and Collins Aerospace, two leading global suppliers of aerospace and defense hardware.

ESET researchers said that the hackers made use of the private messaging feature embedded in LinkedIn to reach out to their targets. After making initial contact with their intended victims, the hackers allegedly offered their targets lucrative job offers and used the LinkedIn private messenger service to send them documents that were infected with malware. In many cases, the targets opened the documents and infected their computers in the process.

The use of the LinkedIn social media platform by hackers to make contact with their unsuspecting victims is hardly new. In 2017, German intelligence officials issued a public warning about what they said were thousands of fake LinkedIn profiles created by Chinese spies to gather information about Western targets. Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) said it had identified 10,000 German citizens who had been contacted by Chinese spy-run fake profiles on LinkedIn in a period of just nine months. And in 2018, a report by France’s two main intelligence agencies, the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) and the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), warned of an “unprecedented threat” to security after nearly 4,000 leading French civil servants, scientists and senior executives who were found to have been accosted by Chinese spies on LinkedIn.

Tricking a target into accessing a virus-infected document file is not a new method either. However, according to the researchers at ESET, this was the first case where LinkedIn was used to actually deliver the malware to the victims. As for the identity of the hackers, there appears to be no concluding information. However, ESET said the attacks appeared to have some connections to Lazarus, a group of hackers with North Korean links. Lazarus has been linked to the 2014 Sony Pictures hack and the 2016 Central Bank of Bangladesh cyber heist, which was an attempt to defraud the bank of $1 billion.

LinkedIn told the Reuters news agency that it had identified and terminated the user accounts behind the alleged cyberespionage campaign. Citing client confidentiality, ESET said it could not reveal information about the victims of the attacks. Meanwhile, General Dynamics and Raytheon Technologies, which owns Collins Aerospace, have not commented on this report.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 June 2020 | Permalink

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Lax security behind greatest data loss in CIA’s history, internal report concludes

June 17, 2020 1 Comment

WikiLeaksComplacency and substandard security by the United States Central Intelligence Agency were behind the Vault 7 leak of 2017, which ranks as the greatest data loss in the agency’s history, according to an internal report. The Vault 7 data loss was particularly shocking, given that the CIA should have taken precautions following numerous leaks of classified government information in years prior to 2017, according to the report.

The Vault 7 data leak occurred in the first half of 2017, when the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks began publishing a series of technical documents belonging to the CIA. Once all documents had been uploaded to the WikiLeaks website, they amounted to 34 terabytes of information, which is equivalent to 2.2 billion pages of text. The information contained in the Vault 7 leak is believed to constitute the biggest leak of classified data in the history of the CIA.

The Vault 7 documents reveal the capabilities and operational details of some of the CIA’s cyber espionage arsenal. They detail nearly 100 different software tools that the agency developed and used between 2013 and 2016, in order to compromise targeted computers, computer servers, smartphones, cars, televisions, internet browsers, operating systems, etc. In 2017 the US government accused Joshua Adam Schulte, a former CIA software engineer, of giving the Vault 7 data to WikiLeaks. Schulte’s trial by jury was inconclusive, and a re-trial is believed to be in the works.

Now an internal report into the Vault 7 disclosure has been made public. The report was compiled by the CIA WikiLeaks Task Force, which the agency set up with the two-fold mission of assessing the damage from the leak and recommending security procedures designed to prevent similar leaks from occurring in the future. A heavily redacted copy of the report has been made available [.pdf] by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) who is a member of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. An analysis of the report was published on Tuesday by The Washington Post.

The report recognizes that insider threats —a data leak perpetrated on purpose by a conscious and determined employee, or a group of employees— are especially difficult to stop. It adds, however, that the Vault 7 leak was made easier by “a culture of shadow IT” in which the CIA’s various units developed distinct IT security practices and their own widely different systems of safeguarding data. Many cyber units prioritized creative, out-of-the-box thinking, in order to develop cutting-edge cyber-tools. But they spent hardly any time thinking of ways to safeguard the secrecy of their projects, and failed to develop even basic counterintelligence standards —for instance keeping a log of which of their members had access to specific parts of the data— according to the report.

Such standards should have been prioritized, the report adds, given the numerous high-profile leaks that rocked the Intelligence Community in the years prior to the Vault 7 disclosure. It mentions the examples of Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency, who defected to Russia, as well as Chelsea Manning, an intelligence analyst for the US Army, who gave government secrets to WikiLeaks. Manning spent time in prison before being pardoned by President Barack Obama. Snowden remains in hiding in Russia.

The CIA has not commented on the release of the internal Vault 7 report. An agency spokesman, Timothy Barrett, told The New York Times that the CIA was committed to incorporating “best-in-class technologies to keep ahead of and defend against ever-evolving threats”. In a letter accompanying the release of the report, Senator Wyden warned that “the lax cybersecurity practices documented in the CIA’s WikiLeaks task force report do not appear limited to just one part of the intelligence community”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 17 June 2020 | Permalink

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Russia accuses its top Arctic scientist of giving China submarine secrets

June 16, 2020 Leave a comment

Valery MitkoRussian prosecutors have accused one of the country’s most respected hydroacoustics specialists, and globally recognized expert on the Arctic region, of spying for Chinese intelligence. This development highlights the competitive relationship between the two neighboring countries, who in recent years have tended to work together against what they perceive as a common threat coming from the United States.

The scientist in question is Dr. Valery Mitko, a St. Petersburgh-based hydroacoustics researcher, who is also president of Russia’s Arctic Academy of Sciences. Investigators with the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s domestic security and counterintelligence agency, are accusing Dr. Mitko, 78, of having provided classified documents to Chinese intelligence.

The FSB first detained Dr. Mitko in February, when he returned from a stint as a visiting professor at Dalian Maritime University. Located in China’s northeastern Liaoning province, near the North Korean border, Dalian Maritime University is considered China’s foremost higher-education institution on maritime subjects, with many of its research projects funded directly by the Chinese Ministry of Transport. According to sources, Dr. Mitko gave a series of lectures at Dalian University in early 2018.

Upon arriving back to Russia from China, Dr. Mitko was detained and placed under house arrest. The FSB now claims that the Russian scientist gave the Chinese classified information relating to the underwater detection of submarines. The agency alleges that Dr. Mitko received payments in return for sharing this information with Chinese spies. However, Dr. Mitko’s lawyers argue that the information he shared with the Chinese “came from open sources”, and that he never knowingly came in contact with Chinese intelligence operatives.

There have been several arrests of Russian academics in recent years, who have been accused by the FSB of providing China with classified information. Last week saw the release from prison of Vladimir Lapygin, a 79-year-old avionics researchers, who was jailed in 2016 for allegedly giving China classified information on Russian hypersonic aircraft designs. In 2018, Russian authorities charged Viktor Kudryavtsev, a researcher at a Russian institute specializing in rocket- and spacecraft design, with passing secret information on spacecraft to researchers at the Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Belgium. The FSB claimed that some of that information ended up in Chinese hands.

If convicted of the crime of espionage against the Russian state, Dr. Mitko faces a prison sentence of up to 20 years. He denies the charges against him.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 16 June 2020 | Permalink

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Researchers claim discovery of remote eavesdropping method using light bulbs

June 15, 2020 1 Comment

Black HatResearchers at a university in Israel claim to have discovered a new low-tech eavesdropping technique, which relies on sound vibrations on the glass surface of light bulbs and requires equipment costing less than $1,000. The researchers claim that the technique, which they call “lamphone”, enables eavesdroppers to intercept, in real time, audible conversations from a room located hundreds of feet away, simply by recording the vibrations that sounds create on the glass surface of a common light bulb present in the room.

The announcement was made by Ben Nassi, Yaron Pirutin and Boris Zadov, who work at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Weizmann Institute of Science, near Tel Aviv. The three researchers said they used a low-cost telescope, which they placed nearly 100 feet from a target room containing a commercially available standard light bulb. They then placed each telescope behind a $400 electro-optical sensor. The goal of the contraption was to measure the minuscule changes in light output from the bulb, which are caused by sound vibrations off the bulb’s surface.

The electrical signals captured by the telescopes were digitized using commercially available analog-to-digital converters, before being transferred onto a laptop. The researchers then used commercially available software to filter out noise, and were gradually able to reconstruct clearly audible recordings of the sounds inside the target room. They claim that the resulting recording is clearly audible and can even be transcribed using Google speech-to-text software.

The three Israeli researchers say they now plan to present their findings at the Black Hat security conference in August, which will be held virtually due to health concerns caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Speaking to Wired magazine last weekend, they said that their goal is “not to enable spies or law enforcement, but to make clear to those on both sides of surveillance what’s possible”. “We’re not in the game of providing tools”, they said.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 15 June 2020 | Permalink

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Austrian court finds unnamed retired Army colonel guilty of spying for Russia

June 11, 2020 Leave a comment

Igor Egorovich ZaytsevA court in Austria has found a retired Army colonel guilty of providing classified military information to Russia, following a closed-door trial. Interestingly, the alleged spy’s name has not been made public. Some Austrian media have been referring to him as “Martin M.”.

The retired colonel was arrested in November of 2018, reportedly after having recently retired following a long military career. Austria’s Defense Ministry said at the time that the arrest came after a tip given to the Austrian government by an unnamed European intelligence agency from a “friendly country”. Martin M. reportedly served in peacekeeping missions in the Golan Heights and Cyprus before being posted at one of the Austrian Armed Forces’ two headquarters, located in the western city of Salzburg. It was around that time, say prosecutors, that the unnamed man began spying for Russia. Starting in 1992, he was in regular contact with his Russian handler, who was known to him only as “Yuri”.

“Yuri” was later identified by Austrian authorities as Igor Egorovich Zaytsev, who is allegedly an intelligence officer for the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. Known as GRU, the organization is Russia’s primary military-intelligence agency. The Austrian government has issued an international arrest warrant for a Zaytsev.

Zaytsev reportedly trained Martin M. in the use of “sophisticated equipment”, according to the Austrian prosecutor, which he used to communicate classified information to Moscow. He is thought to have given Russia information on a range of weapons systems used by the Austrian Army and Air Force, as well as the personal details of high-ranking officers in the Austrian Armed Forces. Austrian media initially reported that the alleged spy was paid nearly $350,000 for his services to Moscow.

During his trial, Martin M. reportedly admitted that he had received payments form the Russians to provide information. But he claimed that the information he gave them was already publicly available. His legal team compared his role to that of a “foreign correspondent” for a news service. The court, however, did not accept that argument and on Tuesday sentenced Martin M. to three years in prison.

Soon after his sentencing, the defendant was released on parole, after the court counted the 18 months he has served behind bars since his arrest as part of his prison sentence. His legal team said they plan to appeal the sentence.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 11 May 2020 | Permalink

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Russia responds angrily to Czech expulsions of Russian diplomats in poison probe

June 9, 2020 2 Comments

Andrei KonchakovMoscow has reacted angrily to the Czech government’s decision to expel two Russian diplomats from the country, in response to allegations that the Kremlin plotted to assassinate three outspoken Czech politicians using a deadly poison. Russian officials pledged to respond in kind to Prague’s “indecent and unworthy deed”.

In April, the Czech weekly investigative magazine Respekt reported that a Russian assassination plot had been foiled by authorities in Prague. The magazine said a Russian citizen carrying a diplomatic passport had arrived in Prague in early April. The man allegedly had with him a suitcase with a concealed quantity of ricin —a deadly toxin. His alleged mission was to assassinate Prague mayor Zdeněk Hřib, as well as Pavel Novotny and Ondřej Kolář, two of Prague’s three district mayors. All three men are known as fervently anti-Russian. Earlier this year, Hřib led a nationwide effort to rename the square in front of the Russian Embassy in Prague after Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition activist who was gunned down in Moscow in 2015. Kolář has been advocating for years for the removal of Soviet-era statues from Prague’s public spaces.

A few weeks later, the Czech state television’s flagship investigative program 168 Hodin (168 Hours) claimed that the Russian diplomat who tried to smuggle poison into the country is Andrei Konchakov (pictured). Konchakov, 34, directs the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Prague, which is an extension of the Russian Embassy there. Citing “intelligence sources” 168 Hodin said Czech counterintelligence officials believed Konchakov was a actually an intelligence officer for Russia.

Now the Czech government has officially declared Konchakov and one of his colleagues at the Center for Science and Culture persona non grata (unwanted persons) and has ordered their expulsion from the country. In a statement issued on Friday, the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the two diplomats of “trying to harm the relations of the two countries”. At a news conference in Prague, Czech foreign minister Tomas Petricek told reporters that Prague had “made efforts to settle the situation discreetly and diplomatically”. However, “Russia’s approach gives us no choice but to expel the diplomats”, said Petricek.

Speaking later that day, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, dismissed Prague’s allegations as “absurd”. The head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, called the expulsions “a very vile and mean provocation by the Czech authorities” and vowed that “retaliatory measures will be taken”. In a press statement issued in response to the expulsions, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Czech authorities had “seriously damaged” bilateral relations between the two countries “without any basis”. The statement went on to state that “Prague’s actions will not only receive an adequate response, but will also be taken into account when forming the Russian policy on bilateral relations with the Czech Republic”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 09 June 2020 | Permalink

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US Defense Intelligence Agency responds to claims it was asked to spy on protesters

June 8, 2020 Leave a comment

Defense Intelligence Agency DIAThe United States Defense Intelligence Agency, a Pentagon organization tasked with collecting foreign military secrets, has rejected reports that it is spying on protestors inside the country. However, it confirmed that it has set up an “internal coordination group” to respond to “requests for information” by the Department of Defense. This development follows reports that some DIA employees communicated their concerns about being asked to spy domestically to the organization’s director last week.

Several government agencies are reportedly involved in monitoring the waves of protests that have reputed  throughout the United States in recent weeks, following the death of George Floyd. Floyd, 46, died on May 25 while in police custody in Minneapolis. His death, which was captured on video by a bystander, has prompted nationwide calls for police accountability and regulation of excessive force by police officers, especially against members of minority groups.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has responded to the demonstrations —some of which have turned violent— with a show of force involving a wide range of federal law enforcement agencies. This is especially true in the nation’s capital, where military personnel have been repeatedly deployed to help police monitor and control the protests. Earlier this month, BuzzFeed News reported that the Trump administration authorized the Drug Enforcement Administration to “conduct covert surveillance” and collect intelligence on individuals and groups participating in the protests.

Now Yahoo News reports that some DIA employees are wondering whether their agency might follow suit. The DIA operates under the US Department of Defense and collects foreign military intelligence. Like the Central Intelligence Agency, the DIA is prevented by law from spying domestically. However, its personnel can support domestic intelligence efforts, providing they are detailed to a domestic law enforcement agency for specific operations or tasks.

According to Yahoo News’s Jenna McLaughlin, the possibility that DIA personnel might be assigned to domestic intelligence tasks relating to the nationwide protests was discussed last week during an agency-forum. The unclassified forum —called a “virtual town hall” was led last Wednesday by DIA Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley. McLaughlin cites “two sources” who were “briefed on what happened during the town hall”. They said that Gen. Ashley was asked by a DIA employee about the agency’s position on domestic intelligence operations. “We have been told that DIA is setting up a task force on ‘unrest’ in our country”, said the employee. “Is this true? Is it legal given intelligence oversight? What options will there be for employees who are morally opposed to such an effort?”

According to McLaughlin, the DIA director responded that the agency’s “core mission is foreign intelligence” and that it is “focused on the foreign nexus”. Gen. Ashley’s words were interpreted to mean that the DIA had been asked to investigate possible interference in the protests by foreign intelligence agencies —possibly in a manner similar to the meddling by Russian spies in the 2016 US elections. He added that the DIA’s Office of the General Counsel had “reviewed the issue to ensure that [the agency] was in compliance with the law”. However, Gen. Ashley did not explain whether the DIA had proceeded to carry out such an investigation.

On Saturday, DIA spokesman James M. Kudla told Yahoo News that the agency had set up “an internal coordination group to respond to increased and appropriate Department requests for information”. However, he added that “the mission of the Defense Intelligence Agency is to provide intelligence on foreign militaries to prevent and win wars”. He went on to say that “any claims that DIA has taken on  a domestic mission are false”. The “DIA has not established any task force related to the current domestic situation”, he said.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 08 June 2020 | Permalink

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