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Prince Albert’s former spymaster airs Monaco’s ‘dirty secrets’

October 26, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Prince Albert II

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Last April I wrote that former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Eringer, who until recently was spymaster to prince Albert II of Monaco, was completing a book on his experiences in the tiny principality, a project he began after leaving his post. But that’s not all. Eringer has now sued the prince for €360,000 ($542,000) in alleged unpaid income, including a severance pay package. The London Sunday Times, which has “obtained” a copy of Eringer’s lawsuit, says that the document “lays bare some of [Monaco’s] dirtiest secrets”. Among them are Eringer’s claims that he investigated activities in Monaco by Russian and Italian mobsters, that he was asked to “assist” a young woman who was romantically involved with prince Albert, and that he went after video evidence showing “a woman performing a sex act on the prince” at his 40^th birthday party. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, FBI, France, Italy, lawsuits, Monaco, Monaco Intelligence Service, News, organized crime, Prince Albert II of Monaco, Robert Eringer, Russia, Thierry Lacoste, United States

Analysis: Is US supporting suicide terrorists in Iran?

October 26, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

Jundullah men

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Jundullah, a militant anti-regime Sunni group in Iran, claimed responsibility last week for an October 18 suicide attack that killed 42 people, including five senior members of the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards corps. Tehran blamed the attack, which is part of a wider low-intensity guerilla war in the country’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, on the work of covert American, British and Pakistani operatives. Should the Iranian allegations be taken seriously? IntelNews has written before about Washington’s complex relationship with Jundullah and the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), two of several armed groups officially deemed terrorist by the US State Department. In 2007, ABC News went so far as to claim that Jundullah “has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005″. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, Bush Administration, CIA, covert operations, Iran, Jundullah, Mujahedeen-e Khalq, Robert Baer, separatism, suicide bombings, terrorism, United States

News you may have missed #0153

October 26, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

More on Nozette’s 2009 mystery trip abroad. The affidavit of Stewart David Nozette, who was arrested last Monday for attempting to sell classified US government information to an undercover FBI agent, reveals that “[o]n or about January 6, 2009, [the scientist] traveled to a different foreign country”, carrying with him two thumb drives, which he failed to bring back with him. Where did he go, and why?
Armenia charges former army officer with spying for Azerbaijan. Armenian Army officer Gevorg Airapetian and a “foreign national” were arrested in a “special operation” by Armenian authorities earlier this week, and charged with spying for Azerbaijan. Some suspect Russian involvement, believing the Azerbaijanis to have acted as intermediaries between Airapetian and Moscow.
US spy chief Blair calls for spy cooperation. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dennis Blair called Wednesday for a better-coordinated effort within the US intelligence community. But he said nothing about recent reports that intelligence officials shut down a Web-based unclassified e-mail system, which had been heralded as an important step in information sharing between members of the US intelligence community.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Dennis Cutler Blair, DNI, espionage, FBI, Gevorg Airapetian, intelligence cooperation, News, news you may have missed, nuclear espionage, Russia, scientific intelligence, Stewart David Nozette, United States

News you may have missed #0152

October 25, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Madoff befriends Israeli-handled spy in prison. According to legal papers filed last Tuesday, Bernard Madoff, imprisoned for masterminding one of history’s largest financial frauds, is sharing a cell with Jonathan Pollard, an American convicted of selling military secrets to Israel over two decades ago.
Polish undercover agent has cover blown. An undercover agent of Poland’s controversial Anti-Corruption Agency (CBA), known simply as Tomek K. (a.k.a. Tomasz Malecki or Tom Piotrowski) has had his cover blown after seducing Polish television star Weronika Marczuk-Pazura during an anti-corruption investigation. Whoever said undercover work was boring?
Finnish former prime minister says KGB tried to recruit him. In his political memoirs published last week, Paavo Lipponen, who was Finland’s prime minister from 1995 to 2003, reveals the Soviet KGB tried unsuccessfully to recruit him in 1966 and again in the early 1970s.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Anti-Corruption Agency (Poland), Bernie Madoff, CBA (Poland), Cold War, corruption, Finland, honey traps, informants, intelligence recruitment, Israel, Jonathan Jay Pollard, KGB, News, news you may have missed, Paavo Lipponen, Poland, Tom Piotrowski, Tomasz Malecki, Tomek K., USSR, Weronika Marczuk-Pazura

FBI targets US nuclear scientist who contacted Venezuelan official

October 25, 2009 by intelNews 2 Comments

P.L. Mascheroni

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A team of FBI agents has raided the house of a former Los Alamos nuclear scientist who has spent two decades criticizing Washington’s nuclear weapons and energy agenda. The agents seized several computers, cameras, cell phones and paper files from the home of Dr. P. Leonardo Mascheroni, a 74-year-old Argentinean-born nuclear scientist who became a US citizen while working at the US Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. After leaving Los Alamos, in 1988, Dr. Mascheroni has campaigned in favor of inertial confinement fusion (commonly known as laser fusion) as a means of producing low-cost energy and of testing nuclear weapons without resorting to underground explosions. Following the FBI raid at his house, Dr. Mascheroni held a press conference where he claimed he was told by the FBI that he was suspected of possible involvement in “nuclear espionage”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0151

October 24, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Musicians protest use of their songs in Guantánamo torture. A group of musicians, including Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, REM, Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne, Rise Against, Roseanne Cash, Billy Bragg, the Roots, and many more, have joined the National Campaign to Close Guantánamo.
More information on CIA’s interest in monitoring Internet sites. Noah Shachtman, contributing editor at Wired magazine and editor of Danger Room, speaks on the CIA’s funding of a private software company specializing in monitoring online social media, such as YouTube, Twitter and Flickr.
Lithuania to investigate CIA secret prison allegations. Dalia Grybauskaite, president of Lithuania, has called for an official investigation into recent allegations that the CIA housed a secret prison for al-Qaeda suspects in Lithuania for more than a year, beginning in 2004.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with al-Qaeda, Billy Bragg, black operations, CIA, Cuba, Dalia Grybauskaite, Fickr, Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, Jackson Browne, Lithuania, music, National Campaign to Close Guantánamo, News, news you may have missed, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine, REM, Rise Against, Roseanne Cash, social networking, the Roots, Tom Morello, torture, Trent Reznor, Twitter, United States, War on Terrorism, YouTube

Mysterious self-destructing devices found at Lebanon-Israel border

October 24, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

One of the devices

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Lebanese authorities have revealed the discovery last week of three communications interception devices near the Israel-Lebanon border. Interestingly, two of the devices self-destructed by exploding as Lebanese security personnel were approaching. Members of the Lebanese Armed Forces decided to detonate a third device, fearing that it too might explode at any moment. The three devices were attached to a telecommunications cable on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Houla. Israeli officials have so far refused to address the accusation of the Lebanese government that the devices were planted by Israeli spies. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 2006 Lebanon War, communications interception, espionage, Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanese Armed Forces, Lebanese Internal Security Forces, Lebanon, News, Syria

News you may have missed #0150

October 23, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Israel’s inside intelligence. If only Israeli security services were as open as the CIA and other US spy agencies, lament Israelis.
Nozette and nuclear rocketry. Here are some of the reasons why the case of scientist Stewart D. Nozette, who was arrested and charged earlier this week under the US Espionage Act, is distressing on several levels.
Perle calls DoD spying whistleblower “a nutcase”. Richard Perle, chairperson of the US Defense Advisory Board under the Bush administration, has called Sibel Edmonds “a nutcase; certifiable”. Last August, Edmonds, a former FBI translator, alleged that Turkish spies had bugged, blackmailed and bribed US politicians, her FBI unit, the State Department, the Pentagon and Congress.

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Dozens of MI5 agents to testify in Real IRA trial

October 23, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

RIRA gunmen

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Over 30 agents of MI5, Britain’s primary domestic intelligence agency, will be anonymously giving evidence at a scheduled trial of three men arrested in connection with a Real IRA international gun smuggling operation. The men, Paul Anthony John McCaugherty, Dermot Declan Gregory, and Desmond Paul Kearns, all from County Armagh in Northern Ireland, were arrested after a yearlong infiltration operation by MI5, involving the use of informants and surveillance equipment. The latter resulted in nearly 90 hours of recorded conversations, which the court said will take “months to transcribe”. Additionally, 35 MI5 agents have so far applied to give evidence in court, their identity concealed behind screens. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with County Armagh, Dermot Declan Gregory, Desmond Paul Kearns, informants, lawsuits, Liam Campbell, Lithuania, MI5, Michael Campbell, Netherlands, News, Northern Ireland, Paul Anthony John McCaugherty, Real IRA, sting operations, surveillance, UK, Vilnius (Lithuania), weapons smuggling

Mexican agency spied on Nobel laureate author Márquez

October 23, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Márquez

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Mexico’s defunct Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS) intelligence agency spied on Colombian-born Nobel laureate author Gabriel García Márquez, according to revelations published in El Universal newspaper. The Mexican daily aired declassified documents allegedly showing that the DFS tapped the author’s home telephone, systematically monitored his whereabouts, and kept a “bulging file” on him spanning several decades. The monitoring began in 1967, when Márquez moved from Colombia to Mexico, and continued until at least 1985. The apparent reason for the spying is that the Mexican state considered the best-selling author of Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude to be a communist sympathizer and even “a Cuban agent”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0149

October 23, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Why is CIA fighting to keep JFK documents sealed? For years, the CIA has fought in US federal courts to keep secret hundreds of documents detailing the relationship between Lee Harvey Oswald and a CIA anti-Castro front group. The Agency says it is only protecting legitimate secrets. But some researchers are questioning this.
Up to 320 Pakistani civilians killed in US drone war. As many as 320 innocent civilians may have been killed in the CIA-led US drone war in Pakistan, according to an analysis by the New America Foundation. That’s about a third of the 1,000 or so people slain in the robotic aircraft attacks since 2006. Previous research has shown that approximately 80% of the airstrikes have failed to kill what the US Pentagon calls “high value targets”.
Analysis: What are the risks of the CIA’s covert drone program? “It’s easy to understand the appeal of a ‘push-button’ approach to fighting al-Qaeda, but the embrace of the Predator program has occurred with remarkably little public discussion, given that it represents a radically new and geographically unbounded use of state-sanctioned lethal force. And, because of the CIA program’s secrecy, there is no visible system of accountability in place, despite the fact that the agency has killed many civilians inside a politically fragile, nuclear-armed country with which the US is not at war”.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with assassinations, CIA, Cuba, declassification, Fidel Castro, front groups, government secrecy, John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, News, news you may have missed, Pakistan, Predator drones, War on Terrorism

Analysis: US Scientist’s Espionage Arrest Raises Questions

October 22, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Nozette

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Stewart David Nozette, who was arrested by the FBI on October 19, on charges of sharing classified US government data with a man he believed was an Israeli government officer, is to remain in jail. The reason given by the US federal judge in charge of the case is that Nozette might flee to Israel if not confined. However, unlike the case of former US Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard, who was jailed in 1987 for spying on the US for Israel, the government of Israel is said to have had no role in Nozette’s attempted espionage. The FBI itself admits that it “does not allege that the government of Israel or anyone acting on its behalf committed any offense under US laws in this case”. This is because Nozette shared classified US government data with an undercover FBI officer posing as a handler of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. But if this is so, then two important counterintelligence questions are raised: first, how did the FBI know to lure Nozette with an agent posing as an Israeli –as opposed to a Russian or Chinese– handler? Second, why would Nozette flee to –and presumably be protected by– Israel, even though the government of Israel was not involved in this case, according to the FBI? Keep reading →

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US spy agencies invest in Internet-monitoring company

October 21, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

In-Q-Tel logo

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture-capital investment arm, is funding a private software company specializing in monitoring online social media, such as YouTube, Twitter and Flickr. The company, Visible Technologies, unleashes web crawlers that scan and sift through over half a million Internet sites a day, looking for open-source intelligence (OSINT) of interest to its customers. The latter receive real-time updates of Internet activity, based on specific sets of keywords they provide. Noah Shachtman, of Wired’s Danger Room blog, correctly notes that In-Q-Tel’s latest investment is indicative of a wider trend within US intelligence agencies to enhance their foreign OSINT collection and analysis. Incidentally, the US Pentagon has shown similar interests since 2006. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, Donald Tighe, In-Q-Tel, intelligence analysis, Lucid Imagination, News, open source intelligence, OSINT, social networking, surveillance, United States, US DoD, Visible Technologies

Iran government spying on ex-pat dissidents, says Germany

October 20, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Manfred Murck

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A German intelligence official has said Iranian government agents are actively spying on Iranian dissidents living in Germany. Speaking to the Panorama program on Germany’s ARD state-owned television station, Manfred Murck, deputy director of the Hamburg branch of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s primary domestic intelligence service, said his department is aware of Iranian intelligence activity targeting Iranians living in Germany. “We know that the Iranian (secret) service has its people circulating in demonstrations. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Germany), Germany, Hamburg (Germany), immigration intelligence, Iran, Iranian embassy in Germany, Manfred Murck, News, surveillance

Mossad declassifies a document for the first time in its history

October 20, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Mossad logo

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
For the first time in its existence, the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, has released a document from its secret archive. The secretive spy agency agreed to release its official founding charter in the context of a year-long legal battle with two Israeli daily newspapers, Yedioth Ahronoth and Ha’aretz. Last year, the two papers filed a petition with Israel’s High Court of Justice, claiming that the Mossad, as well as Israel’s internal spy agency Shin Bet, and the country’s Atomic Energy Commission, were not adhering to Israel’s archive laws. According to the petition, the three agencies were breaking the law by “maintaining their own archives and keeping them closed to the general public”. The High Court of Justice is still deliberating the case, but Mossad recently approached Ha’aretz and offered to voluntarily release its founding charter. Read more of this post