Men with Russian links charged with conspiracy to infiltrate US Secret Service

September 28, 2026 by 2 Comments

US Secret ServiceTWO MEN HAVE BEEN charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud after allegedly concealing a software company’s Russian ownership from the United States government and trying to work as contractors for the Secret Service. Founded in 1865 and currently operating under the Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service is a federal law enforcement agency with a dual mission of protecting America’s national leaders and investigating financial crimes.

On September 20, American and British authorities arrested Lee Reiber, a 55-year-old American who served as chief executive officer (CEO) of Oxygen Forensics, and Oleg Davydov, a 52-year-old Russian national, who co-founded the company and served as its chief technology officer. Reiber was arrested in the US state of Idaho and Davydov was apprehended at London Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom prior to boarding a flight to Istanbul, Turkey. The US is expected to seek his extradition in the coming days. Shortly prior to the arrests of the two men, US authorities reportedly seized 57 internet domains, cyber infrastructure, and corporate bank accounts owned by the firm.

Based in Alexandria, Virginia, Oxygen Forensics develops software to recover, preserve and analyze electronic data from digital devices. Davydov originally founded a Russian-based predecessor company, Oxygen Software LLC (renamed to MKO Systems LLC in September 2022), in 2000. That company sold the same software directly to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF), and Ministry of Internal Affairs. Davydov established Oxygen Forensics in 2013, with Reiber joining in 2015. In March 2022, one month after the invasion of Ukraine and the US-imposed sanctions on Russia, Reiber was named its CEO, president, and chairman of the board.

According to court filings, the firm’s Russian owners were removed from the company’s public corporate filings following Reiber’s appointment that same month. Prosecutors allege Davydov and four other Russian nationals continued to secretly own and control the company through a Cyprus-based holding company. According to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint, affected entities include the US Department of Defense and three components of the US Department of Homeland Security. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Secret Service failed Trump because it can’t keep up with the growing threat

July 15, 2024 by 13 Comments

Trump 2016THE UNITED STATES SECRET Service is among the world’s most prestigious law enforcement agencies. Its institutional experience in protecting US presidents and presidential candidates dates to 1901. Given its high-stakes protective mission —safeguarding the executive leadership of the world’s most powerful nation— the agency has historically placed emphasis on flawlessness: it simply can’t afford to fail.

Yet it did just that on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania. Presidential candidate Donald Trump did not survive the attempted assassination because his Secret Service detail neutralized the threat to his safety in time. Instead he survived because the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, from the small suburb of Bethel Park in Pittsburgh, missed. How are we to explain this abject failure by one of the world’s most venerated law enforcement agencies?

POLICING IN A DEMOCRACY

Unlike tyrannical regimes, where law enforcement is nearly omnipresent, policing functions in democratic societies are relatively limited. They rely on what can be essentially described as a numbers game. Under this model, the effectiveness of policing functions inherently rests on the assumption that the vast majority of the population will comply with legal norms voluntarily, and that it will do so most of the time.

Thus, the sustainability of law and order in democratic societies hinges, not just on the capabilities of the enforcement agencies, but significantly on the general populace’s commitment to uphold the rule of law. This tacit social contract allows law enforcement agencies to operate with a relatively small logistical footprint. It also allows police forces to focus their efforts on a relatively small number of individuals, or groups, who do not adhere to the law.

WIDESPREAD BREAKDOWN

The US has relied on this model of policing since the Civil War. However, this model tends to falter once a substantial segment of the population refuses to voluntarily adhere to legal conventions. In such a scenario, the sheer number of non-compliant individuals can overwhelm the policing system, leading to a widespread breakdown in law and order.

The US has witnessed such incidents with alarming intensity in recent years. Examples include the 2014 Bundy standoff and the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by armed groups of anti-government extremists. It also witnessed the —often gratuitously violent— George Floyd protests, as well as the armed occupation of the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, in 2020.

Most notably, America witnessed widespread civil disobedience on January 6, 2021, when thousands of frenzied Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol and attempted to bring an end to the Constitutional order in one of the world’s oldest democracies. In addition to exposing the fragility of American democracy, the January 6 attack drew attention to the ineffectiveness of the state’s policing functions, thus further-eroding public trust and compliance.

AMERICANS ARE EMBRACING VIOLENCE

There is no denying that Americans are viewing violence as an element of national politics with an alarming rate. Last summer, a survey conducted by the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Threats revealed that 4.4 percent of the adult population of the US —12 million Americans— believed that violence was justified to restore Donald Trump to power. Granted, very few of those survey responders would actually be willing to act on such extreme beliefs. But even a mere 1 percent of those 12 million people who appear to endorse violence in support of Trump amounts to 120,000 individuals. That’s an enormously large number of radicalized Americans. Read more of this post

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FBI arrests two men who tried to influence Secret Service agents – motive unknown

April 8, 2022 by Leave a comment

Jill and Joe BidenTHE FEDERAL BUREAU OF Investigation arrested two men on Wednesday, who allegedly tried to influence four agents of the United States Secret Service with money and gifts, according to an affidavit. The men were identified on Thursday as Haider Ali, 36, and Arian Taherzadeh, 40. Both are United States citizens and residents of Washington, DC. On the same day, FBI personnel searched five apartments and a number of cars that belong to the two men.

According to the FBI, in February of 2020 the two men began posing as employees of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). At around the same time, they began telling people they knew that they were involved in undercover investigations. After the United States Capitol attack of January 6, 2021, they told neighbors they had been tasked with uncovering the identities of participants in the attack. The FBI alleges that the two men spent thousands of dollars on buying equipment that would help them pass for DHS employees, including a black sports utility vehicle equipped with emergency lights. They had also rented several apartments in Washington, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Eventually they became friendly with four Secret Service agents, one of whom served on the protection detail of Dr. Jill Biden, the wife of President Joe Biden. They gradually began giving their Secret Service agent friends gifts, including a flat screen television, a power generator, as well as “law enforcement paraphernalia”.

The FBI has not provided a motive for the activities of the two men, saying only that the investigation into their activities is “ongoing”. According to the New York Times, Ali told witnesses he was connected to the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, which is the primary intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is also believed that Ali’s passport contains a number of entry visas issued by Pakistani and Iranian authorities, the paper said.

The two men appeared on Thursday at a court hearing in Washington, via videoconference. They are scheduled to attend a detention hearing later today. Meanwhile, the Secret Service agents who were befriended by the two suspects have been placed on administrative leave, according to a Secret Service spokesperson. The investigation into the case continues.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 08 April 2022 | Permalink

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US Secret Service arrests Chinese woman for entering Trump’s vacation property

April 3, 2019 by Leave a comment

Donald TrumpA Chinese woman who entered President Donald Tump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, was found to be in possession of two passports, four mobile phones and a flash drive containing “malicious software”, according to the United States Secret Service. Secret Service agents told a US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Monday that the woman, identified as Yujing Zhang, entered the private club –which serves as President Trump’s vacation home– on Saturday afternoon. She allegedly approached Secret Service personnel and sought entrance to the property. When asked to identify herself, she reportedly took out of her bag two Chinese passports and said she intended to use the Mar-a-Lago swimming pool.

When Mar-a-Lago personnel could not find her name on the list of the private club’s members, Zhang told them that she was related to a man with the same last name, who appeared on the membership list. She was allowed onto the property on the assumption that the club member was her father, in what security personnel later described as an error caused by “a language barrier issue”. Once inside Mar-a-Lago, Zhang then reportedly told a receptionist that she was there to attend a meeting of the United Nations Chinese American Association. Some of the club personnel, who knew that no such event had been scheduled to take place at Mar-a-Lago, contacted the Secret Service. Zhang told Secret Service agents that she had been told by “a friend” called “Charles” to travel from Shanghai to Florida in order to attend the United Nations Chinese American Association meeting. But she said she was unable to provide further details.

After detaining her, Secret Service agents found that she was carrying –aside from the two Chinese passports– four cellphones, a laptop computer with an external hard drive attached to it, and a thumb drive. Secret Service agents said that, upon further examination, the thumb drive was found to contain “malware”. Zhang was then arrested for entering a restricted property and making false statements to Secret Service officials. On Tuesday, Zhang’s lawyer said she was “invoking her right to remain silent”. The US Department of Justice said it would not comment on the case. If found guilty, Zhang could spend up to five years behind bars.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 03 April 2019 | Permalink

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US fired Moscow embassy employee who may have spied for Russia

August 7, 2018 by 4 Comments

US embassy in RussiaA female Russian national who worked for the United States Secret Service in Moscow was quietly dismissed in 2017, amidst concerns that she was spying for Russia. British newspaper The Guardian, which broke the story last week, did not name the Russian woman. But it said that she had worked at the US Embassy in Moscow “for more than a decade”, most recently for the Secret Service –a federal law enforcement agency that operates within the Department of Homeland Security. The Secret Service has several missions, the most important of which is to ensure the physical safety of America’s senior political leadership.

Throughout her Secret Service career, the Russian woman is thought to have had access to the agency’s email system and intranet network, said The Guardian, citing “an intelligence source”. She could also potentially have had access to “highly confidential material”, said the paper, including the daily schedules of America’s past and current presidents and vice presidents, as well as their family members’ schedules.

The unnamed Russian national first came under suspicion in 2016, said The Guardian, during a routine security review conducted by two counterintelligence staff members at one of the Department of State’s Regional Security Offices (RSO). These reviews usually take place every five years and scan the background and activities of employees at American embassies abroad. The review showed that the unnamed Russian national was holding regular meetings with officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s domestic intelligence service. In January of 2017, the Department of State reportedly shared its findings with the Secret Service. But the latter waited until several months later to fire the Russian woman, having decided to do so quietly, said The Guardian.

According to the paper, instead of launching a major investigation into the State Department’s findings, the Secret Service simply dismissed the woman by revoking her security clearance. The paper said that the Russian national’s dismissal took place shortly before the US embassy in Moscow was forced to remove or fire over 750 employees as part of Russia’s retaliation against economic sanctions imposed on it by Washington. That coincidence helped the Secret Service “contain any potential embarrassment” arising from claims of espionage, said The Guardian. The paper contacted the Secret Service and was told that “all Foreign Service nationals” working for the agency “are managed accordingly to ensure that […US] government interests are protected at all times”. Their duties, therefore, are “limited to translation, interpretation, cultural guidance, liaison and administrative support. This is of particular emphasis in Russia”, said a Secret Service spokesman, who refused to discuss specific cases.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 07 August 2018 | Research credit: S.F. | Permalink

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IRA source in high-profile counterfeit money case claims his life is in danger

July 4, 2016 by Leave a comment

SupernoteA former senior member of the Official Irish Republican Army in the United Kingdom claims that he was abandoned by British and American spy agencies after he testified in a high-profile counterfeiting case. The case involves members of the Official IRA, including its alleged former chief of staff, who is wanted in the United States in connection with the so-called supernote counterfeit money investigation. The supernote, also known as superdollar or superbill, is a fake 100-dollar bill believed to be one of the highest-quality counterfeit banknotes ever detected. The US government believes that a nation-state is behind the production of the supernote, with North Korea being the primary suspect.

In 2000, in cooperation with the US Secret Service, British intelligence conducted a large-scale undercover operation codenamed MALI. According to the BBC’s investigative news program Panorama, the operation focused on Seán Garland, the former chief of staff of the Official IRA and former president of its political wing, the Workers’ Party of Ireland. The Official IRA and the Provisional IRA were the two main splinter groups of the “old” IRA, which parted ways in 1969 due to ideological and tactical differences. In 1972, the Official IRA declared a unilateral ceasefire and eventually morphed in to a leftwing political party calling itself the Workers’ Party of Ireland. Operation MALI allegedly found that the Workers’ Party former president, Seán Garland, traveled to Russia and visited the embassy of North Korea in Moscow. He is said to have picked up a package containing supernotes, which he then secretly smuggled into Ireland and from there to England, in exchange for money. Garland was arrested in 2005 in Belfast, UK, but managed to flee to Ireland when he was released on medical leave. He was arrested again in 2009 and released on bail. In 2011, his extradition request to the US was rejected by an Irish court on a technicality, but he remains wanted by Washington. Ireland is also considering whether there are legal grounds to prosecute Garland in Dublin. He and his supporters deny the charges against him and claim that they are politically motivated.

Last week, however, the man believed to be behind the tip-off that led to Garland’s arrest, said his life was in danger. The man, who uses the pseudonym “Michael O’Brien”, was a member of the Official IRA in the 1970s. But he says that after 1996 he worked as an undercover informant for Britain’s Security Service (MI5) and the Anti-Terrorist Branch of the British Police. He claims that it was he who first alerted British authorities about the involvement of members of the Workers’ Party of Ireland in the distribution of supernotes from Russia to Europe. He is also believed to have testified behind closed doors at a US court hearing involving Garland and other alleged conspirators in the counterfeit money case. However, O’Brien told The Sunday Times last week that his cover was blown in January of this year. Since then, he has allegedly been the subject of death threats and had to abandon his home in Belfast as a result. He also claims that the US Secret Service and British police have failed to provide him with protection. O’Brien told The Times that he chose to speak to the media in order to protect himself from possible assassination by Irish republicans.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 04 July 2016 | Permalink

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News you may have missed #0252

January 14, 2010 by 1 Comment

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News you may have missed #0201

December 1, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • New book claims historic IRA commander was British spy. John Turi has authored England’s Greatest Spy, a new book, which claims that Éamon de Valera, who founded Irish republican party Fianna Fáil and later became the first President of the Irish Republic, secretly became a British intelligence officer in 1916. Tim Pat Coogan, one of de Valera’s most prominent biographers, reviews the book.
  • Japan launches spy satellite targetting North Korea. Japan’s H-2A No. 16 rocket, which was launched on Saturday, carries an advanced space satellite that will spy on North Korean military and other sites. The satellite is said to carry the most advanced high-resolution imaging equipment of all of Japan’s intelligence-gathering satellites.
  • US Secret Service 9/11 text messages disclosed. Hundreds of thousands of lines of transcribed pager messages exchanged between US civilian and military users on 9/11 were anonymously published on the Internet on Wednesday. They include messages exchanged between US Secret Service agents.

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News you may have missed #0053

August 3, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • [UNCONFIRMED] Saudi opposition group claims Prince Bandar under house arrest. Saad al-Faqih, head of the Saudi opposition group Islamic Reform Movement, claims that Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the kingdom’s former ambassador to the United States, and a close ally of the Bush family and former CIA leadership, is under house arrest after reportedly trying to “provoke 200 agents working for the Saudi security service to stage a coup against King Abdullah”.
  • Ukrainian diplomat expelled from Russia named. An Ukrainian source has named one of the two Ukrainian diplomats to be expelled by Russia as part of the tit-for-tat row as Igor Berezkin. The expulsions follow a similar move by Ukrainian authorities who requested that Russia’s consul general in Odessa, Alexander Grachev and a senior counselor at the Russian embassy, Vladimir Lysenko, leave Ukraine over accusations that they had been involved in work in violation of their diplomatic status (i.e. espionage).
  • Book claims Secret Service took psychic’s advice. Ronald Kessler claims in a new book that the US Secret Service changed a motorcade route for the first President George Bush based on a psychic’s vision that he would be assassinated.

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