Allegations of espionage rock Credit Suisse, as more employees come forward
December 19, 2019 1 Comment
Credit Suisse, one of the world’s most powerful banking firms, says it has opened an investigation into claims that it paid private investigators to spy at individuals, just two months after a similar scandal involving espionage and surveillance rocked the company.
In October of this year, two senior Credit Suisse executives resigned amidst a high-stakes espionage scandal, which may have prompted a suicide. The alleged target of the espionage was Iqbal Khan, the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Credit Suisse’s wealth-management division. Khan alleged that he was spied on by private investigators, paid for by Credit Suisse, after leaving the firm. One of the private investigators involved in the case, described as “an external security expert” who mediated between Credit Suisse and the investigation firm, committed suicide.
At the time, Credit Suisse described the surveillance on Khan as “strictly an isolated incident”. However, on December 11, The Wall Street Journal published allegations by another Credit Suisse executive, Colleen Graham, who said that she had been spied on after leaving her job at the firm. She alleged that she underwent three days of intensive surveillance by persons unknown in July of 2017. Credit Suisse was dismissive of Graham’s claims, saying that they were baseless.
But on Wednesday the firm announced the launching of a new probe after a third employee, who used to work directly under Credit Suisse Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam, alleged that he too had been spied on. The allegations were made by Peter Goerke, and were the subject of a headline article by the respected Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung. The article was accompanied by documents and photographs submitted by Goerke, which are said to support his claims.
There are now concerns that spying on former and current employees may have been a standard operating procedure at Credit Suisse. In an article published on Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal said that the alleged incidents “highlight the ethical and reputational pitfalls companies encounter when they physically monitor employees”.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 19 December 2019 | Permalink
The German government has announced plans to hire hundreds of new police and intelligence officers, in order to step up its monitoring of violent far-right groups in the country. The announcement came at a press conference hosted on Tuesday in Berlin by Horst Seehofer, Germany’s Interior Minister.
Last Thursday Danish authorities arrested 22 terrorism suspects in early morning raids across the country. Reports from Israel suggest that the raids were carried out following a tip from Israeli intelligence. The 22 suspects include men and women. Danish police said they were involved in the final stages of a plot to carry out attacks “in Denmark or abroad”, but have provided no specific information, except to say that the attacks were “thwarted” while they were well underway.
The United States quietly expelled two Chinese diplomats in October of this year, a move that neither Washington nor Beijing chose to make public, according to a report published on Sunday. If true, the incident would signify the first known expulsions of Chinese diplomatic personnel from the US since 1987.
A court in Frankfurt has found a married couple guilty of spying in Germany on behalf of India’s external intelligence service. Due to Germany’s strict privacy laws, the couple have been identified only as 50-year-old Manmohan S. and his wife, Kanwal Jit K., who is 51.
One of Belgium’s leading universities has decided to shut down a research institute funded by the Chinese government, after the Belgian intelligence service accused its director of spying on behalf of Beijing. The news was 
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said his country is prepared to deploy troops to Libya, just days after Ankara surprised analysts by announcing an agreement with the embattled Libyan government in Tripoli. The Turkish-Libyan agreement has spurred angry reactions from Israel, Greece and Egypt, all of which are 
Victor Ivanovich Sheymov, who is often referred to as one of the most important intelligence defectors of the Cold War, has reportedly died in the American state of Virginia. He was one of the most senior officials in the Soviet Union’s Committee for State Security (KGB) to ever defect to the West, and revealed important KGB secrets to the United States.
An unprecedented closed-door trial of a man identified only as “Witness J”, who was convicted earlier this year of a crime that cannot be revealed, has raised questions about the relationship between security and the law in Australia. The man, who is also known as “Prisoner 123458”, was sentenced to a jail sentence in February of this year. His sentencing came following a closed-door hearing, which was 
A court in Estonia has ordered the release of a former senior defense official who spied on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for Russia, causing what experts 
An elite group Russian military intelligence officers, who have participated in assassinations across Europe, have been using resorts in the French Alps as logistical and supply bases, according to a new report. The report concerns Unit 29155 of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, commonly known as GRU. 
Switzerland has filed a formal complaint after an employee of the Swiss embassy in Sri Lanka was allegedly abducted by men who forced her to divulge sensitive information about the embassy and its activities. The Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation says it is examining possible counterintelligence threats in connection with the popular online application FaceApp, which is headquartered in Russia. The application first made its appearance in January of 2017 and quickly became popular among smartphone users around the world. It allows users to upload a photograph of their face and then edit it with the help of artificial-intelligence software. The software can change the user’s photograph to make it look younger or older, or make it look as if it is from the opposite gender. The result can be impressively realistic and life-like.
The European multinational aerospace corporation Airbus has fired 16 of its employees for illegally possessing classified documents belonging to the German military. The Netherlands-registered aviation company, one of the world’s largest, has been cooperating with an investigation into the incident. The probe has been led by German authorities since September of 2018.
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Son of Russian spies posing as Canadians gets to keep Canadian citizenship
December 20, 2019 by Joseph Fitsanakis Leave a comment
Tim and Alexander Vavilov are the sons of Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley, a married couple arrested in 2010 under Operation GHOST STORIES —a counterintelligence program run by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Following their arrest, their sons, who allegedly grew up thinking their parents were Canadian, were told that their parents were in fact Russian citizens and that their real names were Andrei Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova. Their English-sounding names and Canadian passports had been forged in the late 1980s by the KGB, the Soviet Union’s primary external intelligence agency.
Since their parents’ arrest on espionage charges, the two brothers, who were born in Canada, have been involved in a prolonged legal battle to have their Canadian citizenship reinstated. The latter was rescinded when it became clear that their parents’ Canadian passports were fraudulent. According to the Canadian Citizenship Act, children born in Canada to “employees of a foreign government” are not entitled to Canadian nationality. But the brothers have argued that they were 20 and 16 when their parents were arrested and were unaware of their double identities. It follows, their lawyers have argued, that they cannot be punished for their parents’ crimes.
In June of 2017, Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal overturned the decision of a lower court and ordered the government to reinstate Alexander Vavilov’s Canadian citizenship. But the Canadian government appealed the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal, which sent the case to the Supreme Court of Canada. The government claimed that the Vavilov brothers should be denied Canadian citizenship because their parents were, effectively, secret employees of a foreign government. The two Russian spies may not have been accredited by the Canadian state as foreign employees, it says, but they were in reality “dedicated to serving their home country, except in their case, the employment was carried out clandestinely”.
On Thursday, however, Canada’s Supreme Court sided with Alexander Vavilov’s lawyers and ordered that he can keep his Canadian citizenship. This decision, which has effectively upheld the earlier decision of the Federal Court of Appeal, almost certainly means that Alexander’s brother, Tim, will also have his Canadian citizenship reinstated.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 20 December 2019 | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Alex Vavilov, Andrei Bezrukov, Canada, Donald Heathfield, Elena Vavilova, KGB, non-official-cover, Russia, Russian illegals program spy ring, SVR (Russia), Tim Vavilov, Tracey Foley