Video footage shows alleged CIA spy tackled outside US Moscow embassy
July 8, 2016 1 Comment
A Russian television station has aired footage allegedly showing a Russian guard stationed outside the United States embassy in Moscow trying to stop an American diplomat from entering the embassy. The Kremlin claims that the alleged US diplomat was in fact a Central Intelligence Agency officer who was returning to the embassy in disguise following a spy operation. As intelNews reported on July 1, the incident took place in the early hours of Monday, June 6. The American diplomat was making his way to the front entrance of the US embassy complex, which is located in the Presnensky District in downtown Moscow.
According to American sources, the diplomat was approached by an employee of the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, which regularly stations security personnel around the sizeable US embassy complex. The FSB claims that the guards are there to protect US diplomats, though it is common knowledge that the Russian agency, which is responsible for counterespionage, is primarily there to monitor activities in and around the US embassy. American sources claim that the diplomat presented the Russian guard with proof of identification when asked to do so. But he was then physically attacked and struck repeatedly by the FSB officer, which left him with several injuries, including a broken shoulder. The diplomat managed to enter the embassy grounds and had to be flown out of the country for urgent medical treatment. He has not returned to Russia.
On Thursday, Russian television channel NTV aired video footage purporting to show the altercation between the US diplomat and the FSB guard. The video aired on NTV shows a man exiting a taxi in a hurry and heading to what appears to be the US embassy’s front-perimeter entrance. However, as the man makes heads for the entrance, a uniformed individual jumps out of a guard station located nearby and tackles the man, throwing him on the ground. A scuffle ensues, during which the alleged diplomat is seen desperately trying to reach the entrance of the US embassy, which is American soil. He eventually manages to enter the embassy grounds, despite the effort of the uniformed guard to prevent him from entering. The same NTV report identified the American diplomat as Daniel Van Dyken and showed the photograph of a man said to be him. The report states that Van Dyken serves as third secretary of the US embassy’s Political Department.
Last week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova alleged that the diplomat in question was an intelligence officer. “It is well known”, said Zakharova, “that this very diplomat was in fact an agent of the CIA and was returning [to the US embassy], in disguise, after conducting an intelligence operation the previous night”. She also said that the Russian government employee involved in the altercation was a “police officer” who was attacked by the alleged spy when he asked to be shown proof of identification. Instead of supplying identification documents, the American diplomat “struck the guard in the face with his elbow before disappearing into the embassy”, said Zakharova. The US State Department and the CIA have refused to comment on Zakharova’s allegations.
► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 08 July 2016 | Permalink
An ethnic Albanian man facing deportation from the United States says he was trained by the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on “the most ruthless, dangerous terrorists in the Balkans and the Middle East”. Blerim Skoro, 45, from the former Yugoslav Republic of Kosovo, was arrested last February in Brooklyn, New York, for illegally using a discounted student MetroCard. He was then found to have entered the US illegally and is currently in prison in New Jersey, facing possible deportation back to Kosovo. But Skoro told The New York Times in an 
The Russian government says that an American diplomat, who was allegedly beaten up by a Russian security guard outside the United States embassy compound in Moscow, is an undercover spy. The man, who has not been named, was stationed in the Russian capital by the State Department as an accredited diplomat with immunity from prosecution in Russia. However, The Washington Post 
A Portuguese intelligence officer arrested a week ago in Rome, allegedly while passing classified documents to his Russian handler, may have accomplices with access to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) secrets. IntelNews 
Two intelligence officers, one Russian and one Portuguese, have been arrested by Italian authorities on charges of espionage. The arrests took place in Rome on Monday by Italian police, who were reportedly accompanied by Portuguese counterintelligence officers. It is suggested in Portuguese media that the two men were arrested in the act of exchanging classified documents and money. The Portuguese intelligence officer has been identified in 
A former computer technician who worked on cryptology has been sentenced to death in China after being found guilty in what some describe as one of the country’s most damaging espionage cases in recent years. The man, Huang Yu, is reportedly a 41-year-old computer expert who worked for a government-funded research institute specializing in cryptology —the science of making and breaking secret codes. He was arrested in 2011 in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in southwestern China.
An American official has told Newsweek magazine that the possibility of further arrests in the espionage case of United States Navy flight officer Edward Lin should not be ruled out. Last Sunday, the US Navy reported the arrest Lt. Cmdr. Lin, who faces two counts of espionage and three counts of attempted espionage, among other charges. Aside from a three-page, heavily redacted charge sheet released by the Navy, almost nothing is known about this case. However, as intelNews 
For the first time since 1985, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation broke the John Walker spy ring, an active United States Navy officer has been charged with espionage. On Sunday, the US Navy reported the arrest Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin, who faces two counts of espionage and three counts of attempted espionage, among other charges. Aside from a three-page, heavily redacted 
A senior official of Turkey’s state-run weapons manufacturer has been arrested on espionage charges, after he was caught selling weapons blueprints to the employee of an arms firm based in the United States. The official was named by Turkish authorities as Mustafa Tanriverdi, the general manager of one of Turkey’s largest weapons production facilities, located in the town of Kirikkale, 50 miles east of Turkish capital Ankara. Tanriverdi is reportedly employed by the Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKE), a government-run manufacturing firm that provides much of the Turkish Armed Forces’ weaponry. The company also has a growing list of international buyers, which includes nearly 30 foreign governments.
The Russian government says it has arrested a senior Ukrainian intelligence officer, who was allegedly trained by the United States Central Intelligence Agency and tasked with infiltrating the Russian secret services. In a 
A court in Germany has sentenced a former officer of the country’s intelligence agency, who spied for the United States and Russia from 2008 to 2014. Regular readers of this website will recall the case of ‘Markus R.’, a clerk at the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, Germany’s external intelligence agency. The 32-year-old was 
A debate on information security measures in the European Union was prompted last week after some officials voiced concerns that the proceedings of a closed-door meeting were secretly monitored by Israel. The meeting took place on January 15 as part of regular proceedings by the EU’s Political and Security Committee (PSC). The main item on the agenda was the EU’s Middle Eastern policy. According to some meeting participants, Israeli diplomats appeared to be aware of a statement discussed during the PSC meeting “in real time”, which prompted a wider debate on EU information security policies.
A Korean resident of Japan, who was arrested in South Korea for credit card fraud, was allegedly a handler of North Korean sleeper agents operating in South Korea, Japan and China, according to police in Seoul. Pak Chae Hun, 49, was arrested on Tuesday at his home in Seoul by officers of the Public Security Bureau of the Metropolitan Police Department. A statement issued by South Korean police said Pak was until recently an associate professor at Korea University, a higher-education institution based in the Japanese capital Tokyo. The University is funded directly by the government of North Korea through Chongryon, a pro-Pyongyang organization otherwise known as the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. The group represents tens of thousands of ethnic Koreans living in Japan, who are ideologically affiliated with Pyongyang.
Ever since 2008, when we launched intelNews, we have monitored daily developments in the highly secretive world of intelligence while providing an expert viewpoint removed from sensationalism and conspiratorial undertones. As 2015 is about to conclude, we take a look back at what we think are the ten most important intelligence-related developments of the past 12 months. Regular readers of this blog will surely agree that we witnessed our fair share of significant intelligence-related stories this year. Some of them made mainstream headlines, while others failed inexplicably to attract the attention of the news media. In anticipation of what 2016 may bring, we present you with our selection of stories, which are listed below in reverse order of significance. This is part two in the series; 
Turkey has more spies in Germany than Stasi had during Cold War: expert
August 26, 2016 by Joseph Fitsanakis 1 Comment
According to Die Welt, many of these informants are tasked with keeping tabs on Germany’s large Kurdish community, which Ankara views as domestic threats to Turkish national security. More recently, however, MİT operatives in Germany have been instructed to infiltrate groups of supporters of the charismatic Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen who lives in the United States. A former ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Gülen and his millions of supporters around the world now oppose the Turkish government and are described as terrorists by Ankara. President Erdoğan has personally accused “Gülenists” of orchestrating the failed July 15 coup in Turkey. In addition to infiltration, MİT informants in Germany are allegedly engaged in psychological operations against perceived opponents of the Turkish government, and sometimes engage in blackmail and intimidation of targeted individuals or groups, according to Die Welt.
Erich Schmidt-Eenboom, one of Germany’s best known independent researchers on intelligence, and a widely published author, said he was surprised that the number of alleged MİT operatives in Germany is this high. If the number of 6,000 operatives is accurate, said Schmidt-Eenboom, it would place the MİT above the level of the Stasi during the Cold War. He was referring to the Ministry for State Security, the intelligence agency of communist-era East Germany, which was known for its extensive networks of informants during the Cold War. Schmidt-Eenboom said that, according to Stasi records, the agency handled approximately 10,000 operatives in West Germany, a country that at the time had a population of 60 million. In contrast, the 6,000 MİT operatives in Germany are primarily tasked with monitoring the Turkish and Kurdish immigrant community there, which numbers no more than 3 million. Consequently, said Schmidt-Eenboom, there are 500 potential human targets for each present-day MİT operative, whereas there were 6,000 West German citizens for every Stasi operative during the Cold War.
The article in Die Welt did not specify whether the alleged MİT informants are paid agents or simply supporters of the Turkish government who have volunteered their services. As intelNews reported earlier this week, some members of the German Bundestag’s Committee on Parliamentary Oversight, including its chairman, Clemens Binninger, plan to launch an official investigation into the activities of Turkish intelligence in Germany. Of particular interest to the committee is the alleged cooperation between German and Turkish intelligence agencies following the failed coup in Turkey this past July.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 26 August 2016 | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with counterintelligence, espionage, Germany, immigration intelligence, informants, MİT (Turkey), News, Turkey