Did Russian secret services avert military coup in Sverdlovsk?

August 9, 2011 by 3 Comments

Vladimir Kvachkov

V.V. Kvachkov

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The Russian intelligence services arrested members of an illegal paramilitary unit that planned an armed insurrection in one of central Russia’s biggest cities. According to reports from Yekaterinburg, the administrative capital Russia’s Sverdlovsk province, leaders of the alleged paramilitary unit hoped that their action would lead to a nationwide rebellion, eventually resulting in a military coup in Moscow. Several people were arrested by security forces of the FSB, Russia’s Federal Security Service a few days before August 2, the day when the alleged insurrection was to have taken place. Sources from the FSB say that the plotters were working on a four-step plan of action. First, they planned to attack the FSB’s Sverdlovsk district command center, the Russian Ministry of the Interior’s regional headquarters, as well as the offices of Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, and capture or kill all senior staff. They would then blow up key power stations around Yekaterinburg, effectively shutting down the city’s electricity network. Taking advantage of the widespread confusion among the regional security apparatus and the population, they would move to seize local weapons depots. The alleged insurrection plan called for distributing the seized weapons among members of Yekaterinburg’s urban poor, in an attempt to widen the base of the rebellion. The plan’s final step viewed a widening insurrection in Yekaterinburg as a spark that would trigger similar Libya-style uprisings across Russia, resulting in a coup that would depose the current government in Moscow and replace it with a transitional military regime. According to news reports, the FSB arrested several leaders of the alleged insurrection, including former members of the Russian military, who are said to be linked with the People’s Militia, an insurrectionist group composed by former military and intelligence officials, led by Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov. Kvachkov, a retired Colonel in the Russian Military Intelligence Directorate (GRU), was arrested in December of 2010 on charges of planning “an armed rebellion for the forceful seizure of power in Russia”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #560 (new books edition)

August 6, 2011 by 3 Comments

Khalil al-Balawi

Khalil al-Balawi

►►New book on CIA’s Khost bomb disaster. Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick has authored a new book, examining the December 31, 2009, killing of seven CIA operatives by Jordanian doctor Humam Khalil al-Balawi in Khost, Afghanistan. In the book, entitled The Triple Agent, Warrick quotes several “anonymous” sources from within CIA and Jordan’s General Intelligence Department (GID), which was involved in running al-Balawi. Aside from blaming GID, Warrick says the CIA’s Amman station chief was partly responsible for the botched operation.
►►Hollywood producer was Mossad spy, says new book. The book Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, says that Milchan was a full-fledged operative for Israel’s now-defunct intelligence agency, Lakam. The agency, which was also known as Israel’s Bureau of Scientific Relations, collected scientific and technical intelligence abroad. It was disbanded in 1986 following the arrest of US Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard for engaging in espionage on behalf of Israel. The book’s authors, Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, argue that Milchan, who produced such movies as Love and Other Drugs and Knight and Day, worked for Israeli intelligence by supervising government-backed accounts and front companies that financed “the special needs of the entirety of Israel’s intelligence operations outside the country”.
►►Book alleges US-Russian spy swap deal. In 2010 the CIA considered a swap deal that would have delivered to Moscow two Americans currently imprisoned in the US for spying for Russia. This information is included Read more of this post

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Computer hacking reveals Italian spying on Russia, India

August 1, 2011 by Leave a comment

CNAIPIC emblem

CNAIPIC emblem

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Documents posted online by an anonymous hacker group point to extensive Italian espionage against Russian and Indian defense and energy deals. The hacked documents contain raw data and intelligence reports authored by officials in Italy’s National Anti-Crime Computer Center for Critical Infrastructure Protection (CNAIPIC), an electronic security outfit operating under the auspices of the Italian National Police. It appears that Italian National Police servers were recently hacked by a group of international hackers calling itself Anonymous Hackers for Antisec Operation. On July 26, the group published over eight gigabytes of hacked CNAIPIC documents on various subjects, ranging from reports on Egypt’s Ministry of Transportation to information about the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam). Among the documents are reports that seem to point to systematic intelligence-gathering operations by CNAIPIC against Russia’s government-owned energy and defense industries. Some of the information contained in the reports appears to have been stolen from the embassy of India in Moscow, probably through cyberespionage. The stolen information would suggest that CNAIPIC has had access since late 2009 to confidential correspondence between the Indian embassy and a number of Russian military aircraft industries, including Aviazapchast, Ilyushin Aircraft, and NPO Saturn. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #552

July 29, 2011 by 2 Comments

Nikolai Kuznetsov

Nikolai Kuznetsov

►►This just in: South Korea arrests five for spying for North. South Korean prosecutors have arrested five people on charges of “setting up an underground communist group on the instructions of an espionage unit of North Korea’s ruling Workers Party”, a report from South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said on Friday. According to the report, South Korean authorities are “investigating about 20 other people including union activists and opposition party members”. We will publish more information as it comes in.
►►Some US intel analysts believe al-Qaeda near collapse. Citing classified intelligence reports and closed-door Capitol Hill briefings from the CIA, the National Counterterrorism Center and other agencies, some US officials are telling The Washington Post that bin Laden’s death has “pushed al-Qaida to the brink of collapse”. One official told the paper that al-Qaeda is now “largely incapable” of mass-casualty attacks against the United States. Could the ‘Leon Panetta Legacy Committee’ be the source of this report?
►►Russia and Ukraine commemorate legendary Soviet spy. Russia and Ukraine are celebrating 100 years from the birth of legendary Soviet spy Nikolai Kuznetsov. Kuznetsov, who operated in Nazi-occupied Ukraine, uncovered Read more of this post

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CIA report sees Russia behind bombing of US embassy in Georgia

July 28, 2011 by 1 Comment

GRU emblem

GRU emblem

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A classified US intelligence report indicates that Russian intelligence is behind an ongoing string of bombings in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which have included an attack on the US embassy in Georgian capital Tbilisi. The attack, which took place on September 22, 2010, damaged the embassy’s exterior wall. A subsequent investigation by the Georgian Ministry of the Interior concluded that the bombing was coordinated by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces, also known as GRU. The investigation identified one GRU officer, Major Yevgeny Borisov, as the primary instigator of the attacks. Borisov, who is believed to be operating in Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia, was tried and convicted in absentia for his alleged role in the bombings. Now an article in The Washington Times says that a US intelligence report compiled last December by the CIA, with input from several US spy agencies, echoes the conclusions of the Georgian investigation into the bombings. The Times quotes “two US officials who have read” the report as saying that “it confirms the Georgian account” and fingers Major Borisov as the one of the main culprits behind the bombings. It also quotes “two Obama administration officials” who say that the US Department of State has taken up the issue with “the most senior levels of Russia’s Foreign Ministry”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #547

July 24, 2011 by Leave a comment

Imtiaz Ahmad

Imtiaz Ahmad

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Finland cancels visa of ex-KGB general. We reported recently on the case of Mikhail Golovatov, a former commander of the Soviet KGB’s Alpha Group, who is wanted in Lithuania for alleged war crimes against the country’s secession movement in the early 1990s. Last week, Austria arrested Golovatov, but released him 24 hours later, claiming that his Lithuanian-issued European arrest warrant was “too vague” to justify his continued detention. There are now reports that the Finnish embassy in Moscow has annulled the Schengen visa it had previously issued to the former KGB officer. In a statement, Finnish officials said they would not have granted Golovatov a visa in the first place, except there had been “a spelling mistake in Golovatov’s first name”, which made them think he the applicant was not General Golovatov of KGB fame. Hmmm…. ►►Georgian ‘spy photographers’ to be released. In a bizarre twist to the ‘photojournalist spies’ saga in Georgia, the government has announced that the three will be released under an agreed plea-bargain deal, because they had given the authorities “information of particular importance for national security” about Russian intelligence operations in Georgia. The three have allegedly “revealed the identities of Russian spies working in the country as well as the names of their Georgian collaborators and cover organizations operating on behalf of Moscow”. The three, Zurab Kurtsikidze, Irakli Gedenidze and Giorgi Abdaladze, are all professional photojournalists, who are accused by Tbilisi of spying for Moscow. ►►Pakistani ex-spy director says US owes Pakistan. Imtiaz Ahmed (often spelled Ahmad) is the former Director General of Pakistan’s main domestic intelligence agency, the Intelligence Bureau (IB). In a recent interview, he accused the United States of using the ‘war on terrorism’ as a strategic pretext for capturing energy resources and limiting China’s economic growth. He also said that the US owes the Pakistani intelligence agencies, because without them it could not have accomplished its task in the Afghan war against the Soviet Union. IntelNews readers may remember the last time Ahmad had made headlines, when he revealed a series of CIA operations against Pakistan’s nuclear program.

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News you may have missed #544

July 21, 2011 by Leave a comment

Google

Google

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Russia a ‘leading suspect’ in cyberespionage attack on US. I wrote on Monday about the cyberespionage operation that targeted a leading US defense contractor last March, and resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of classified documents. US Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III, who disclosed the operation, said only that it was conducted by “a foreign intelligence service”. According to the last sentence of this NBC report, US officials see Russian intelligence as “one of the leading suspects” in the attack. ►►Al-Qaeda acquires Pakistani spy service manuals. Jamestown Foundation researcher Abdul Hameed Bakier reports that al-Qaeda operatives have managed to get access to espionage training manuals used by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI). Copies of the documents have apparently been posted on Internet forums that are sympathetic to al-Qaeda, and bear the mark of the As-Sahab Foundation, al-Qaeda’s media wing. ►►Google-NSA collaboration documents to remain secret —for now. Even before Google shut down its operations in China, following a massive cyberattack against its servers in early 2010, the company has maintained close contact with American intelligence agencies. But after the 2010 cyberattack, some believe that Google’s relationship with the US intelligence community has become too cozy. In February of 2010, the ACLU said it was concerned about Google’s contacts with the US National Security Agency (NSA). Other groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), have filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking access to the inner workings of Google’s relationship with NSA. Read more of this post

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Lithuania recalls Austria ambassador over ex-KGB general’s release

July 21, 2011 by 1 Comment

Mikhail Golovatov

Mikhail Golovatov

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The government of Lithuania has recalled its ambassador to Vienna, in protest over the release by Austria of a former Soviet intelligence official, who is wanted in Vilnius for war crimes. Last Thursday, Austrian authorities arrested Russian citizen Mikhail Golovatov, a former general of the KGB, who was stationed in Lithuania during the final years of the Soviet Union. Golovatov’s detention was facilitated by a European arrest warrant issued by the office of the Lithuanian prosecutor. The latter accuses Golovatov of authorizing crimes of war as head of Alpha Group —also known as Spetsnaz Grupp Alfa— a special forces unit within the KGB’s First Chief Directorate. On January 13, 1991, Alpha Group forces spearheaded a counterinsurgency attack on the State Radio and Television Building and the Vilnius TV Tower in the Lithuanian capital, in an attempt to quash the Soviet Republic’s growing secessionist movement. The latter had unilaterally declared Lithuania’s independence on March 11, 1990. The attack resulted in the death of 14 and the injury of over 700 people. During the past two decades, the Lithuanian state has sponsored an international campaign for the arrest of numerous officials who represented the Soviet security apparatus in Lithuania during the final months of the USSR’s existence. But, to Vilnius’ shock, Austrian authorities released Golovatov 24 hours after arresting him, arguing that the European arrest warrant issued by the Lithuanian prosecutor’s office was “too vague” to justify the former KGB general’s continued detention. Read more of this post

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CIA bank accounts used to funnel oil deal money, court documents claim

July 18, 2011 by 15 Comments

CIA HQ

CIA HQ

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Court papers in a bizarre lawsuit involving $258 million in missing funds from an international oil deal, appear to show that the funds were channeled to dormant CIA bank accounts with the help of an Agency employee. The case is being ignored by US media, but has attracted attention in the Irish press, because an Irishman, Ed O’Neill, is the primary defendant in the lawsuit. O’Neil was the main consultant broker who helped facilitate a 2008 oil deal between involving NIB Petroleum of Venezuela and Russia’s Gazprom, both of which sold oil to Turkey’s UP Petroleum. Among O’Neil’s tasks was ensuring that six consulting companies were paid a total of $258 million for helping facilitate the complex deal. The Turkish company, UP, paid the funds to O’Neil, but they never arrived to the six companies. The latter are now suing O’Neil for the missing money. But Irish quality broadsheet The Independent, says it has seen copies of the court papers, filed in the US state of Illinois. According to the documents, O’Neil told his clients, who were awaiting the money, that he was having trouble wiring it to them, and that he had enlisted the assistance of a friend of his, by the name of Carlos Jesus Navarro, who was a CIA operative. According to the testimony of the plaintiffs, O’Neil told them that Navarro had access to several dormant CIA bank accounts, which could be used to wire the money around the world. With Navarro’s alleged help, the funds were then transferred to banks in Luxembourg, Lichtenstein and the island of Guernsey, before making their way to the Cayman Islands. From there they were transferred to Germany’s Commerzbank, and finally to a Bank of America branch in New York City. The money was supposed to be transferred one last time to the plaintiffs’ bank accounts in Chicago; but this last transfer never took place. Read more of this post

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Georgia charges photojournalists with spying for Russia

July 13, 2011 by Leave a comment

Irakli Gedenidze

Irakli Gedenidze

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Three well-known Georgian photojournalists have been arrested and charged with conducting espionage on behalf of the Russian Federation. They include Irakli Gedenidze, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s personal photographer, as well as Giorgi Abdaladze, who works for Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The leader of the alleged spy ring is Zurab Kurtsikidze, who works for Frankfurt-based European Pressphoto Agency. All three were arrested in early morning raids last Thursday, during which their homes and offices were searched by Georgian counterintelligence officers. A Georgian government statement issued the following day stated that the searches uncovered confidential information about the daily itinerary of Mr Saakashvili, as well as a classified diagram of the Presidential office. According to the statement, the classified documents were secretly accessed and photographed by Gedenidze and Abdaladze, who then passed them on to Kurtsikidze. He in turn turned them over to the GRU, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Defense Ministry. Along with the statement, Georgian government prosecutors released surveillance recordings of telephone exchanges between the three photographers, in which they are heard discussing payment arrangements in return for classified documents surrendered to the Russians. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #526

July 1, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • Russia convicts colonel of exposing US spy ring. Colonel Alexander Poteyev has received a (relatively lenient) 25-year sentence for exposing a Russian ‘sleeper cell’ network in the United States. The sentence was delivered in absentia, as Poteyev is believed to have defected to the US, where he probably lives under an assumed identity. As he was fleeing Russia in June 2010, he texted his wife: “try to take this calmly: I am leaving not for a short time but forever. I am starting a new life. I shall try to help the children”. Here is the most detailed recent account the Poteyev’s case in English.
  • Libyan defector holed up in luxury hotel. Moussa Koussa, Libya’s former intelligence chief and foreign minister, faced calls last night to return to Britain for prosecution after he was tracked down to a penthouse suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where he has been living under the protection of the Qatari security services.
  • New NZ SIGINT spy agency boss named. The government of New Zealand has appointed Simon Murdoch as the acting chief executive and director of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) intelligence agency.

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Russians ‘uncovered plan to kill Greek prime minister’

June 17, 2011 by Leave a comment

Kostas Karamanlis

K. Karamanlis

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A Russian counter-surveillance team operating in Athens in 2008 confronted a foreign team from “a country allied to Greece”, which planned to kill Kostas Karamanlis, then Greece’s Prime Minister. The revelation, published in the current issue of Greek weekly newsmagazine Epikera, is allegedly based on a Russian briefing contained in a classified document authored by the Greek National Intelligence Service (EYP). According to the document, the assassination plot was code-named Pythia and was hatched by the intelligence agency of “a country allied to Greece”. It was aimed at preventing Athens from signing on to a series of energy pipeline deals with Moscow. The 19-member Russian counter-surveillance team mentioned in the EYP document had allegedly been set up a few months earlier by the FSB, Russia’s primary foreign intelligence agency. The team was deployed after the Russians realized that that Prime Minster Karamanlis’ telephone calls with Russian leader Vladimir Putin were being intercepted by foreign spies, at least two of which were allegedly British citizens. According to the Epikera article, between April 20 and 25, while shadowing the Greek Prime Minister in the Nea Makri area, just north of Athens, a four-member Russian counter-surveillance team faced off two spy operatives of “a country allied to Greece”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #514

May 31, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • The spy kid. Multipart series by The Oregonian‘s Bryan Denson, on Nathaniel James Nicholson, son of CIA double agent Harold James Nicholson, who was convicted for spying on the US for Russia. Nathaniel was convicted in 2009 for maintaining contacts with his father’s Russian handlers.
  • Listening bug found in NZ MP’s home. Sources close to New Zealand’s Government Communication Security Bureau (GCSB) have said that at least one clandestine listening device has been found after a sweep of senior government officials’ homes.
  • Israel sells spy camera to Turkey despite concerns. Israel’s defense establishment has approved the sale to Turkey of the Long-Range Oblique Photography pod, a sophisticated intelligence system considered the pinnacle in Israeli military technology, despite worsening relations between the two countries.

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Expelled Israeli spy was after Russian-Arab arms deals, says FSB

May 24, 2011 by 1 Comment

Vadim Leiderman

Vadim Leiderman

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The military attaché at the Israeli embassy in Moscow, who was unceremoniously expelled by the Russian government last week, was allegedly gathering intelligence on Russian arms exports to the Arab world. The FSB, Russia’s foremost counterintelligence agency, said Soviet-born Vadim Leiderman, a colonel in the Israeli army, was “caught red-handed” during a sting operation in Moscow, which is said to have occurred on May 12. His arrest led to the first expulsion of an Israeli diplomat from Russia in over two decades. Commenting on the case, a spokesperson from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Kremlin had intended to conceal Leiderman’s expulsion from the media, as a “gesture of goodwill” to Israel. But its effort to keep the operation secret collapsed after Russia’s RBC TV aired a surveillance video of Leiderman’s arrest by a group of FSB officers, as the seemingly unsuspecting Israeli diplomat was dining with another man at an exclusive Moscow restaurant. Read more of this post

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Hundreds of European mercenaries ‘fighting for Gaddafi’

April 28, 2011 by 1 Comment

Libya

Libya

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Hundreds of European mercenaries, including large numbers of European Union citizens, have voluntarily enrolled in the armed forces of the Libyan government, and are fighting under the command of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi. According to criminologist Michel Koutouzis, the Greek CEO of a French-registered consulting firm with connections to Libya, up to 500 European soldiers-of-fortune have been hired by the Libyan government to provide “special services”, particularly in heavy weaponry and attack helicopters. Koutouzis says that most of the European mercenaries, who sell their services for thousands of dollars a day, come from Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Serbia, but there are also French, British and Greek nationals currently in Libya. He also claims that Gaddafi is supported by serving military personnel from Russia, Syria and Algeria. It is believed that the Gaddafi camp is also employing thousands of non-specialist mercenaries from various African nations, including Somalia, Mali, Niger, Chad, and the Central African Republic. Unconfirmed reports have surfaced in the American press that the Gaddafi forces are employing female snipers from Colombia. Read more of this post

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