Wangjaesan spy ring | intelNews.org

News you may have missed #578

August 28, 2011 by Ian Allen Leave a comment

Syria

►►CIA agent who helped kill Che wants payout from Cuba. This is from the “news that isn’t” department: Gustavo Villoldo, a Cuban-born CIA operative, who helped track down and kill Che Guevara in Bolivia, has won $2.8 billion in damages from the Cuban government, for confiscating his family property after the 1959 revolution. But he is unlikely to ever collect the money because Cuba does not recognize US court rulings.
►►Cheney wanted Bush to destroy suspected Syrian nuke site. Former US Vice President Dick Cheney says in a new memoir that he urged President George W. Bush to bomb a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor site in June 2007. But, he wrote, Bush opted for a diplomatic approach expressed misgivings. Eventually Israeli jets bombed the site. Cheney’s account of the discussion appears in his autobiography, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir, which is to be published by Simon & Schuster next week.
►►South Korea indicts five for spying for North. Five South Koreans, including a former parliamentary aide, have been indicted for allegedly spying for North Korea, in connection with the Wangjaesan spy ring.

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News you may have missed #561

August 7, 2011 by Ian Allen Leave a comment

Francis G. Powers

►►US to phase out U-2 spy plane after 50 years. After more than 50 years gathering intelligence 13 miles above the ground, the United States’ U-2 spy planes will be phased out and replaced by unmanned drones by 2015, according to reports this past week. The classified U-2 program came to light in 1960, when a Soviet surface-to-air missile brought down a U-2 flown by CIA pilot Gary Powers, who parachuted to safety but was soon captured.
►►Security company unearths ‘massive’ cyberespionage operation. A widespread cyberespionage campaign stole government secrets, sensitive corporate documents, and other intellectual property for five years from more than 70 public and private organizations in 14 countries. This is according to Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research at the cyber-security firm McAfee, who uncovered the alleged plot. The operation, dubbed SHADY RAT, targeted the United Nations and the United States, among other national and international entities.
►►South Korea expands spy ring investigation. South Korean authorities have expanded the controversial investigation into the alleged Wangjaesan spy ring, to include Read more of this post

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High-level spy-ring arrests send shockwaves in S. Korea

August 4, 2011 by Joseph Fitsanakis Leave a comment

Lim Chae-jung

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
South Korean prosecutors have indicted or are questioning dozens of alleged members of a North Korean spy ring, in what is said to be the country’s largest espionage case in over a decade. Seoul’s political establishment has been rocked by the espionage scandal, which allegedly involves several trade unionists, academics, and at least ten members of the country’s opposition Democratic Party. According to security officials, the suspects were members of an underground organization called Wangjaesan, after Mount Wangjae which is a revered national monument in North Korea. The official indictment claims that Wangjaesan was handled by operatives of Office 225 of the North Korean Workers’ Party Korea, which is tasked with overseeing the activities of sleeper agents operating in South Korea. The organization was allegedly headed by a man identified only as ‘Kim’, who owned a South Korean electronics import-export company, and routinely traveled to China and Japan, where he purportedly met his North Korean handlers. Aside from ‘Kim’, South Korean counterintelligence investigators are reportedly questioning close to ten senior members of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, several academics, as well as at least a dozen opposition political figures. Among the latter are members of South Korea’s leftwing Democratic Labor Party, widely considered as the political wing for the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. Read more of this post