Poland’s intelligence watchdog chief says 52 journalists were spied on
May 12, 2016 Leave a comment
Over 50 journalists and their contacts were systematically spied on by the Polish intelligence services between 2007 and 2015, according to the former director of an anti-corruption watchdog. Until 2009, Mariusz Kamiński led the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau, which was set up by the office of the Polish Prime Minister in 2006 to address corruption in the country. The body is also responsible for monitoring the operations of Poland’s intelligence services, including the Internal Security Agency (ABW).
Kamiński made the spying allegation on Wednesday at the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish Parliament, during a parliamentary hearing held to assess the performance of the previous government. He said that dozens of journalists of all political persuasions had been illegally spied on by the ABW between 2007 and 2015, on direct orders by the previous government. He was referring to the administrations of Donald Tusk and Ewa Kopacz, who held successive prime ministerial posts until last year. The two politicians represented a center-left alliance between the Civic Platform (PO) and the Polish People’s Party (PSL), which ruled Poland from 2007 to 2015. But Kamiński, who is currently a member of the Sejm elected with the governing Law and Justice party (PiS), claimed that, under Tusk and Kopacz’s watch, the ABW spied on prominent journalists, their families and their contacts, secretly photographing them and tapping their telephones in order to see who they communicated with. He also claimed that the ABW spied on him and his colleagues at the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau in an attempt to intimidate them.
The center-right Law and Justice Party (PiS), which Kamiński represents at the Sejm, rose to power in October of last year after gaining a majority in both houses of the Polish Parliament. It had remained in opposition from 2007 to 2015, while the PO-PSL alliance governed the country. In his presentation, Kamiński claimed that the current center-right administration is “not placing anyone under surveillance due to their political views”, as these types of illegal activities would “directly violate freedom of speech and democracy” in Poland. At the end of his talk, Kamiński presented a list of journalists’ names who were allegedly targeted by the ABW. But opposition politicians dismissed Kamiński’s charges as being politically motivated and said they aimed to discredit the previous administration.
► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 12 May 2016 | Permalink
An Argentine former senior intelligence official has claimed in court testimony that the administration of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner murdered a state prosecutor who had accused senior officials of having colluded with Iran to bomb Israeli targets in Buenos Aires. In January 2015, the prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, prompted international headlines by launching a criminal complaint against President Kirchner and several other notable personalities of Argentine political life. Nisman accused them of having colluded with the government of Iran to obstruct an investigation into the bombings of 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 community center in the Argentine capital was bombed. Nisman was 
An Argentine former senior intelligence official, who is wanted in connection with the murder of a federal prosecutor in Buenos Aires, is hiding in the United States, according to the President of Argentina, who says Washington should extradite him. Antonio Horacio Stiuso, better known as Jaime Stiuso, rose through the ranks of Argentina’s Secretaría de Inteligencia del Estado (SIDE) to become its director of counterintelligence. In 2012, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner appointed Stiuso to chief operating officer of SIDE, working directly under the agency’s director. However, Stiuso was fired in a massive agency shake-up in February of this year, when the government suddenly dissolved SIDE and replaced it with a new agency, called Agencia Federal de Inteligencia.
A well-connected Chinese businessman, described by officials as potentially one of the most damaging defectors in the history of modern China, is reputed to have requested political asylum in the United States. Ling Wancheng, 54, is the multimillionaire brother of Ling Jihua, a close aide of China’s former premier, Hu Jintao, who rose through the ranks of the Communist Party of China to eventually lead its Central Committee’s General Office. With the help of his brother’s connections and political influence, Ling Wancheng transformed himself from a journalist to an entrepreneur in the early 2000s. Soon after receiving his graduate degree in business administration, he founded an investment firm and joined China’s nouveau riche elite. His wealth, which is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, coupled with his older brother’s senior position within the Communist Party, made him one of China’s most politically connected entrepreneurs.
The former director of Colombia’s intelligence service returned to court this week to face charges of complicity in the assassination of a leading presidential hopeful, who was gunned down in 1989 by a powerful drug cartel. Luis Carlos Galán, a senator and former minister, was tipped to win the 1990 presidential election in which he stood on the Liberal Party ticket. His popularity with the electorate is largely attributed to his uncompromising stance against Colombia’s powerful drug cartels. He had vowed to arrest leading drug lords and send them to the United States to face criminal charges. He would do so, he said, after signing a mutual extradition treaty with Washington. However, Galán was assassinated on August 18, 1989, during a campaign rally in Soacha, a working-class suburb of Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. The assassination took place before thousands of spectators who were present at the rally, and is considered one of the highest-profile political killings in the history of Colombia.
A Russian businessman, who died in London while assisting a Swiss probe into a massive money-laundering scheme, may have been poisoned with a substance derived from a highly toxic plant, an inquest has heard. Aleksandr Perepilichny was an influential Moscow investment banker until he fled Russia in 2009, saying that his life had been threatened after a disagreement with his business partners. A few months later, having moved to an exclusive district in Surrey, south of London, Perepilichny began cooperating with Swiss authorities who were investigating a multi-million dollar money-laundering scheme involving senior Russian government officials. The scheme, uncovered by a hedge fund firm called Hermitage Capital Management (CMP), and described by some as the biggest tax fraud in Russian history, defrauded the Russian Treasury of at least $240 million. The case made international 
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Malaysia immigration probe reveals growing insider threat to passport security
June 3, 2016 by Joseph Fitsanakis Leave a comment
The officers implicated in the investigation are accused of deliberately sabotaging the automated passport control system used at KLIA. Known as myIMMs, the system allows passport control officers to validate the authenticity of international travelers’ passports, and to confirm that the latter have not been reported lost or stolen. It is believed that the myIMMs system was deliberately made to crash at least once a day, in order to allow human traffickers and other organized criminals to smuggle individuals in and out of Malaysia. With the system going offline, KLIA passport control officers were forced to screen passengers manually, which is now believed to have permitted countless individuals using forged and stolen passports to go through security undetected. The deliberate sabotage of myIMMs is believed to have been going on since 2010, and investigators are at a loss in trying to estimate the numbers of people who have been able to bypass computerized passport checks.
One investigator said Australia’s ABC news network that the criminal ring’s handlers were located overseas and would send immigration officers instructions via coded messages. The primary ring members had recruited IDM administrative staff, technology staff, and even software vendors, who were involved in sabotaging the system. The practice of organized criminal and terrorist groups using forged passports is both long and documented. But news of a criminal group that is able to set up an extensive ring of immigration officers, who then sabotage an electronic passport verification system at a major international transport hub, is rare and extremely alarming. It reveals a new form of insider threat, namely compromised immigration and passport control officers, who are bribed to facilitate the work of criminal groups and terrorist organizations.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 03 June 2016 | Permalink
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