U.S. charges Greek businessman with smuggling military and dual-use goods to Russia

May 22, 2023 by Leave a comment

Rijen NetherlandsThe United States Department of Justice has charged a Greek national with wire fraud and smuggling sensitive military-grade and dual-use goods from the United States to Russia. The suspect, Dr. Nikolaos “Nikos” Bogonikolos, 59, was arrested in Paris, France, on May 9, at the request of the United States, and is currently in custody pending extradition proceedings.

Bogonikolos is a mathematician and self-described “serial entrepreneur”, with business activities dating back to 1987. He has authored and co-authored academic articles, holds a number of patents, and has published a book entitled Total Process Security Reengineering. Following the ECHELON revelations in the late 1990’s, he authored a report (.pdf) entitled “The Perception of Economic Risks Arising from the Potential Vulnerability of Electronic Commercial Media to Interception” as part of a study for the European Parliament.

In 2005, Bogonikolos received his PhD from the Kharkov National Economic University in Ukraine, focusing on applications of artificial intelligence in the field of economics. According to his own claims, he has been active as an entrepreneur or researcher in some 40 countries, including Russia. Bogonikolos is the founder of a Greek-based company called Aratos Group. In 2016, Aratos Systems BV was registered as legal entity in The Netherlands. Since 2020, the company has been located in the town of Rijen, which is also home to the main operational military helicopter base of the Royal Netherlands Air Force.

Aratos Systems BV describes itself on its website (currently offline) as an “independent and leading member of the Greek Aratos Group”. Its activities, as declared to the Netherlands chamber of commerce, are “the collection, processing, protecting, and selling of earth observation data to public and private parties”. Aratos Systems also “owns and runs a fully equipped Satellite Ground Station constantly connected with EUMETSAT” —the latter being the European operational satellite agency for monitoring weather, climate and the environment from space.

Last week, the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service and the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service raided the Aratos Systems offices in Rijen. According to the unsealed complaint (.pdf) it is believed that Bogonikolos was contacted in December 2017 by representatives of an illicit Russian procurement network that acquires sensitive military-grade and dual-use technologies, under the direction of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Elements of that network are often referred to by Western government officials as “the Serniya Network” or “Sertal”, among other names. In December 2022 the United States charged five Russian nationals, including a suspected intelligence officer, believed to be part of that network, as well as two United States nationals.

In December 2017, Bogonikolos allegedly accepted an invitation to travel to Moscow alone for a meeting. The complaint cites an email exchange between senior members of Sertal and Serniya Network, including Yevgeniy Grinin and Aleksey Ippolitov, who are both wanted by the FBI. In the email exchange, it is suggested that Bogonikolos is a “supporter of the Orthodoxy” and that he sees it as “the basis of friendship with Russia”.

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U.S., Russian spy agencies publish rival ads encouraging would-be informants

May 18, 2023 by 2 Comments

Russia Ukraine WarRIVAL ONLINE CAMPAIGNS BY American and Russian intelligence agencies are encouraging each other’s citizens to contact them, share information and possibly even defect. At least three ads have been  on social media, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issuing the earliest one in February of this year. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its Russian counterpart, the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), are now believed to have published similar ads.

The FBI ad initially appeared on Twitter, directing users to the website of the Bureau’s Washington Field Office. There, a text in Cyrillic urges Russian nationals to “change [their] future” by contacting the FBI. The CIA followed suit on Monday of this week by posting a video on its new channel on Telegraph, a popular social media platform among young Russians. The CIA video portrays frustrated Russian government employees morally torn by the Kremlin’s policies. It concludes with them contacting the CIA through a secure online connection. A narrator’s voice states, “my family will live with dignity thanks to my actions”. Viewers are then assured that their safety is the CIA’s highest priority, should the choose to do the same.

Shortly after the CIA video appeared online, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Director of Information, Maria Zakharova, said that the Russian government would respond “appropriately” to what she called a “CIA provocation”. On Wednesday, a number of Western media outlets reported that the SVR had unveiled a short recruitment video seemingly targeting Americans. The video, shared on Telegram, includes archival news footage of United States military and police personnel, flag-burning demonstrators, and protests against abortions. It concludes with footage of President Joe Biden overlaid with a sniper crosshairs. A narrator states in English: “If you want to help normalcy, help the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation”.

Amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, both the United States and Russia are engaging in extensive cyber-enabled operations aimed at each other’s targets. However, these recruitment videos underscore the continued need for highly placed human sources and their central role in multi-platform intelligence collection efforts.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 May 2023 | Permalink

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China sentences US citizen to life for espionage following closed-door trial

May 15, 2023 by 1 Comment

Hong KongA CHINESE COURT HAS sentenced a United States passport holder to life in prison on espionage charges, following a brief closed-door trial. However, no information has been made available about the precise charges against him. Closed-door trials are frequent occurrences in Chinese courts, especially in cases relating to national security, which include charges of espionage against the state. However, life sentences are exceedingly rare for espionage cases.

The individual convicted in this case has been named in media reports as John Shing-Wan Leung, 78. He is reportedly a permanent resident of Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, over which Beijing has near-absolute control. It is not known if Leung was a Chinese citizen at any time in his life. China does not recognize joint citizenship and requires its citizens to drop their Chinese citizenship when swearing allegiance to another country. The Reuters news agency reported on Monday that Leung was at some point a member of two American-based Chinese expatriate groups, which it described as “pro-China”. These are the United States-China Friendship Promotion Association and the United States-China Friendship Association.

Leung is believed to have been arrested in Hong Kong in 2021 by local Chinese counterintelligence officers. He has been held in prison ever since his arrest. A press release issued on Monday by the Intermediate People’s Court in Suzhou, a city located in southern Jiangsu province, 700 north of Hong Kong, said Leung had been found “guilty of espionage”. The press release added that Leung had been “sentenced to life imprisonment and deprived of [his] political rights for life”. However, the statement provided no information about Leung’s alleged crimes, or the country he was found to have spied for.

According to the BBC, the United States embassy in Beijing refused to discuss the details of this case, stating only that the United States government was aware of Leung’s conviction. An embassy spokesperson told the BBC that “the Department of State has no greater priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 15 May 2023 | Permalink

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Senior members of South Korea’s largest trade union charged with espionage

May 12, 2023 by Leave a comment

KCTU South KoreaSOUTH KOREAN PROSECUTORS have charged four senior members of one of the country’s largest trade unions with espionage on behalf of North Korea. The move, which is seen as highly controversial by South Korea’s liberal opposition, has come a few months after the conservative administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol launched what some commentators have described as South Korea’s largest counter-espionage operation in over 30 years.

The operation came to light on January 18, when hundreds of police officers, led by officers of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), conducted search raids at a number of regional offices of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). Founded in the mid-1990s, the KCTU represents over 1.1 million members. Most of its membership consists of supporters of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), a left-of-center liberal coalition that ruled South Korea until last year. Since its establishment in 2014, the DPK has been engaged in a bitter political rivalry with the People Power Party (PPP), a conservative coalition that currently governs South Korea.

On Wednesday, four KCTU officials, all of them men, between the ages of 48 and 54, were charged with several violations of South Korea’s National Security Act, including carrying out espionage on behalf of North Korea and meeting illegally with North Korean intelligence officers. South Korean government prosecutors accuse the four of meeting several times with their alleged North Korean handlers. The alleged meetings too place during overseas trips in Vietnam and Cambodia between 2017 and 2019.

While abroad, the four alleged spies were allegedly trained and given instructions to establish what prosecutors describe as “an underground organization [operating] under the guise of legal union activities”. The four men were allegedly tasked with steering the KCTU toward actions and rhetoric that were against the United States and Japan. They were also asked to helping organize worker rallies against the policies of the PPP. In other instances, the alleged spies photographed American military installations located in South Korea.

The opposition DPK has strongly condemned the charges, calling them politically motivated and describing them as a return to the days of rightwing military rule, which South Korea experienced until 1987. The NIS remains highly controversial among left-of-center South Koreans, many of whom view it as a corrupt state entity that is politically aligned with the conservative PPP. Between 2018 and 2022, the liberal DPK government spearheaded what it described as an “anti-corruption campaign” inside the NIS. As a result of that campaign, three former NIS directors were charged with —and eventually convicted of— secretly diverting funds from the agency’s clandestine budget. The funds were eventually used to aid the re-election campaign of the then-South Korean President, Park Geun-hye. Their apparent goal was to prevent the DPK from coming to power, fearing that the left-of-center party was too close to Pyongyang. President Park also went to prison for accepting financial bribes from the NIS.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 12 May 2023 | Permalink

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US-led ‘Five Eyes’ alliance dismantled Russia’s ‘premier espionage cyber-tool’

May 11, 2023 by 3 Comments

Computer hackingAN ESPIONAGE TOOL DESCRIBED by Western officials as the most advanced in the Russian cyber-arsenal has been neutralized after a 20-year operation by intelligence agencies in the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. The operation targeted Turla, a hacker group that cyber-security experts have long associated with the Russian government.

Turla is believed to be made up of officers from Center 16, a signals intelligence unit of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), one of the Soviet-era KGB’s successor agencies. Since its appearance in 2003, Turla has used a highly sophisticated malware dubbed ‘Snake’ to infect thousands of computer systems in over 50 countries around the world. Turla’s victims include highly sensitive government computer networks in the United States, including those of the Department of Defense, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the United States Central Command.

The Snake malware has also been found in computers of privately owned firms, especially those belonging to various critical infrastructure sectors, such as financial services, government facilities, electronics manufacturing, telecommunications and healthcare. For over two decades, the Snake malware used thousands of compromised computers throughout the West as nodes in complex peer-to-peer networks. By siphoning information through these networks, the Turla hackers were able to mask the location from where they launched their attacks.

On Tuesday, however, the United States Department of Justice announced that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), along with its counterparts in the United States-led ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing alliance, had managed to dismantle Snake. This effort, codenamed Operation MEDUSA, was reportedly launched nearly 20 years ago with the goal of neutralizing the Snake malware. In the process, Five Eyes cyber-defense experts managed to locate Turla’s facilities in Moscow, as well as in Ryazan, an industrial center located about 120 miles southeast of the Russian capital.

The complex cyber-defense operation culminated with the development of an anti-malware tool that the FBI dubbed PERSEUS. According to the Department of Justice’s announcement, PERSEUS was designed to impersonate the Turla operators of Snake. In doing so, it was able to take over Snake’s command-and-control functions. Essentially, PERSEUS hacked into Snake and instructed the malware to self-delete from the computers it had compromised. As of this week, therefore, the worldwide peer-to-peer network that Snake had painstakingly created over two decades, has ceased to exist, as has Snake itself.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 11 May 2023 | Permalink

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Russian pro-Kremlin influencer survives IED attack that killed fellow passenger

May 8, 2023 by 1 Comment

Zakhar PrilepinA UKRAINIAN PARAMILITARY GROUP has claimed to be behind a targeted attack against an influential figure in Russian literature and social media on Saturday, which killed his fellow passenger and prompted strong denouncements by the Kremlin. The attack appeared to target Yevgeny Nikolayevich Prilepin, 47, known in Russia as Zakhar Prilepin. One of the best-known novelists in Russia, Prilepin spent much of his late teens and early twenties serving in the Russian National Guard. He saw action during two tours in Chechnya.

A HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL NATIONALIST AUTHOR

After decommissioning from the National Guard, Prilepin joined a host of ultra-nationalist Russian street gangs, including the National Bolshevik Party (currently banned), a group that aspired to bring together Russia’s far-left and far-right militants. At the same time, Prilepin began writing about his war experiences in novels that explored broader nationalist themes in Russian history. Today, Prilepin is highly influential in Russian social media circles, and many of his books have been turned into popular films.

Prilepin’s popularity soared after 2014, when he publicly endorsed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military campaign in Crimea. His decision to back the Russian president formed an informal link between supporters of the Russian president and members of banned nationalist groups like the National Bolshevik Party. In the ensuing years, Prilepin has chronicled his work as an armed volunteer with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. This resulted to the Ukrainian government including his name on a list of Russian citizens that it deemed as threats to national security.

THE BOMBING

The apparent attack on Prilepin took place on Saturday near the tiny settlement of Pionerskoye, in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region. Prilepin is believed to have family relatives in this rural part of the country, which is located over 250 miles east of Moscow. According to statements by Russian emergency services personnel, a radio-controlled improvised explosive device was detonated under Prilepin’s Audi Q7 passenger car, instantly killing his fellow passenger, who has not been named. Read more of this post

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In rare public comments, Taiwan spy chief points to 2027 as key in China’s plans

May 5, 2023 by 1 Comment

Tsai Ming-yenIN A SERIES OF rare public comments, the director of Taiwan’s primary intelligence agency has singled out 2027 as a year of paramount significance for China’s military plans for Taiwan. On Thursday, Tsai Ming-yen (pictured), director-general of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) since February, spoke to an audience of graduating students at Taiwan’s National Chung Hsing University in Taichung City. According to reports, it was the first time in a quarter of a century that an NSB director-general had addressed a university audience.

In addition to his speech at the Chung Hsing University, Director-General Tsai, a former deputy foreign minister and diplomat, gave a rare interview to the United States-based Bloomberg news agency. He refused to weigh in on the ongoing discussion about a timeframe for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan. But he singled out the year 2027 as a significant one for Chinese Premier Xi Jinping’s plans to modernize the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

The Chinese leader first introduced his “PLA Modernization 2035” plan in 2017, describing it as a whole-of-government effort to significantly improve the PLA’s combat capabilities as a step toward achieving China’s long-term goal of becoming a major global military power. Tsai pointed out that the year 2027 will be the 10-year mark into President Xi’s 18-year program of military reforms. Additionally, Xi will most likely be campaigning for a fourth presidential term that year, Tsai said.

In his interview with Bloomberg, Tsai said that President Xi “doesn’t allow any kind of different voice in the Chinese political system”. In essence, therefore, the Chinese leader has been surrounding himself with “a coterie of like-minded officials”. This resulting ‘groupthink’ means that “the risk of making a wrong decision” on pressing issues like Taiwan “will become much higher” in the coming years, he warned. To counter that threat, and to monitor China’s military intentions, Tsai said Taiwan is systematically deepening its real-time cooperation with its “international friends”, especially with the so-called “Five Eyes” alliance, an intelligence-sharing coalition comprising of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

In a separate development, the United States Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said on Thursday that the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd (TSMC) would be a major cause for concern in a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The United States and other countries rely overwhelmingly on the TSMC’s production output for the use of semiconductors in civilian and military hardware. Should a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan prevent the TSMC from producing those semiconductors, the resulting impact on the global economy would be “enormous”, possibly in the neighborhood of “between $600 billion to $1 trillion on an annual basis for the first few years”, Haines said.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 05 May 2023 | Permalink

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Analysis: Did Ukraine try to assassinate Vladimir Putin?

May 4, 2023 by 2 Comments

KremlinOFFICIALS IN UKRAINE HAVE vehemently denied allegations by the Kremlin that the Ukrainian government tried to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin using two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). A statement by the Russian government said that the Kremlin, which serves as the official residence of the Russian president in Moscow, came under attack by two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the early hours of Wednesday. According to the statement, the UAVs were shot down 16 minutes apart. The first UAV allegedly exploded mid-air at 2:27 a.m. local time over the old Senate building, which is located on the eastern side of the Kremlin. At 2:43 a.m. a second UAV exploded over the Kremlin, sending debris flying across the courtyard of the heavily fortified complex.

There were no injuries or material damages, according to the Russian Federal Protective Service, which is responsible for the protection of high-ranking state officials and government facilities, including the Kremlin complex. Within hours, Russia openly placed blame on the government of Ukraine for the alleged attack and claimed that it had been intended to kill President Putin. A subsequent statement praised the Russian armed forces for thwarting the alleged attack on Putin’s life with “timely actions”. Meanwhile, government officials in the United States said that the White House “had no foreknowledge of an impending drone attack on the Kremlin” and urged that Moscow’s allegations be treated with skepticism.

UKRAINE IS CAPABLE OF STRIKING INSIDE RUSSIA

The Ukrainian military and paramilitary forces are both interested in, and capable of, carrying out strikes inside Russia. In 2023 alone, there have been dozens of apparent acts of sabotage in European Russia, which have damaged bridges, disrupted railway transportation systems, and rendered weapons depots unusable. This week alone, a fuel depot in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai was extensively damaged by a fire, which local authorities claimed was caused by a kamikaze UAV attack. About 1,500 miles north in Bryansk Oblast, near Russia’s border with Belarus, two trains were derailed by blasts that, according to news reports “appeared to be separate but identical incidents”. Ukraine denies involvement in these incidents, but military observers remain suspicious.

Meanwhile, investigative work by news outlets such as The New York Times suggests that Ukrainian paramilitary units may have been behind acts of sabotage in Western Europe, and even assassinations of pro-Putin figures inside Russia. Some of these attacks —if that is indeed what they were— may have been carried out by teams of cover human operatives. Others may have been carried out by mechanical means, including UAVs. Certainly, the Ukrainian military has never been shy about its effort to develop a strong long-range strike capability using UAVs. There is also some evidence that it may have carried out at least one UAV-enabled attack near Moscow in recent months. It therefore stands to reason that Ukraine is both willing and able to launch strikes inside Russia. Read more of this post

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Russia calls for UN Security Council meeting in response to Polish espionage claims

May 1, 2023 by 1 Comment

Warsaw PolandAUTHORITIES IN POLAND HAVE seized an abandoned school building in the Polish capital Warsaw, allegedly because it was being used as a base for espionage activities by the Russian government. Following the seizure  of the building complex, Russian officials issued stern but vague warnings, saying that action will be taken in response to what they termed as an “act of provocation” by the Polish government.

The controversial seizure was revealed on Saturday afternoon by Warsaw’s Deputy Mayor Tomasz Bratek, who announced that Warsaw city authorities had “taken possession” of the building. He was referring to a communist-era building complex in central Warsaw’s Ochota district, which, according to Moscow, belongs to the Russian government. The property was originally part of the Soviet embassy complex, but was later transformed into a high school and community center specializing in Russian language and culture. Many of its students were children of Russian diplomats who are stationed at the nearby Russian embassy. It has fallen into disuse in recent years.

Poland claims that the Russian government never officially bought or leased the property, and that it had been using it without permission for over three decades. Warsaw city officials maintain that the building belongs to the Warsaw city council and that they have repeatedly asked Russia to vacate the building, but to no avail. In recent years, the Polish government has been accusing Russia of using the high school as a cover for espionage activities, and claims that the use of the building by Moscow violates Polish sovereignty while also constituting a security threat.

Late on Saturday, the Russian government strongly denied the allegations and accused the Polish government of engaging in anti-Russian propaganda. It was later reported that Russia had called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council (which it currently chairs) to discuss the matter. The United States and other Western countries have not yet commented on the incident, but are likely to express support for Poland’s actions, given their own concerns about Russian intelligence activities in the region.

The seizure of the high school building is just the latest incident in a long list of espionage and counter-espionage incidents involving Russia and its neighbors in Europe. Since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, such incidents have increased considerably. The seizure of the high school building in Warsaw highlights the continuing tensions between Russia and its neighbors in Europe, as well as the centrality of intelligence-gathering and counter-intelligence efforts in the region.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 01 May 2023 | Permalink

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Australian court releases judge’s remarks in unprecedented ‘secret prisoner’ trial

April 24, 2023 by 2 Comments

first-post-v-2AN AUSTRALIAN HIGH COURT has released the sentencing remarks in an unprecedented closed-door trial of an intelligence officer, identified only as “Witness J”, who was convicted in 2019 of a crime that cannot be revealed. The man, who is also known as “Prisoner 123458,” was given a jail sentence in November of 2019. His sentencing came following a closed-door hearing, which was described by a judge as “generally undesirable” and “unusual”. The very existence of the court case came to light only after Witness J filed a lawsuit against the jail in which he was being held, arguing that his treatment was substandard.

Witness J is believed to be in his mid-30s and to have served for many years as an intelligence officer in the Australian military, with a top secret security clearance. He is also believed to have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor with a distinguished service record. But he drew the attention of counterintelligence investigators in 2018, while undergoing a routine re-evaluation of his security clearance status. During that time he was reportedly serving as a civilian in an undisclosed country in Southeast Asia. This period, according to reports, coincided with the deterioration of Witness J’s mental health.

Witness J was eventually jailed in mid-May 2018 and spent a month in solitary confinement. He was then placed in a high-security wing for serious sex offenders at the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison in Canberra. This was not because he was a sex offender, but because it was determined that he would be safer there than in the other wings of the prison. In early 2019, Witness J was sentenced in a closed-door trial, which was held under the secrecy provisions of Australia’s 2004 National Security Information Act. He was released from prison 15 months into his 24-month sentence, after agreeing to plead guilty to security breaches.

Last week, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) released the sentencing remarks of the judge in Witness J’s case, which had remained secret since November of 2019. According to ABC News, the remarks are heavily redacted in order to comply with restrictions under the National Security Information Act. The redacted document makes clear that Witness J faced a total of five charges. However, the sentencing remarks make no mention of the nature of the charges against him.

In his remarks, the judge in the case, Justice John Burns, mentions that the court had been given a report by Witness J’s doctor, which detailed his deteriorating mental state and his depression. The judge goes on to explain that he took the doctor’s report into account in sentencing Witness J. He argues, however, that despite his illness, the accused was aware of his actions and deliberately chose to conduct himself in a “grossly reckless” manner.

► Author: Ian Allen | Research credit: P.C.| Date: 24 April 2023 | Permalink

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US arrests two over alleged clandestine Chinese police station in New York City

April 18, 2023 by 2 Comments

Chinese Ministry of State SecurityTHE UNITED STATES HAS arrested two residents of New York City for allegedly conspiring to create and operate a clandestine police station run by the Chinese government in the borough of Manhattan. The arrests come a month after authorities in Canada launched an investigation into allegations that the Chinese government was running at least two clandestine police stations in Montreal and four more in Toronto.

The allegations first surfaced in a 2022 report by Safeguard Defenders, a Spanish-based non-government organization that focuses on the state of human rights in China. The report, titled “110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild”, claimed that China’s Ministry of Public Security, in association with Chinese diplomatic facilities around the world, operated dozens of clandestine police stations in over 50 countries. Their official mission, according to the report, was to service the needs of Chinese citizens living abroad, as well as visitors from China. However, these clandestine police stations were “actively […] engaging in covert and illegal policing operations” targeting Chinese citizens and expatriates, according to Safeguard Defenders.

On Monday, two New York City residents, Chen Jinping, 59, and Lu Jianwang, 61, were arrested and charged with conspiring to operate as unregistered agents of the People’s Republic of China. They were also charged with obstruction of justice in connection with the Department of Justice’s investigation into their activities. United States government prosecutors allege that Chen and Lu were behind the establishment of a clandestine police station in Manhattan. According to the indictment, the Manhattan police station —the first of its kind in the United States— was operated by China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). It is reported that the station was shut down by the MSS in late 2022, soon after Chinese officials became aware of an investigation into the activities of the station by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.

A representative of the United States prosecutor accused the Chinese government of engaging in a “flagrant violation” of American sovereignty with “actions that go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct”. Meanwhile, Chen and Lu appeared before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Monday. They face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 April 2023 | Permalink

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China-based Australian businessman charged with espionage

April 17, 2023 by 1 Comment

ASIO AustraliaAN AUSTRALIAN BUSINESSMAN, WHO has worked in China for over two decades, is facing up to 15 years in prison for allegedly selling secrets to two foreign intelligence officers. The businessman, Alexander Csergo, 55, grew up in Sydney, but moved to China in 2002 and currently works for a digital solutions firm in Shanghai. According to reports, Csergo describes himself on social media as a “business strategist” and an “operational transformation specialist”.

Csergo was arrested by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) on Friday afternoon at his family home in the eastern Sydney suburb of Bondi. According to a press release, Csergo’s arrest resulted from an investigation by the Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce (CFITF), aa joint counterintelligence body led by the AFP and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. Established in 2021, the CFITF brings together counterintelligence units from across Australia’s federal government sectors in order to discover, disrupt and investigate foreign interference activity.

Australian government prosecutors claim that representatives of a foreign think-tank approached Csergo on social media while he was overseas —presumably in China. The think-tank representatives arranged for Csergo to come in contact with two individuals, calling themselves “Evelyn” and “Ken”. They offered to pay Csergo in return for reports that contained “information about Australian defence, economic and national security arrangements, as well as matters relating to other countries”.

Csergo allegedly agreed to provide the requested services and proceeded to compile a number of reports for the think-tank between February 2021 and April 14 of this year. The Australian government alleges that “Evelyn” and “Ken” are in fact emploees of a foreign intelligence service, which has not yet been publicly identified in Australian government press releases. The Australian government also claims that these individuals may have tried to recruit other Australians, or foreign citizens living in Australia.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 17 April 2023 | Permalink

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New report assesses record of Russian unconventional operations in Ukraine war

April 10, 2023 by 5 Comments

Ukraine MariupolA NEW REPORT PUBLISHED by a London-based security think-tank concludes that Russia has employed unconventional operations effectively to subdue the population in occupied areas of Ukraine. These successes contrast sharply with the inferior performance of Russia’s conventional military forces, as revealed last week in a series of leaked documents belonging to the United States Department of Defense.

The 39-page report was published on March 29 by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). It is titled “Preliminary Lessons from Russia’s Unconventional Operations During the Russo-Ukrainian War, Feb 2022-Feb 2023”. It suggests that the early assessments of the Russian intelligence community failed to anticipate by a wide margin the strength of the Ukrainian opposition to the Russian invasion, as well as the West’s resolve to assist Kyiv. Moreover, early assessments by Russian intelligence agencies severely over-estimated the capabilities of the Russian military, with near-catastrophic results.

However, the report claims that, in contrast to its early assessments, the record of unconventional operations by Russia’s intelligence community in Ukraine has been largely successful, and has allowed Moscow to effectively subdue occupied populations in eastern Ukraine. It suggests that Russian intelligence agencies began planning for the military invasion at least eight months in advance. They prepared the ground by assembling a large network of agents on the ground in Ukraine, which included at least 800 Ukrainian government officials. Some of these officials offered to spy for Russia voluntarily, while others were coerced through various means.

The agent network inside Ukraine gave Russian intelligence agencies access to government databases, as well as to communications intercepts. These were used to construct detailed assessments of targeted individuals in occupied areas of Ukraine, and enabled Russian intelligence agencies to operate surgically in neutralizing leading pro-Kyiv officials in those areas. That method has been largely effective in the past year, and has allowed Moscow to exercise strict control in areas under occupation through “a steady stream of human intelligence” from its agent networks, the report claims.

In an unrelated development, a trove of leaked documents circulated on several social media platforms late last week. The documents appear to contain intelligence briefs compiled by the Joint Staff of the United States Department of Defense. The briefs contain intelligence information from a host of American intelligence agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. According to reports, the documents show the extent to which American intelligence has penetrated the Russian government. They also show Washington’s ability to assess with accuracy Moscow’s military and intelligence planning. The New York Times, which reported on the leak last week, said the documents show that “nearly every Russian security service [has been] penetrated by the United States in some way”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 10 April 2023 | Permalink

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Bomb hidden inside decorative figurine kills pro-Kremlin military blogger in Russia

April 3, 2023 by 3 Comments

Vladlen Tatarsky Maxim FominA POWERFUL EXPLOSION, LIKELY caused by a bomb hidden inside a decorative figurine, has killed one of the most prominent pro-Kremlin bloggers as he was giving a public talk in downtown St. Petersburgh, Russia. The bomb killed Maxim Fomin, 40, who was known in online blogger circles under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky. Born in eastern Ukraine, Fomin supported the pro-Russian secessionist movement in the Donbas. By 2021, when he obtained Russian citizenship, he had already made a name for himself as a pro-Kremlin military blogger on the Telegram social media platform.

In 2022, when the Russian military invaded Ukraine again, Fomin used his Telegram channel to spread pro-Kremlin information among his nearly 600,000 followers. He quickly rose to prominence as a commentator on military matters on Russian state-owned television. He also authored several books espousing Russian nationalist views. Fomin’s online activism came to embody a new generation of Russian bloggers who use their reach among Russian Internet users to aggressively promote pro-Kremlin political views.

On Sunday afternoon, Fomin was the main speaker at a pro-Kremlin event held in a St. Petersburg meeting hall, which is known as the Street Food Bar #1 Café. The downtown establishment used to belong to Yevgeny Prigozhin, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest collaborators. Prigozhin is the alleged owner of the Wagner Group private military company. In 2019, Prigozhin is believed to have donated the property to a group of pro-Kremlin activists, who have since been using it to host nationalist meetings in downtown St. Petersburg.

On Sunday afternoon, Fomin was the main speaker at an event held in the Street Food Bar #1 Café. The event had been organized by Cyber Front Z, an umbrella group of Russian nationalist bloggers, who refer to themselves on Telegram as a pro-Kremlin cyber army. At least 100 people were present at the event, according to reports. Shortly before the event began, an unknown woman tried to enter the facility carrying a large box. She told the event organizers at the entrance that the box contained a figurine, which she intended to present to Fomin as a gift. Read more of this post

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United States charges Russian spy who lived in Maryland using forged identity

March 27, 2023 by 2 Comments

US Department of JusticeA RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVE, who lived in Maryland using forged Brazilian identity documents, has been charged with espionage and other crimes by the United States Department of Justice. Victor Muller Ferreira, a Brazilian national, was stopped from entering the Netherlands in June of last year, where he had intended to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) as an intern.

Shortly after Muller was stopped at Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport, the Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) revealed that he was in fact Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, a 36-year-old Russian citizen. According to the AIVD, Cherkasov had worked for over a decade as an intelligence officer for the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, which is commonly known in the intelligence field as GRU.

A few days after Cherkasov returned to Brazil, a federal court in Guarulhos, a suburb of Sao Paolo, found him guilty of having used the identity of a dead Brazilian citizen to forge identity papers, which he then used to enter and leave Brazil 15 times over 10 years. The 10-year period had started in 2010, when Cherkasov had entered Brazil using his real Russian identity. But when he left the country a few months later, he did so using the forged identity that had allegedly been provided to him by Russian intelligence. Having examined the charges against Cherkasov, the court jailed him for 15 years.

Now the United States Department of Justice has charged Cherkasov with a list of new crimes, including acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign power and repeatedly carrying out visa, bank and wire fraud. The charges resulted from an investigation that was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterintelligence division, in coordination with the Bureau’s Washington Field Office.

The charges stem from the years 2018-2020, when Cherkasov used his forged Brazilian identity to enroll as Master’s student at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Cherkasov successfully completed his graduate degree in 2020. Two years later, he left for the Netherlands, where he hoped to enter employment in the ICC.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 27 March 2023 | Permalink

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