News you may have missed #0048

July 30, 2009 by Leave a comment

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Mystery surrounds conviction of alleged Belgian spy in Morocco

July 29, 2009 by Leave a comment

Belliraj

Belliraj

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A court in Sale, Morocco, has sentenced to life a Belgian national of Moroccan origin, who Belgian media claim was a “golden informant” for the Belgian secret services. Moroccan authorities arrested Abdelkader Belliraj, 50, in early 2008, and charged him with a plethora of criminal offenses, including armed robbery, money laundering and arms smuggling. More importantly, Belliraj is accused of participating in at least six killings carried out in Belgium by Abu Nidal in the 1980s and early 1990s, supplying arms to the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front, and leading a militant group aiming to overthrow the government of Morocco. Interestingly, however, in March of 2008, Belgian newspaper De Tijd reported that Belliraj had acted as an invaluable informant for Belgium’s State Security Service (SV/SE) and had recently supplied information that helped foil a bomb attack in a Western European country. Read more of this post

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Documents reveal CIA meddling in Japanese elections

July 28, 2009 by Leave a comment

Taketora Ogata

Taketora Ogata

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Researchers from three Japanese universities have unearthed US documents that detail CIA activities to monitor and influence Japanese politics in the early 1950s. Dubbed “The Ogata File”, the five-volume, 1,000-page document collection, which was declassified in 2005, relays CIA efforts to assist the electoral campaigns of Japanese conservative politician Taketora Ogata. Ogata led the Japan Liberal Party in the early 1950s and in 1955 was instrumental in merging his party along with other conservative groups into the Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan for most of the post-war period. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0037

July 23, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Gambian Army chief accused of spying. A newspaper claims that the chief of Gambia’s armed forces, Lt. Colonel Sainey Bayo, who recently fled to the United States, did so while being “investigated for supplying sensitive state secrets to an unnamed Western country”.
  • US Secretary of State violates declassification statute. The latest historical records release of the Foreign Relations of the United States, which is the official record of US foreign policy, has failed once again to abide by a 1991 statute which requires the Secretary of State to publish records “not more than 30 years after the events recorded”.
  • Intelligence report says Canada is key cash source for Tamil Tigers. A Canadian intelligence report released under the country’s Access to Information Act claims that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka receive millions each year in backing from Canada’s Tamil diaspora.

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News you may have missed #0034

July 21, 2009 by 2 Comments

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News you may have missed #0027

July 14, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Former KGB captain still fighting deportation from Canada. IntelNews has been keeping an eye on the case of Mikhail Alexander Lennikov, whose deportation from Canada has been ordered by a court. Lennikov, a former KGB captain, claims that if deported back to Russia he will be treated as a defector by the FSB. IntelNews has also learned that Lennikov now maintains a public blog, which he updates daily.
  • New book claims Errol Flynn worked as a Nazi spy. The Australian-born star, who became a Hollywood legend in the 1930s, was known for his anti-Semitic views. But now a new book claims that declassified CIA files prove Flynn collaborated with German Nazi intelligence in gathering information on German socialists who fought in the Spanish Civil War.
  • Iranian spying allegations nonsensical, says France. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that Tehran’s claims that 23-year-old French student Clotilde Reiss was a spy in Iran are “stupid”. “Do you think my country would be so naive and shorthanded as to send a 23-year-old woman to spy in Iran? That’s stupid, it’s not possible”, said Mr. Kuchner during a visit to Lebanon.
  • Interesting account of Israel’s only spy history memorial. Matti Friedman, of The Associated Press, has written an interesting account of the little known Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center in Tel Aviv.

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News you may have missed #0024

July 11, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Guantánamo prisoner asked to spy on homeland radicals. Umar Abdulayev, from Tajikistan, who has been held in Guantánamo for seven years, claims in court filings that he was visited by Tajik intelligence agents in Guantánamo, who asked him to spy on Tajik Muslim radicals in exchange for his release. Abdulayev has refused the offer and has asked for asylum at a third country.
  • We were not hacked, says NZ spy agency. A New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) spokesman has denied the agency’s website was hacked on July 9. Those visiting the GCSB website on that day were presented with an error message.
  • Saudi charity lawyers ask federal judge to outlaw NSA wiretap program. Saudi-based charity Al-Haramain was taken to court in September 2004 by the US government, which accused it of maintaining terrorist links. But its lawyers have managed to reverse the case, and may now be close to getting a US federal judge to rule against warrantless NSA wiretapping.
  • Cyber attacks came from 16 countries. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) officials have disclosed that the cyberattacks that paralyzed major South Korean websites last weekend were mounted from at least 16 different countries. Earlier this week, NIS said it believed North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces were behind the attacks, which also affected US government websites.

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News you may have missed #0018

July 4, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Retired Romanian football star now admits being a spy. Earlier this week, Gheorghe Popescu, whose international career included playing for British teams, denied reports that he was an informer for Romania’s Securitate, the secret service of communist Romania. But on Thursday morning, the former Tottenham Hotspurs defender admitted that he did inform on teammates and other colleagues while playing for Universitatea Craiova. 
  • Grand jury hears from top CIA officers on destruction of tapes. A federal courtroom in Virginia has become the latest frontline in the Justice Department’s effort to uncover who at the CIA ordered in November of 2005 the incineration of 92 videotapes containing footage of torture applied on several “war on terrorism” detainees. Apparently, the tapes were kept for a long time in a safe at the CIA station in Thailand, where the interrogations took place. 
  • NSA to help defend civilian agency networks. The Obama administration is said to have decided to proceed with a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks. The decision, which had been rumored since last spring, was one of the reasons behind the March 2009 resignation of Rod Beckstrom, who headed the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cyber Security Center.

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UK activist reveals police attempt to recruit her as a paid informant

May 8, 2009 by 1 Comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The London Sunday Times has aired a brief interview with Matilda “Tilly” Gifford, a British environmental activist who last week accused British police officers of trying to recruit her as a paid informant to spy on protest groups. Gifford, whose activist pursuits have repeatedly brought her to the attention of British police, was approached by two unnamed police officers at a Strathclyde Police station in Glasgow, Scotland, and was asked to perform undercover work on behalf of law enforcement. Unbeknownst to the police, however, Gifford was recording the recruiting conversation using a concealed mobile phone. With the help of fellow activists, Gifford secretly videotaped a subsequent meeting with Strathclyde Police officers, who had been led to believe she was genuinely interested in participating in undercover work. Read more of this post

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Ex-KGB agent, wanted for murder in Britain, to run for mayor

March 16, 2009 by Leave a comment

Lugovoy

Lugovoy

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Andrey Lugovoy, who is wanted in Britain for the 2006 murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, is poised to run for mayor in the Russian city of Sochi. British authorities believe that Lugovoy, who served in the KGB and in Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO) from 1987 to 1996, carried out the radioactive poisoning of Litvinenko, a former intelligence officer who had defected to the UK. Litvinenko, who was a vocal critic of former Russian President Vladimir Putin, came down with radioactive poisoning soon after meeting Lugovoy in a London restaurant. The latter is believed by British authorities to have acted “with the backing of the Russian state”. A victory by Lugovoy in next month’s mayoral race could potentially pose a diplomatic challenge for London, as Sochi will be hosting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. If he wins, therefore, the prime murder suspect will be expected to lead local officials in “welcoming the British team to the Games”. Britain’s Daily Telegraph notes that such a possibility could ultimately “lead to the first ever British boycott of an Olympic Games”. Read more of this post

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Israel’s covert war on Iranian nuclear program intensifies

February 21, 2009 by Leave a comment

Ahmedinejad

Ahmadinejad

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Citing unnamed “US intelligence sources”, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has revealed what it calls a covert “decapitation program” by Israeli intelligence, targeting Iran’s nuclear program. The program has also been confirmed by Reva Bhalla, a senior analyst with Stratfor. Israel’s program is part of an international intelligence effort to hamper Iran’s nuclear program. As intelNews has reported before, this effort includes an extensive CIA operation approved by President George W. Bush in early 2008 and “hand[ed] off to President […] Barack Obama”.  The Israeli program, however, appears to be much more extensive than America’s, and includes assassinations, bribing, “front companies and double agents”, according to The Daily Telegraph. The most aggressive part of the scheme centers on “the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran’s atomic operations”, according to Ms. Bhalla. Read more of this post

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Taiwan says unwilling spies blackmailed by China

February 13, 2009 by 1 Comment

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The Taiwanese government has announced the arrest of four Taiwanese civil servants caught spying on behalf of China. Justice Ministry spokesperson, Luo Chi-wang, said the four were blackmailed by Chinese intelligence officers after they were photographed walking into a red-light-district bar in an unnamed city of mainland China. The Chinese officers warned the four civil servants that they would send copies of the photographs to their families unless they worked as operatives for the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the intelligence agency of the People’s Republic of China. Read more of this post

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CIA sees British Muslims as most dangerous threat

February 10, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On January 4, intelNews relayed reports from officials in Washington and London of an “unprecedented intelligence-gathering operation in Britain” by the CIA. The reason behind this intense activity appears to be that the Agency considers militants in Britain’s one-million-strong Muslim community to be “the most likely source of another terrorist spectacular on US soil”. Now a follow-up report in Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reveals that US President Barack Obama has been briefed in detail by CIA officials about the “dramatic escalation in American espionage in Britain” in recent months. Read more of this post

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Sudden reappearance of Zambia’s former spy chief raises suspicions

January 30, 2009 by 1 Comment

Xavier Chungu

Xavier Chungu

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Zambian Police have announced the capture of Xavier Chungu, the country’s former spy chief, who had fled abroad in 2004, escaping trial for embezzlement charges. For nearly a decade, Chungu was the powerful Director of the Zambia Security Intelligence Service (ZSIS). In 2001, following the regime change in Lusaka after the election to the Presidency of the late Levy Mwanawasa, Chungu was dismissed from his post. He was then prosecuted for embezzling state funds and imprisoned for several months. In 2004, however, Chungu jumped bail and escaped to an unknown country (purportedly Canada) using a false passport. A warrant for his arrest was issued by the Zambian Police as well as by Interpol. Earlier last week, Xavier Chungu voluntarily surrendered himself to Zambian Police officers at Lusaka International Airport, after arriving there on a British Airways flight from South Africa. Read more of this post

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Unprecedented German tax scandal has intelligence connection

January 27, 2009 by Leave a comment

Heinrich Kieber

Heinrich Kieber

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Klaus Zumwinkel was until recently the CEO of Deutsche Post, Germany’s now-privatized postal company, which is said to be the world’s largest logistics corporation. Early yesterday morning, Zumwinkel was given a two-year suspended sentence and fined €1 million for systematically evading taxes “with criminal energy”, as the presiding judge put it. The disgraced former CEO is thus far the highest-profile offender in what has become the largest financial crime scandal in German history. The affair involves nearly 1,000 names of wealthy investors, celebrities, and business executives, linked to illegal fund deposits at LLB and LGT Group, two “no-questions-asked” banks owned by the Royal family of the tiny alpine tax haven of Liechtenstein. What is perhaps less known is that the investigation, which now incorporates thousands of individuals in at least a dozen countries, began through a tip received by Germany’s foreign intelligence service. Read more of this post

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