US forces helped assassinate top FARC commander in Ecuador

December 14, 2009 by 1 Comment

Raúl Reyes

Raúl Reyes

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
US military intelligence and combat troops helped Colombian forces assassinate a senior leftwing Colombian paramilitary commander on Ecuadoran soil last year, according to an Ecuadoran government report. As this blog reported last month, Colombia’s soon-to-be-dismantled DAS intelligence service admitted it paid “an informant in the Ecuadorean security forces” US$2.5 million to supply information on the whereabouts of Raúl Reyes, senior leader in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Reyes was assassinated along with 16 of his guerillas in a daring raid by Colombian forces, around a mile inside Ecuador’s border, on March 1, 2008. Now an Ecuadoran government report claims that Reyes’ killing, which sparked the so-called 2008 Andean diplomatic crisis between Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, was conducted with logistical and combat assistance by US forces stationed in Ecuador. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0170

November 6, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • US wants to set up spy base in Afghanistan, says Afghan lawmaker. Ataollah Loudin, who chairs the Afghan parliament’s Justice and Judiciary Committee, told journalists that Washington wants to establish a base in Afghanistan “to collect intelligence on and organize espionage operations against Iran, Russia, and China”.
  • CIA settles DEA agent’s lawsuit for $3 million. The US government has agreed to pay $3 million to a former US Drug Enforcement Administration agent who accused a CIA operative of illegally bugging his home.
  • UN to help Colombia sort through spy files. Colombia’s government and the UN have reached an agreement that will allow the UN to participate in the cleansing of intelligence files belonging to the soon-to-be-dismantled DAS spy agency. Interestingly, the project will be used as a pilot example for a wider process which may be extended to the Colombian Armed Forces and Police.

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News you may have missed #0167

November 5, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • DAS official confirms Colombia spying on Ecuador. An official of Colombia’s DAS intelligence service has admitted Colombia “had an informant in the Ecuadorean security forces”. The revelation comes days after Venezuelan officials claimed they had uncovered Operation SALOMON, a joint Colombian-US espionage operation against Ecuador.
  • Clinton meets Libyan ex-intelligence chief. While attending a regional-development conference in Morocco, US secretary of state Hilary Clinton met briefly with Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa. Kusa, who served as Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi’s intelligence chief during the 1990s, was expelled from Britain in 1980 for his alleged involvement in assassinating a Gaddafi opponent in London. Clinton has a talent for meeting with controversial foreign spies.
  • Ex-Yugoslav secret agent arrested in Germany. German authorities have arrested a man with Croatian and Swedish citizenships, identified only as “Luka S.”, who allegedly participated in the 1983 murder of Stjepan Durekovic, an exiled Yugoslav dissident living in Germany. Another accomplice in Durekovic’s assassination, identified only as “Kronoslav P.”, was jailed in 2008.

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Documents allegedly describe joint US-Colombian spy operations

October 31, 2009 by Leave a comment

Tarek El Aissami

Tarek El Aissami

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A day after announcing the arrest of a number of Colombian intelligence agents on Venezuelan soil, Venezuelan officials presented what they described as “irrefutable evidence” of joint US-Colombian spy operations. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Venezuela’s interior minister Tarek El Aissami, said documents acquired in connection with the capture of the Colombian intelligence agents, show that their actions were part of “an ambitious CIA-funded operation”. Venezuelan security forces detained the two Colombians, Angel Jacinto Guanare and Eduardo Gonzalez Muñoz, along with an alleged Venezuelan accomplice, Melvin Argenis Gutierrez, on October 2, 2009, in the city of Maracay, 50 miles west of Venezuelan capital Caracas. El Aissami suggested that documents relating to the activities of the three men reveal that they were part of Operation FALCON, a joint project by the CIA and Colombian intelligence agency DAS, which aimed “to collect information about the Bolivarian National Armed Forces” and recruit informants from anti-government circles. Read more of this post

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Venezuela announces arrest of Colombian “spies”

October 28, 2009 by Leave a comment

Francisco Arias Cardenas

Cardenas

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The government of Venezuela announced yesterday the arrest of an undisclosed number of Colombian intelligence agents, who were allegedly “captured carrying out actions of espionage”. The announcement was made by the Venezuelan deputy foreign minister, Francisco Arias Cardenas, who claimed that the detainees were all members of Colombia’s scandal-prone and soon-to-be-dismantled DAS intelligence agency. Cardenas gave no further details yesterday, but said that the Venezuelan government would “soon produce evidence” to back up its claims. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0138

October 10, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • US intelligence turf wars plague email system. US intelligence officials have decided to shut down a Web-based, unclassified e-mail system, which had been heralded as an important step in the US intelligence community’s drive for better information sharing after 9/11. A Directorate of National Intelligence representative said “security concerns” led to the decision to shut down the e-mail system.
  • CIA Climate Change Center survives funding opposition. Republican lawmakers criticized the CIA’s plan to open the Center on Climate Change and National Security as a “misguided defense funding priority” and even tried to prevent appropriate funding last week. But they failed and so it appears that the Center will be established after all.
  • Colombia to rename spy agency to “CIA”. The restructuring of Colombia’s scandal-prone domestic spy agency, Administrative Department of Security (DAS), continues, as the government has announced that DAS will now be known as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a new entity which will take over state and immigration intelligence and counterintelligence duties.

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News you may have missed #0126

October 3, 2009 by 1 Comment

  • Cyber spying increasing in the US, says new report. The Office of the US National Counterintelligence Executive’s annual report says that cyber attacks against US government and business targets “proliferated in fiscal year 2008”. The report also states that Blackberries and iPhones belonging to government and business personnel are becoming major targets by foreign cyber spies.
  • Analysis: The case for a US National Declassification Center. There is no argument about the fact that the US government’s declassification system simply doesn’t work. The way around the problem is to establish a centralized National Declassification Center, according to a National Archives and Records Administration white paper.
  • New Colombian spy agency forbidden from conducting wiretaps. Technically, the scandal-prone Administrative Department of Security (DAS) is no more in Colombia. The new agency, which is expected to replace DAS, will not be allowed to tap telephones, a function that will be solely entrusted to the police force. We’ll have to wait and see about that.

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News you may have missed #0124

October 2, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Top Russian spy indicted in sex trafficking case. One of thirteen people indicted on Tuesday in an international sex trafficking case is Dmitry Strykanov, a senior intelligence officer with the Russian Military Intelligence Directorate. Immense corruption still plagues Russian intelligence.
  • Colombian intelligence officer detained in Venezuela. An agent of Colombia’s scandal-prone DAS security agency was detained at a hotel in Maracaibo, Venezuela. The agent, Julio Enrique Tocora Parra, says he was invited to Venezuela by the country’s SAIME immigration agency. A classic case of luring?
  • Spain uncovers double agent’s Russian handler. Spain’s National IntelligenceCenter (CNI) says Petr Melnikov, political attaché at the Russian Embassy in Madrid, facilitated the transfer of Spanish classified documents to Russian intelligence. The documents were allegedly supplied between 2001 and 2004 by Roberto Flórez García former CNI agent, who was arrested by Spanish counterintelligence agents in Tenerife in July of 2007.

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Colombia to dismantle scandal-prone spy agency

September 22, 2009 by Leave a comment

Semana cover

Semana cover

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (DAS) is to be dismantled and most of its 6,000 employees are to be transferred to the country’s other law enforcement agencies, according to Colombian officials. The decision was announced last Friday by DAS director Felipe Muñoz, who said that a new organization would be established to replace the corrupt and scandal-prone agency. A day earlier, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe said that a flood of recent scandals involving DAS had forced him to consider eliminating the agency. Earlier this year, the Colombian government was forced to fire 33 DAS agents for illegally wiretapping the phones of several public figures Read more of this post

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Colombian ex-spy details coup plot against Venezuela

September 8, 2009 by 2 Comments

Rafael García

Rafael García

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The former director of information technology at Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, or DAS) has revealed details of what he claims was a Colombian-assisted coup against the Venezuelan government. Speaking on Colombia’s Noticias Uno television station, former DAS official Rafael García said the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe was the main supporter of a 2004 attempt to topple the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez. García, who was fired from DAS three years ago, after being caught taking bribes from right wing paramilitaries and drug barons, said Colombia recruited 120 Colombian paramilitary members of Northern Bloc, a militia unit of the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, which operates mostly along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. Read more of this post

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Colombian security agency intensifies illegal wiretaps, intimidation

September 4, 2009 by 1 Comment

Semana cover

Semana cover

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
You would think that right after the most extensive purge in its modern history, Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (DAS) would scale down its illegal activities. But, according to the country’s leading weekly publication, Semana, illegal intelligence activities by DAS agents have intensified in recent months. In its lead article this week, the magazine says it has in its possession recordings that prove DAS continues to monitor the communications of politicians, journalists, human rights activists, union officials, and even Supreme Court Judges. Earlier this year, the Colombian government was forced to fire 33 DAS agents for illegally wiretapping the phones of several public figures, including the chief of the Colombian National Police, minister of defense Juan Manuel Santos, former President Cesar Gaviria, supreme court judges, prominent journalists, union leaders and human rights campaigners. It this week’s report, Semana says that DAS operatives are now being used by the government to intimidate members of Congress, who may have to vote in a possible referendum to permit President Alvaro Uribe to run for a third term, which is currently unconstitutional. Read more of this post

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Former Colombian spy director surrenders in assassination probe

August 23, 2009 by Leave a comment

Maza Marquez

Maza Marquez

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Miguel Maza Marquez, a fugitive from justice who briefly directed Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, or DAS) in the late 1980s, has turned himself in at a DAS academy. His arrest was ordered in June by the office of the Colombian Attorney General, in connection with the 1989 assassination of reformist Colombian politician Luis Carlos Galán. Galán, who was the leading presidential candidate at the time of his assassination, gained his popularity by declaring himself an enemy of Colombia’s drug cartels, such as those led by Pablo Escobar and Gonzalo Rodríguez. On August 18, 1989, Galán was shot in the face during a pre-election rally in Soacha, on the outskirts of Bogota. Prosecutors investigating his assassination allege that Maza Marquez, whose Department was responsible for Galán’s bodyguards, intervened to make suspicious changes to Galán’s security detail on the night of his assassination. Some say that Maza Marquez was acting on orders from notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar himself.

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Charges finally announced in Colombia wiretap scandal

August 4, 2009 by Leave a comment

Alvaro Uribe

Alvaro Uribe

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Colombia’s chief prosecutor has finally announced criminal charges against ten former government officials accused of spying on political opponents of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. As intelNews reported in April, Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, or DAS) suffered one of the most extensive purges in its history, when 22 (later joined by 11 more) of its detectives were fired for illegally wiretapping several public figures. Those targeted by the wiretaps included the chief of the Colombian National Police, minister of defense Juan Manuel Santos, former President Cesar Gaviria, supreme court judges, prominent journalists, union leaders and human rights campaigners. Read more of this post

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More agents fired in Colombian wiretap scandal probe

June 23, 2009 by Leave a comment

Juan M. Santos

Juan M. Santos

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Last April, Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, or DAS) suffered one of the most extensive purges in its history, when 22 of its detectives were fired in connection with an investigation into illegal wiretapping against several public figures in Colombian political life. On Saturday, the scandal-plagued agency firedanother 11 of its operatives, which raises the running total of purged DAS agents to 33. Last April, intelNews reportedthat those targeted by the illegal wiretappers included Supreme Court judges, prominent journalists, as well as the chief of the Colombian National Police, former president Cesar Gaviria, and even the minister of defense Juan Manuel Santos. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0001

June 15, 2009 by Leave a comment

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