Peru recalls ambassador from Chile as espionage probe widens

February 23, 2015 by 1 Comment

Ollanta HumalaBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
The government of Peru has officially recalled its ambassador from Chile as it investigates three Peruvian naval officers who are said to have passed military secrets to Chilean intelligence. Peruvian President Ollanta Humala announced on Saturday that the decision had been taken to recall the country’s ambassador from Santiago following an emergency meeting of the cabinet. The espionage allegations against the three officers appeared in the Peruvian media last Thursday. Several leading newspapers, among them the Lima-based El Comercio, said the three junior Peruvian officers were suspected of having spied for Chile from 2005 to 2012.

On the following day, Peru’s Minister of National Defense, Pedro Cateriano, officially confirmed the reports and said two of the officers had been arrested and would be tried in a military court. A third one was being investigated for possible connections with the Chilean spy ring, said Cateriano. According to the Peruvian government, the naval officers stole classified military documents and passed them on to their Chilean handlers in exchange for money. They are alleged to have traveled abroad on several instances between 2005 and 2012, in order to conduct secret meetings with Chilean diplomats and intelligence officers, in countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and even Argentina itself. It was there, according to reports from Peru, that the three alleged spies passed on classified information to their handlers. Defense Minister Cateriano implied on Friday that the officers came under suspicion when their superiors, who knew the level of their government pay, deduced that they did not have sufficient funds to pay for international travel, and concluded that someone else must be funding their frequent trips abroad.

Following an emergency session on Friday, the Peruvian Congress issued a statement urging Chile to provide “firm guarantees” that such “aggressive actions” against Peruvian sovereignty would not be repeated. The Chilean government said late on Friday that it did not condone or promote espionage. But Peruvian President Humala told reporters on Saturday that a more precise and direct answer was in order. The two naval officers are not expected to stand trial until the summer. Meanwhile, authorities in Peru say they are investigating possible involvement by high-ranking military officers in the alleged spy ring.

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British spy testifies in disguise in alleged al-Qaeda member’s trial

February 20, 2015 by Leave a comment

MI5 HQ Thames HouseBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
A heavily disguised British intelligence officer has given evidence in the trial of the alleged leader of an al-Qaeda cell who is being tried in the United States for planning to bomb the New York subway system. Abid Naseer, 28, from Pakistan, was a studying in Britain in April 2009, when he was arrested by British police along with 12 other people for allegedly planning a series of suicide bombings in a popular shopping center in the city of Manchester. In January 2013, however, he was extradited to the US, where he also faces changes of having tried to organize suicide attacks against the New York public transportation system.

American prosecutors claim Naseer received paramilitary training in Pakistan before moving to the UK intent on carrying out terrorist attacks. Last year, the prosecution asked the judge whether six intelligence officers from the UK’s Security Service (also known as MI5), who monitored Naseer’s activities in the months leading up to his arrest, could provide evidence in court. Moreover, the prosecution requested that the MI5 officers be allowed to provide evidence without revealing their identities, since they work as surveillance operatives and are currently involved in counterterrorism investigations. The judge agreed, and the first of the six MI5 officers gave evidence this week through a video link from an undisclosed location in the Britain.

The witness concealed his identity by wearing a false goatee beard, thick spectacles and what reporters described as “a long black wig”. He was also wearing heavy make-up and was identified in court only as “serial number 1603”, according to British newspaper The Daily Telegraph. He told the court that he was part of a large team of MI5 surveillance officers who closely followed Naseer for over a month while he was allegedly planning suicide operations in Britain and the US. The physical surveillance included following the suspect as he was scouting targets in Manchester and sitting behind him on a bus traveling from Manchester to Liverpool. Naseer is defending himself in the trial and had the chance to cross-examine the MI5 officer, said The Telegraph.

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Senior Turkish intelligence official found dead in Romania

February 19, 2015 by Leave a comment

Eser ŞahanBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The shadowy former director of Turkey’s naval intelligence agency, who had been facing charges for his role in a military coup in Turkey, has been found dead in Romania. Retired Colonel Eser Şahan, 66, headed the Turkish Navy’s intelligence wing in the 1990s, and participated in a swift military coup that toppled the government. The coup, known in Turkey as “the 1997 military memorandum” unfolded on the evening of February 28, 1997, when secularist officers from every branch of Turkey’s Armed Forces forced the resignation of Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan and ended the rule of his coalition government.

The putsch was primarily directed against Erbakan’s Islamist-based Welfare Party, which was seen as violating Turkey’s constitutional separation between religion and state institutions. Although the parliament remained in session and the constitution continued to be in effect following the February 28 military coup, Turkey’s Constitutional Court outlawed the Welfare Party shortly afterwards. But many of its Islamist members, including Istanbul mayor, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, formed a new political group called the Virtue Party, and eventually the Justice and Development Party, which took power in the country 2002. With Erdoğan in power, the leaders of the 1997 coup, including Colonel Şahan, were tried for subverting Turkey’s democracy.

But Şahan managed to escape to Romania, where he promptly requested —and was eventually given— political asylum. He had been living there since 2004. Turkish media said last week that authorities in Romania had released very little information about the circumstances of Şahan’s death. However, several Turkish newspapers, including the leading Zaman, said the retired colonel’s body had been found lying on a park bench in the Romanian capital Bucharest. A handgun was allegedly found on the ground next to him. Sources claim he committed suicide.

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Israelis dispute CIA was behind Hezbollah strongman’s killing

February 17, 2015 by Leave a comment

Imad MughniyahBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Sources in Israel are disputing reports from January that the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency was behind the assassination of one of Hezbollah’s most senior officials. On January 31 of this year, two US-based publications, The Washington Post and Newsweek, claimed that it was the CIA, not Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency as previously thought, who led the 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyah. Mughniyah, who was among the founders of Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group that today controls large parts of Lebanon, was killed when a car laden with explosives blew up at a central parking lot in Syrian capital Damascus, where he had been living in secret.

According to the reports, the Mossad alerted the CIA after uncovering Mughniyah’s whereabouts in 2007, and suggested a joint operation to kill the Hezbollah strongman. The American covert-action agency proceeded to have a bomb designed by technicians from its Science & Technology Directorate, who carried out dozens of tests at a CIA facility in North Carolina. It was, according to the Post and Newsweek reports, the very bomb that killed Mughniyah on the evening of February 12 near his home in the Syrian capital.

But Dan Raviv, the Washington-based national correspondent for CBS News, said on Sunday that Israeli intelligence insiders are disputing claims that the CIA was the leading force in the operation. In a report published on Sunday, Raviv cited “Israelis close to their country’s services” as saying that the operation against Mughniyah was “almost all blue-and-white, and just a little bit red-white-and-blue” —a direct reference to the colors in the Israeli and American flags. The CBS correspondent said Israelis had been “miffed that the Americans were taking too much credit” for the strike against Mughniyah, and were actively “speaking with Western officials and diplomats to offer corrections”.

According to Raviv, it was the Mossad and Aman (Israel’s primary military-intelligence agency) that discovered Mughniyah’s whereabouts in 2007, and proceeded to design a bomb after the US declined Israel’s invitation to help organize a joint strike. Eventually, claims Raviv, Israel’s then-Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, convinced then-US President George W. Bush to approve a strike against Mughniyah, by showing him videos of the custom-made car bomb being tested in Israel. An impressed President Bush then authorized the CIA to participate in the operation. But by that time, says Raviv, the Israelis were firmly in command of the project and remained so until its final execution. Neither the CIA nor the Mossad have commented on the allegations regarding Mughniyah’s assassination.

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News you may have missed #888 (CIA edition)

February 16, 2015 by 2 Comments

YemenBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
►►CIA said to have bought Iraqi chemical weapons. The CIA, working with US troops during the occupation of Iraq, repeatedly purchased nerve-agent rockets from a secretive Iraqi seller, part of a previously undisclosed effort to ensure that old chemical weapons remaining in Iraq did not fall into the hands of terrorists or militant groups, according to current and former US officials. The extraordinary arms purchase plan, known as Operation AVARICE, began in 2005 and continued into 2006, and the US military deemed it a nonproliferation success.
►►CIA fears enemy will gain control of the weather. The CIA is worried that a foreign power may develop the ability to manipulate the global climate in a way that cannot be detected, according to Professor Alan Robock, a leading climatologist. Robock claimed that consultants working for the CIA asked him whether it would be possible for a nation to meddle with the climate without being discovered. “At the same time, I thought they were probably also interested in if we could control somebody else’s climate, could they detect it”, he said.
►►CIA scales back presence and operations in Yemen. The closure of the US Embassy in Yemen has forced the CIA to significantly scale back its counterterrorism presence in the country, according to US officials, who said the evacuation represents a major setback in operations against al-Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate. The spy agency has pulled dozens of operatives, analysts and other staffers from Yemen as part of a broader extraction of roughly 200 Americans who had been based at the embassy in Sana’a, officials said. The departures were triggered by mounting concerns over security in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, where Houthi rebels have effectively toppled the government.

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Britain threatens to stop intelligence cooperation with Germany

February 13, 2015 by 4 Comments

GCHQ center in Cheltenham, EnglandBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Intelligence officials in Britain have warned their German counterparts that London could stop intelligence-sharing with Berlin if a German parliamentary probe into British spy activities goes ahead as planned. Last summer, Berlin reportedly threatened to cancel an agreement dating back to 1945 with the three Allied victors of World War II, namely the United States, Britain and France. The report emerged following the arrest of a German intelligence officer who was caught spying for the United States. Based on documents leaked by American defector Edward Snowden, Berlin claims that Washington routinely shares German-related intelligence with London.

Relations between Germany and the United Kingdom worsened in September, after the revelation of TREASURE MAP, a top-secret program led by the US National Security Agency, which allegedly allows American spies to map the entire network of German telecommunications providers. Reports suggest that TREASURE MAP enables the NSA and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters, to map the German Internet and reveals the addresses and locations of individual subscribers’ routers, as well as those of targeted computer and smart phone users.

Late last year, the German parliament set up a body known informally as the NSA investigative commission, and tasked it with probing the allegations of American and British spying activities against the German state. However, according to a report in German newsmagazine Focus, British intelligence officials have issued formal warnings aimed at their German counterparts, telling them that London will reconsider its intelligence cooperation with Berlin should the German parliament proceed with the probe into alleged British spying on German soil. According to Focus, British officials are concerned that such an inquiry by the NSA investigative commission would unearth recent British intelligence activities and would debate them openly during parliamentary sessions.

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Ex-spy chief says Pakistan probably knew bin Laden’s whereabouts

February 12, 2015 by 2 Comments

Osama bin LadenBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A former director of Pakistan’s all-powerful national intelligence agency has said that senior officials in Pakistan were probably aware that Osama bin Laden was living in the country prior to his assassination. Lieutenant General Asad Durrani led the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1990 to 1992. He was later appointed Pakistan’s ambassador to Germany, from 1994 to 1997, and then to Saudi Arabia until 2002.

Durrani was asked during an appearance on Al-Jazeera’s flagship interview program Head to Head, on Tuesday, whether he believed that the al-Qaeda founder could have been living in Pakistan for several years without the ISI knowing about it. The former spy chief said he had no specific information on the issue. He added, however, that although “it is quite possible that [the ISI] did not know”, his personal assessment was that “it was more probable that they did”.

The former ISI strongman was then asked why the ISI would have chosen to shelter bin Laden instead of delivering him to the Americans. He responded that “the idea was that at the right time his location would be revealed” to Washington. He added that “the right time” would have depended on when Islamabad could have received “the necessary quid pro quo”. Speaking with characteristic frankness, Durrani said that “if you have someone like Osama bin Laden, you are not going to simply hand him over to the United States” without asking for something in return. In the case of Pakistan, the reward would possibly have been a bilateral agreement between the US and Pakistan to give the latter greater say over America’s dealings with neighboring Afghanistan.

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South Korea’s ex-spy chief jailed for interfering in elections

February 10, 2015 by Leave a comment

Won Sei-hoonBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
The former director of South Korea’s intelligence agency has been jailed for directing intelligence officers to post online criticisms of liberal politicians during a recent presidential election campaign. Won Sei-hoon headed South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) from 2008 to 2013, during the administration of conservative President Lee Myung-bak. Since his replacement in the leadership of NIS, Won has faced charges of having ordered a group of NIS officers to “flood the Internet” with messages accusing liberal political candidates of being “North Korean sympathizers”.

Prosecutors alleged that Won initiated the Internet-based psychological operation because he was convinced that “leftist adherents of North Korea” were on their way to “regaining power” in the South. The illegal operation took place during the 2012 presidential election campaign, which was principally fought by Moon Jae-in, of the liberal-left Democratic Party, and Park Geun-hye, of the conservative Saenuri party. Park eventually won the election and is currently serving South Korea’s eleventh President. The court heard that a secret team of NIS officers had posted nearly 1.5 million messages on social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, in an effort to garner support for the Saenuri party candidate in the election.

Last September, a court in Seoul had sentenced Won to two and a half years in prison, which was much shorter than the maximum five-year penalty he was facing if found guilty. But the judge had suspended the sentence, arguing that there was no direct proof that Won directly sought to alter the outcome of the presidential election. On Monday, however, the Seoul High Court overruled the earlier decision, saying that Won had directly breached election laws and that the violation was sufficient for a prison sentence. In reading out its decision, the judge said that “direct interference [by the NIS] with the free expression of ideas by the people with the aim of creating a certain public opinion cannot be tolerated under any pretext”. Won was transferred directly from the court to prison, where he will serve his sentence.

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Swedish double spy who escaped to Moscow in 1987 dies at 77

February 9, 2015 by 3 Comments

Stig BerglingBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
Sweden’s most notorious Cold-War spy, who went on the run for nearly a decade after managing to escape from prison in 1987, has died in Stockholm. Born in the Swedish capital in 1937, Stig Eugén Bergling became a police officer in the late 1950s prior to joining SÄPO, the Swedish Security Service, in 1967. He initially worked in the Service’s surveillance unit, and later joined several counterintelligence operations, mostly against Soviet and East European intelligence services. In 1979, while posted by SÄPO in Tel Aviv, he was arrested by the Israelis for selling classified documents to the GRU, the military intelligence agency of the USSR.

He was promptly extradited to Sweden, where he stood trial for espionage and treason. His trial captivated the headlines, as details about the spy tradecraft he employed while spying for the Soviets, including radio transmitters, invisible ink and microdots, were revealed in court. He said in his testimony that he sold over 15,000 classified Swedish government documents to the Soviets, not due to any ideological allegiance with the Kremlin, but simply in order to make money. Bergling was sentenced to life in prison, while lawyers for the prosecution argued in court that the reorganization of Sweden’s defense and intelligence apparatus, which had been caused by Bergling’s espionage, would cost the taxpayer in excess of $45 million. For the next six years, the convicted spy disappeared from the headlines, after legally changing his name to Eugen Sandberg while serving his sentence.

But in 1987, during a conjugal visit to his wife, he escaped with her using several rented cars, eventually making it to Finland. When they arrived in Helsinki, Bergling contacted the Soviet embassy, which smuggled him and his wife across to the USSR. The couple’s escape caused a major stir in Sweden, and an international manhunt was initiated for their capture. In 1994, the two fugitives suddenly returned to Sweden from Lebanon, where they had been living, claiming they were homesick and missed their families. They said they had lived in Moscow and Budapest under the aliases of Ivar and Elisabeth Straus. Bergling was sent back to prison, while his wife was not sentenced due to ill health. She died of cancer in 1997. Bergling changed his name again, this time to Sydholt, and lived his final years in a nursing home in Stockholm until his recent death. He was 77.

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Al-Qaeda plotter claims Saudi royals helped fund 9/11 attacks

February 5, 2015 by 2 Comments

Turki Al FaisalBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
An al-Qaeda member, who helped plot the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001, has said during court testimony that members of the Saudi royal family provided financial support for the terrorist operation. Zacarias Moussaoui is serving a life sentence in a maximum-security prison in the US state of Colorado, after admitting in federal court that he conspired to kill US citizens as part of the 9/11 attacks. Moussaoui, a citizen of France, was being paid by al-Qaeda to take flying lessons in Minnesota when he was arrested on immigration charges less than a month before 9/11. He said during his trial that he was supposed to be the fifth member of an al-Qaeda hijacker team that aimed to fly a Boeing 747 into the White House.

On Wednesday it emerged that Moussaoui gave testimony last October in a US court, as part of a lawsuit brought by family members of 9/11 victims and several insurance companies against the government of Saudi Arabia. They claim that members of the Saudi government helped fund al-Qaeda in the run-up to the 9/11 attacks through a variety of means. Speaking under oath, Moussaoui said a number of “extremely famous” Saudi government officials were systematically funding al-Qaeda’s operations in the years immediately preceding the 9/11 attacks. Among them, said Moussaoui, was Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, the youngest son of the late King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Prince Turki directed the Kingdom’s intelligence agency, the Al Mukhabarat Al-A’amah, from 1979 until 2001, when he briefly became ambassador to Britain and then the United States, before retiring. Moussaoui told the court that he also met another senior Saudi official who worked in the US embassy in Afghanistan in the 1990s. The purpose of the meeting, said Moussaoui, was to arrange a trip to Washington, DC, where the two men would search for a suitable location from where a laser-guided Stinger missile could be launched against Air Force One, the personal aircraft of the President of the US.

Moussaoui’s testimony emerged on Wednesday as a result of a legal push by the government of Saudi Arabia to have the lawsuit thrown out of court. Spokesmen for the Saudi government have blasted the lawsuit, claiming it is based on testimony by “deranged criminals” like Moussaoui, who have “zero credibility”.

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Colombia’s fugitive ex-spy chief wanted by Interpol surrenders

February 3, 2015 by Leave a comment

Maria del Pilar HurtadoBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
The former director of Colombia’s security service, who is accused of spying on senior political figures, has turned herself over to the authorities after five years on the run. María del Pilar Hurtado directed the highly disreputable Administrative Department for Security (DAS) from 2007 to 2009. But on October 31, 2010, she left Colombia, apparently unobstructed, despite being a prime subject in a high-level investigation into political spying by DAS. She later surfaced in Panama, where she formally requested political asylum. The latter was granted to her on November 19, 2010, causing the amazement of public prosecutors in Bogota, who accused the Panamanian government of subverting Colombian justice.

Hurtado is among 18 senior officials facing charges for criminal activities during the administration of Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe. His critics accuse him of authorizing a massive program of political surveillance, which targeted former presidents, Supreme Court judges, prominent journalists, union leaders, human rights campaigners, and even European politicians. Last summer, after consistent diplomatic pressure from the Colombian government Panama’s Supreme Court to ruled that Hurtado’s asylum had been granted to her in violation of the Panamanian constitution. Eventually, Hurtado’s asylum was revoked; but by that time the fugitive former spy director had once again disappeared.

Her whereabouts remained unknown until last Friday, when Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for her capture. That same evening, Hurtado appeared at the Colombian embassy in Panama and promptly identified herself, stating that she was turning herself in. Colombian authorities immediately flew her to Bogota on a specially chartered plane. Upon her arrival at the Colombian capital, a judge ordered her arrest and she was taken to prison. She is currently awaiting trial inside a high-security ward at the Office of the Public Prosecutor in Bogota. Authorities say Hurtado is under heavy police protection, as there are fears that some of her former colleagues in the now defunct DAS may try to assassinate her.

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CIA had central role in Hezbollah official’s killing, say sources

February 2, 2015 by 1 Comment

Imad MughniyahBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The United States, not Israel, as previously thought, led an assassination operation that targeted a senior member of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in 2008, according to two separate reports that came out last week. Imad Mughniyah was among the founders of Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group that today controls large parts of Lebanon. At the time of his assassination, Mughniyah headed the Hezbollah’s security apparatus and some claim he was the organization’s second-in-command. He was killed on the evening of February 12, 2008, when a car laden with explosives blew up at a central parking lot in Syrian capital Damascus, where he had been living in secret. The Shiite group blamed Israel for his killing. But two reports that aired this week, one in The Washington Post and the other in Newsweek, cited unnamed former government officials in the US in claiming that the operation was in fact led by the Central Intelligence Agency. The Washington Post’s Adam Goldman and Ellen Nakashima said the CIA was assisted in the operation by its Israeli counterpart, the Mossad, while Newsweek’s Jeff Stein wrote that the effort was personally approved by then-US President George Bush and was closely supervised by then-CIA Director Michael Hayden.

According to the reports, the Mossad uncovered Mughniyah’s whereabouts in 2007 and alerted the CIA, suggesting a joint operation to kill the Hezbollah strongman. Soon after President Bush approved the strike, officers in the CIA’s Near East Division planned the logistics of the operation, which involved building a complex bomb, smuggling it into Syria and placing it inside the spare tire of a locally-purchased vehicle. The bomb was allegedly designed by technicians from the CIA’s Directorate of Science & Technology, who carried out dozens of tests at a CIA facility in Harvey Point, North Carolina.

The operation was allegedly coordinated from a CIA safe house located near Mughniyah’s apartment in the Syrian capital. On the evening February 12, a team of Mossad and CIA operatives employed facial-recognition technology to identify their target as he was walking out of a local restaurant. When Mughniyah approached the explosives-laden SUV, the bomb was remotely detonated, decapitating him and blasting his torso through a nearby window (note: Goldman and Nakashima claim that the bomb was remotely detonated by Mossad officers located in Tel Aviv; Stein suggests the blast was triggered by a CIA officer who had been placed in charge of the remote-control mechanism).

The reports describe the operation as “one of the most high-risk covert actions” undertaken by the CIA in recent years, because it targeted a high-profile individual in a country with which the US was not officially at war. Additionally, the method used —a car bomb— is particularly controversial, as it is typically a method of operation preferred by organized criminals and terrorist organizations.

The US has not acknowledged participation in Mughniyah’s assassination, and the CIA declined to comment when contacted by The Washington Post on Friday. Mark Regev, spokesman for the office of the Israeli prime minister, said simply that Tel Aviv had “nothing to add at this time”.

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Prosecutor probing secret Argentine-Iran deal ‘feared for life’

January 29, 2015 by 5 Comments

Alberto NismanBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
An Argentine state prosecutor, who probed an alleged secret pact between Argentina and Iran involving the bombing of Israeli targets in Buenos Aires, had expressed fears for his life just days before he was found dead. Alberto Nisman’s body was found on January 19 in the bathroom of his apartment, which had been locked from the inside. His death came hours before he was due to give Congressional testimony relating to his allegations that the government of Argentina had allowed Iranian agents to bomb Israeli targets in the country, in exchange for energy and defense deals.

Nisman had prompted international headlines shortly before his death, after he launched a criminal complaint against the President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hector Timerman, and several other notable personalities of Argentine life. He accused them of having colluded with the government of Iran to bomb the Israeli embassy and a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires in the mid-1990s. A dozen people died in the bombing of the embassy, while another 85 were killed two years later, when the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) community center in the Argentine capital was bombed. Under the alleged deal, Tehran would be allowed to target the Jewish community in Buenos Aires in exchange for lucrative commercial deals with Argentina, involving oil and arms exports.

Argentine authorities say they believe Nisman killed himself with a single shot to the head from a .22 caliber handgun. His death occurred despite a 10-member police protection team that had been assigned to him by the Argentine government. The security detail was assigned to him following his claims that he had prepared a 300-page report on the matter of Iranian activities in Buenos Aires, which allegedly included material from wiretaps given to him by senior Argentine intelligence officials.

On Wednesday, Diego Lagomarsinoa, who was a close associate of Nisman, and the last known person to see him alive, said the prosecutor had confided in him that he feared for his safety, as well as for the safety of his family. He also allegedly said that he didn’t trust his police protection team. Speaking at a news conference in Buenos Aires, Lagomarsinoa said he had given Nisman the .22 caliber handgun that he is believed to have used to kill himself. He said he gave him the gun for protection. Lagomarsinoa, a computer expert, has been charged with providing a firearm to a non-registered individual, which is a criminal offense in Argentina. He is the only person to have been charged in Nisman’s death so far.

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More on Russian citizens charged with espionage by the FBI

January 28, 2015 by Leave a comment

TASS news agency headquartersBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A criminal complaint unsealed Monday in a Manhattan court has revealed more details about a complex counterintelligence operation by American authorities against three Russian citizens in New York. The Federal Bureau of Investigation filed charges against two Russian diplomats, Igor Sporyshev and Victor Podobnyy, as well as Evgeny Buryakov, an employee of a major Russian bank in Manhattan. All three are believed to be officers of the SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, one of the direct institutional descendants of the Soviet-era KGB. According to the criminal complaint, the two diplomats met Buryakov nearly fifty times between March 2012 and September 2014. FBI counterintelligence agents witnessed the Russians pass “small objects or notes” between each other in public, said the indictment. As intelNews reported yesterday, the three Russians were in regular contact with individuals “associated with a leading Russian state-owned news organization” in the US. According to The Daily Beast, the news organization in question is the Moscow-based TASS news agency, which is owned by the Russian government. The court documents also reveal that Sporyshev and Podobnyy broke basic rules of intelligence tradecraft, by contacting Buryakov using an unencrypted telephone line and addressing him by his real name, rather than his cover name. These conversations, which occurred in April 2013, turned out to be monitored by the FBI’s counterintelligence division, which promptly recorded them. In subsequent telephone conversations, Sporyshev and Podobnyy exchanged views on how to recruit female assets in New York. According to the transcripts provided by the FBI, Sporyshev expressed the view that female assets posed problems, in that they would not let male SVR case officers “get close enough” unless they entered a sexual relationship, which made recruitment of assets complicated. Eventually, the FBI set up a sting operation targeting Buryakov. He was approached by an undercover FBI agent posing as an American investor, offering to provide the Russian with classified documents from the US Treasury. In exchange for the documents, he wanted assistance from the Kremlin to build a chain of casinos in Russia. Buryakov spoke with Sporyshev on the phone about the investor’s offer, and was advised by the diplomat that it could be “some sort of a set up —a trap of some kind”. When Sporyshev told Buryakov to proceed cautiously, the latter received from the undercover FBI agent documents purporting to be from a US Treasury source. The Russian was promptly arrested and now faces up to 20 years in prison on charges of operating as an unregistered agent of a foreign power.

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US busts Russian spy ring, charges three with espionage

January 27, 2015 by 1 Comment

Russian mission to the UNBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Authorities in the United States have charged three Russian citizens, two of them diplomats, with operating a New York-based spy ring on orders from Moscow. Early on Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation named the diplomats as Igor Sporyshev, 40, and Victor Podobnyy, 27. It said the two were employees of the trade office of the Russian permanent mission to the United Nations in New York. But the FBI had apparently been monitoring the two accredited diplomats since March of 2012. Its agents eventually uncovered that Sporyshev and Podobnyy were in fact employees of the SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, one of the direct institutional descendants of the Soviet-era KGB. According to their indictment, the two were employed by the SVR’s ‘ER’ Directorate, which focuses on economics and finance. The two SVR employees, operating under diplomatic guises, regularly met with a third member of the alleged spy ring, Evgeny Buryakov, 39, also an SVR officer. However, unlike Sporyshev and Podobnyy, Buryakov was operating under non-official cover, posing as an employee in the Manhattan office of a major Russian bank. Non-official-cover operatives, or NOCs, as they are known in the US Intelligence Community, are typically high-level principal agents or officers of an intelligence agency, who operate without official connection to the diplomatic authorities of the country that is employing them. They typically pose as business executives, students, academics, journalists, or non-profit agency workers, among other covers. Unlike official-cover officers, who are protected by diplomatic immunity, NOCs have no such protection. If arrested by authorities of their host country, they can be tried and convicted for conducting espionage. US government prosecutors suggested on Monday that the three alleged SVR operatives were also in regular contact with individuals “associated with a leading Russian state-owned news organization”, presumably in the US. They also tried to recruit American citizens to spy for Moscow, including employees of “major companies” and “several young women with ties to a major university in New York”, according to the indictment. It is believed that the three Russians were primarily interested in information relating to potential US government sanctions against Russian financial institutions, as well as Washington’s efforts to promote the development of alternative resources of energy. The FBI said Sporyshev and Podobnyy, who are protected by diplomatic immunity, “no longer reside in the US”. Presumably they were expelled. Buryakov, however, appeared in a Manhattan court on Monday.

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