Paris prosecutor charges three French spies with mysterious plot to kill woman
August 6, 2020 2 Comments
The Paris prosecutor has charged three officers of France’s external spy agency with a mysterious plot to kill a woman, after two of them were caught driving a stolen vehicle and in possession of weapons. The three men are reportedly operations officers in the Directorate-General for External Security, known as DGSE. The service operates as France’s equivalent of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Like the CIA, the DGSE is not permitted to carry out operations inside France.
Two of the men were arrested by police on the night of July 23 to 24 in Val-de-Marne, a boulevard in Créteil, a southeastern suburb of the French capital. They have been identified in the French media as ‘Pierre’ and ‘Karl’, and are reportedly 25 and 28 years old respectively. According to the Paris prosecutor, the men were found driving a stolen car with forged license plates. Inside the vehicle, police officers found a bag containing a handgun along with 12 rounds of ammunition. Both men were carrying military-issue knives. On July 31, French authorities arrested a third man, also in Paris, who is allegedly connected to the case. The third man, who has not been named in the media, is also believed to be a DGSE operations officer.
An official statement issued this week by the Paris prosecutor’s office said the three men plotted to kill a 54-old woman. It added that the murder plot was not part of their DGSE duties, and that the three operations officers were acting in a “rogue” fashion. There has been no information released about the motive behind the plot to kill the woman. On Wednesday, the Paris prosecutor said it filed preliminary charges for attempted murder against the two men who were caught in Val-de-Marne in the early hours of July 24. The third man was handed preliminary charges of complicity in the murder attempt and of being part of a criminal conspiracy. His co-conspirators were also charged with car theft and being in possession of a weapon. If convicted, each man could face up to 10 years behind bars.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 06 August 2020 | Permalink
A court in Paris has sentenced to prison two former employees of France’s external intelligence agency, who were accused of spying for the government of China. A third person, the wife of one of the accused, was also handed a jail sentence.
Four men have been arrested by Turkish authorities in Istanbul, allegedly for being members of a spy ring operated by an agent who collected information on extremist groups for France’s external spy agency. The arrests were reported on Tuesday by a newspaper with close links to the Turkish government. It is worth noting, however, that the reports have not been confirmed by Turkish officials. If true, the incident points to further deterioration in the relations between the two nations, which are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
• French forces kill al-Qaeda head and capture ISIS leader in Mali. In the past few days, the French military 
The government of Spain said on Tuesday it had begun to shift to “a war economy”, as the Spanish Ministry of Defense called on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for assistance to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The term war economy is used to describe the rapid reorganization of a nation’s production and distribution capacity in response to a direct military threat to its existence.
An officer in France’s elite counterterrorism agency is to be tried along with four accomplices for selling forged identity documents and private data on the darknet. The case first emerged in 2018, after officers with France’s Central Office for the Prevention of Illegal Immigration (OCRIEST) detected a seller of high quality forged copies of official documents on the darknet.
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. 
The Iranian government may have used a female intelligence officer to lure a leading Iranian dissident from his home in France to Iraq, where he was abducted by Iranian security forces and secretly transported to Iran. Iranian authorities 
Iranian authorities have announced the capture of a Paris-based Iranian dissident, who was reportedly lured out of France and then abducted by Iranian agents in a third country. The kidnapped dissident is Ruhollah Zam, 46, son of Mohammad-Ali Zam, a well-known reformist cleric who served in top Iranian government posts after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But in 2009 the younger Zam distanced himself from this father and sided with the so-called Green Movement, whose leaders called for the toppling of the government in Tehran. Around that time, Zam was part of a group of Internet-savvy Iranians who launched AmadNews. The website’s stated purpose was “spreading awareness and seeking justice” in Iran, and it soon became the online voice of the Green Movement.
France allowed Palestinian militants to operate freely on its soil in exchange for not carrying out terrorist attacks there, according to the former director of France’s domestic security service. The alleged deal was struck between the French government and a die-hard Palestinian militant group known as the Abu Nidal Organization, or ANO. The group’s official name was Fatah – The Revolutionary Council, but it was usually referred to by the name of its founder and leader, Abu Nidal. The group was formed in 1974 after a split in Fatah, the Palestinian armed group led by Yasser Arafat. Abu Nidal (real name Sabri Khalil al-Banna) accused Arafat and other senior officials of Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) of being conciliatory toward Israel. Eventually Abu Nidal moved to Iraq and declared war on Fatah and the PLO, accusing them of betraying the Palestinian cause.
The French government has admitted that four anti-tank missiles found in a Libyan rebel camp belonged to its Special Forces units, but denied accusations that it deliberately breached the United Nations-imposed weapons embargo on Libya. Libya’s UN-recognized government, the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, announced in June that it discovered a cache of FGM-148 Javelin portable anti-tank missiles during a raid on a rebel camp. The camp belonged to forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, a rogue Libyan warlord who is supported by a group of Western-led nations that includes the United States, France, Israel, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
intelNews.org 
More information on French spies’ mysterious plot to kill woman in Paris
August 14, 2020 by Joseph Fitsanakis 2 Comments
Two of the men were arrested by police early in the morning of July 24 in Val-de-Marne, a boulevard in Créteil, a southeastern suburb of the French capital. On July 31, French authorities arrested a third man, also in Paris, who is also believed to be a DGSE operations officer. New media reports from France have identified the two men arrested on July 24 as “Pierre B.” and “Karl E.”. They are believed to be members of the DGSE’s Action Division, a group that is trained by DGSE to carry out covert operations on foreign soil.
In the past week, authorities arrested two more men, who are also believed to be among the plotters in this strange case. They have not been named. One is believed to own a private security firm and the other is a former DGSE employee who now works as a private detective specializing in electronic crime. The two men have been charged with conspiracy and attempted murder.
Bizarrely, when Pierre B. and Karl E. were arrested on July 24, they claimed they were on an official DGSE mission. This, if true, would violate French law, since the agency is not permitted to operate on French soil. Additionally, the two men appear to have broken the law by identifying themselves as DGSE employees to the police officers who arrested them. According to French media reports, the two suspects continue to claim that they were on a mission ordered by their superiors at DGSE, and believe that the agency will eventually help them clear all charges against them.
Meanwhile, their intended victim has not been named. She is reportedly a psychotherapist who specializes in hypnotherapy. She has allegedly told police investigating the case that her murder might have been planned by rival hypnotherapists. However, police are finding it difficult to believe that professional rivalries could have resulted in the hiring of highly trained DGSE operations officers to commit a murder.
Four suspects, including the two operations officers arrested on July 24, remain in custody. The fifth man, the DGSE officer arrested on July 31, has reportedly been released on bail.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 14 August 2020 | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with corruption, DGSE, France, News, Paris