Leaked MI5 report sees China as ‘most significant’ spy threat

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A restricted MI5 report describes China as Britain’s most serious espionage threat, and says British business executives are increasingly targeted by Chinese intelligence operatives. The 14-page document was authored by the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, a unit of MI5, Britain’s primary counterintelligence and security agency. In it, the intelligence agencies of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, as well as the Ministry of State Security, are identified as leaders in a massive targeting of British corporate executives who regularly make business trips to China. The report warns that most of the hotel rooms where they stay are “likely to be bugged”, that they are regularly “searched while the occupants are out of the[ir] room[s]”, and that hotels are frequented by Chinese female intelligence agents, looking “to exploit vulnerabilities such as sexual relationships and illegal activities”. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0273

  • Tinner nuclear spy ring worked for CIA, documents confirm. IntelNews has been reporting for more than a year that Urs Tinner, a Swiss engineer who worked under Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, and was said at the time to be leading “the world’s biggest nuclear smuggling ring”, was in fact a CIA informant. Now documents submitted in a Swiss federal court appear to confirm Tinner’s CIA connection.
  • Son of Georgia’s former president charged with spying for Russia. Some say that Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgia’s first post-communist president, was assassinated in 1993. Now his son, Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, has been formally charged with “collaborating with Russian intelligence services”. The former president’s son’s arrest appears to be the latest episode in an ongoing intelligence war between Russia and Georgia.

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News you may have missed #0269

  • LeT planning paraglide attacks in India? Indian intelligence officials suspect that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, is planning another audacious strike on the country, this time from the air, using suicide bombers flying paragliders. The group is thought to have purchased 50 paragliding kits from Europe for this purpose.
  • Trial of double agent begins in Spain. The trial has begun in Spain of Roberto Flórez García, a former employee of Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI), who was arrested in September for giving classified documents to Russian intelligence, via Petr Melnikov, political attaché at the Russian Embassy in Madrid.

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Analysis: NASA Spy’s Israel Ties Deeper Than Initially Thought

Stewart David Nozette

S.D. Nozette

By I. ALLEN and J. FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
New court documents show that Stewart David Nozette, an American scientist arrested for attempted espionage during an FBI sting last October, had deeper ties to Israel than initially believed. Nozette, a former employee of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was arrested for attempting to share classified US government data with an undercover FBI officer posing as a handler of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. At the time of Nozette’s arrest, the US Justice Department argued for keeping him in jail, as he “might flee to Israel if not confined”. Interestingly, however, US officials said at the time that Israel had no role in Nozette’s attempted espionage, and the FBI’s own indictment admitted that the Bureau “does not allege that the government of Israel or anyone acting on its behalf committed any offense under US laws in this case”. But is this so? We examine the increasing complexities in the Stewart Nozette espionage case, as well as its significance for US-Israeli relations. Read article →

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News you may have missed #0266

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News you may have missed #0265

  • Plans for motion picture on life of famous Israeli spy. A US production company plans to make a feature motion picture about the life of Israeli spy Eli Cohen, who operated in Damascus in the 1960s until he was executed in 1965. Cohen is known as the greatest Israeli spy of all time. He penetrated Syria’s power hubs and rose through the ranks to become part of the country’s ruling establishment.
  • CIA report ‘a declaration of war’, says Venezuela. President Hugo Chávez said on Wednesday that the latest entry for Venezuela in the CIA World Factbook represents a declaration of war on his country. The CIA publication describes Chávez’s government as an administration that “purports to alleviate social ills while at the same time attacking globalization and undermining regional stability”.

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Venezuela silent as Colombia expels two alleged spies

Valledupar, Colombia

Valledupar

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
On Tuesday, the Colombian government announced the expulsion of two alleged Venezuelan intelligence agents, reportedly for conducting espionage operations on Colombian soil. The two, Jose Vicente Marquez and Diego Jose Palomino, were nabbed by counterintelligence agents of Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (DAS) in the northwest city of Valledupar, just a few miles from the Colombian-Venezuelan border. The two were reportedly found in possession of video footage of homes and vehicles, as well as “other types of material”, which so far remains unspecified. DAS director, Felipe Muñoz, said the two alleged agents appeared to be illegals –i.e. not affiliated with the Venezuelan embassy in Bogotá– having entered the country clandestinely on January 12, via Paraguachon, on the northernmost tip of the Colombian-Venezuelan border. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0264

  • India jails two Pakistanis on spying charges. India has jailed Adil Anjum Nazir Ahmed and Abdul Shakur Hafiz, claiming they spied on behalf of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. The two were arrested in Lucknow in 2006.
  • US Pentagon re-examines PsyOp doctrine. The field of Psychological Operations (PsyOps) is among the oldest of military disciplines, but a new US Department of Defense report on the subject shows that the DoD continues to wrestle with basic definitional issues.

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News you may have missed #0263

  • Up to 30,000 Chinese spies in Germany, say newspapers. According to German media, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution says that up to “thirty thousand Chinese residents residing in Germany are spies”, and that “60 percent of industrial spies residing in Germany are Chinese”.
  • Israeli agencies see Turkey moving toward radicalization. Israel’s chief intelligence official, General Amos Yadlin, has told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Turkey’s recent diplomatic moves are indicative of its shift toward radical Islam.

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News you may have missed #0260

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News you may have missed #0258

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News you may have missed #0256

  • Descendant of Richard Sorge’s accomplice receives Soviet-era award. The 81-year-old niece of Yotoku Miyagi, a Japanese accomplice of famous German-born Comintern spy Richard Sorge, has been awarded the Soviet Order of the Patriotic War medal in a ceremony at the Russian embassy in Tokyo, Japan. The medal was originally granted in 1965, but Miyagi was unable to collect it, as he had been executed, along with Sorge, by the Japanese in 1944.
  • Analysis: Alleged US spy’s arrest in Cuba affects bilateral relations. Cuban officials say that a US citizen working for Maryland-based aid group Development Alternatives Inc., who was arrested in Havana last month, was actually recruiting local Cubans to spy on the government. This development means that initial hopes for better US-Cuban relations after Barack Obama’s election success may be fading.
  • CIA, DoD drone attacks in Afghanistan intensify under McChrystal. Under the command of US and NATO forces by US Army general Stanley McChrystal, unmanned drone strikes in Afghanistan have been steadily increasing. A good question to ask is who is in charge of similar strikes in Pakistan, which are also on the increase.

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News you may have missed #0255 (espionage edition)

  • South Korea jails alleged spy for 10 years. A 37-year-old college professor, identified only as Lee, has been handed a 10-year prison sentence for allegedly spying undercover on behalf of North Korea for 17 years. South Korean authorities said Lee, who was charged in November, was recruited by the North in 1992, while studying in New Delhi, India.
  • New details in Nozette spy case. Maryland scientist Stewart Nozette, who is accused of giving classified defense information to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, may have impersonated a naval research official in order to acquire classified information, according to new court documents.
  • I didn’t kill Islamic Jihad members because I was busy spying for Israel“. Mahmoud Qassem Rafeh, a retired Lebanese Internal Security Forces official, has already confessed to having “collaborated with Israeli intelligence agents” between 1993 and 2006. But he denies having participated in the 2006 assassinations of two Islamic Jihad leaders in Lebanon, because on the night of the assassinations he was conducting a reconnaissance mission in Lebanon on behalf of Israeli spy agency Mossad.

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News you may have missed #0250

  • Pakistanis ask US to quit drone strikes. A Pakistani intelligence official has told the Associated Press that the response to the December 30 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA agents should not include intensifying unmanned drone strikes inside Pakistan. However, the CIA has reportedly “stepped up drone strikes” since the bombing.
  • Bush, Obama administrations guilty for neglecting info sharing. Thomas E. McNamara, former head of the US federal Information Sharing Environment, says the Bush and Obama administrations are both guilty of either losing interest or not focusing at all on promoting information sharing among often-secluded US government agencies.
  • China ends probe into Rio Tinto espionage case. Chinese prosecutors have now taken over the case of Stern Hu, the jailed boss of Anglo-Australian mining corporation Rio Tinto, after officials ended their investigation. Hu was arrested last July on espionage charges.

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News you may have missed #0248

  • Cuba insists jailed US contractor is secret service agent. Cuban officials say that a US citizen working for Maryland-based international aid group Development Alternatives Inc., who was arrested in Havana last month, was actually recruiting local Cubans to spy on the government.
  • Analysis: Spying in Eastern Europe heats up again. The Cold War may be 20 years dead and buried, but it seems that the old East-West spying game is not only alive and kicking, but gaining vigor in places like Warsaw, Prague and Tallinn.
  • Obama designates new list of secrecy gatekeepers. The US president has designated over two dozen officials as “original classification authorities” (OCAs), who have the power to classify government information as Top Secret or Secret, and (in most cases) to delegate such authority to their subordinates. Importantly, the directive says that OCAs will lose their job if they fail to “receive training in proper classification […] at least once a calendar year”.

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