Category Archives: Espionage

British man accused of spying for Russia will not be extradited from Germany

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Counter-espionage laws too weak to deal with spies acting against British interests

The British national accused of selling secrets to Russia will not be extradited back home to face justice despite the seriousness of the claims.

Britain’s “archaic” counter-espionage laws have been exposed, say sources, by the arrest of David Smith, 57, a security guard contracted to the Berlin embassy. They say there is little point in bringing him home because the current legislation is too weak to deal with spies acting against British interests.

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‘Saddam Hussein’s spies in London laid a trap – and sent my son Farzad to his death’

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Nosrat Bazoft, mother of the Observer reporter executed by the tyrant in 1990, reveals for the first time how the unreported theft of a briefcase of documents on a secret Iraqi weapon may have sealed her son’s fate.

Leaning back in a loose cotton shirt within the lobby of Baghdad’s Royal Tulip Al Rasheed hotel, Farzad Bazoft looks like a man at ease. Despite investigating Iraq’s secret arms programme in the back yard of Saddam Hussein, the Observer journalist knew that the following day he would be gone, back to the safety of London.

Farzad never made it to the UK. The picture chronicles his last night of freedom. Within 24 hours he would be imprisoned in solitary confinement. Then he would be starved and beaten, the start of a chain of events that would culminate, amid international furore, with his execution at the behest of Saddam.

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‘Old-style espionage’: Briton’s arrest feels like cold war throwback

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Analysis: eastern bloc spy agencies historically would target western staff in junior roles

The arrest of a British citizen in Berlin for allegedly spying for the Russians has a distinctly cold war flavour.

In recent years the Kremlin has been accused of carrying out a number of spectacular cyber-operations. They include the hacking and dumping in 2016 of thousands of Democratic party emails. Moscow’s audacious goal, according to Washington: to help elect Donald Trump as US president.

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German police arrest Briton on suspicion of spying for Russia

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Employee at British embassy in Berlin suspected of passing on documents in exchange for cash

German police have arrested a British man who worked at the British embassy in Berlin on suspicion of spying for Russian intelligence in exchange for cash bribes, according to prosecutors.

Germany’s highest public prosecutor said the man, identified only as David S, was arrested at his Potsdam apartment at 2.20pm on Tuesday, and his home and embassy workplace were searched.

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Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House

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Exclusive: Documents suggest Russia launched secret multi-agency effort to interfere in US democracy

Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.

The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present.

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Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

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When Mike Beck developed a rare form of Parkinson’s US intelligence concluded he was the victim of a hi-tech weapon

When the first reports surfaced of a mysterious disorder that was afflicting dozens of US diplomats in Cuba, Mike Beck’s reaction was one of recognition and relief.

Beck, a retired National Security Agency counterintelligence officer, was at his home in Maryland, scrolling through the day’s news on his computer when he spotted the story, and remembers shouting out to his wife.

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Czech police hunt two men with names matching Skripal suspects

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News follows announcement of expulsion of 18 Russia diplomats identified as spies linked to 2014 blast that killed two people

Czech police have said they are seeking two Russian men in connection with a 2014 blast that killed two people. The men, they said, hold passports used by the suspects in the attempted poisoning of Sergei Skripal.

The names match those used by the two men accused of poisoning Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the Soviet-era nerve agent novichok in the English city of Salisbury in 2018. Russia denied involvement in the poisoning, but about 300 diplomats were sent home in subsequent tit-for-tat expulsions.

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Russia to expel Ukrainian diplomat, prompting vow of retaliation from Kyiv

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Disagreement over Alexander Sosonyuk, who was allegedly caught trying to obtain sensitive information, escalates tensions after troop buildup

Russia on Saturday said it would expel a Ukrainian diplomat, prompting an immediate pledge of retaliation from Kyiv, further escalating tensions after Moscow’s troop buildup on Ukraine’s eastern flank.

The detention of a Ukrainian consul in the second city, St Petersburg, comes at a time of global concern over a possible repeat of Moscow’s 2014 aggression, when Russia annexed the peninsula of Crimea and backed separatists in Ukraine’s east. Moscow claimed that the diplomat had been caught “red-handed” trying to obtain sensitive information.

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US has ‘low to moderate confidence’ in reports of Russian bounty on US troops

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  • US intelligence evaluates claims of Afghanistan bounties
  • Press reports sparked outrage and calls to confront Kremlin

US intelligence agencies have only “low to moderate confidence” in reports last year that Russian spies were offering Taliban militants in Afghanistan bounties for killing US soldiers.

The reports in the press citing intelligence sources sparked outrage and demands from Democrats for the Trump administration to confront the Kremlin over the issue.

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MI5 involvement in drone project revealed in paperwork slip-up

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Exclusive: Document produced by university cited agency as secret funder of research

For an agency devoted to secrecy and surveillance, it is an embarrassing slip-up. An inadvertent disclosure on a university document has revealed that MI5 is partly behind what was meant to be a covert bug and drone research project.

Ostensibly, Imperial College’s research was to create a quadcopter system for charging remote agricultural sensors – but MI5’s participation has emerged because somebody involved stated it was the secret second funder of the programme.

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Israeli spyware firm NSO Group faces renewed US scrutiny

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Department of Justice said to have asked WhatsApp for details of alleged targeting of clients in 2019

NSO Group appears to be facing renewed scrutiny by the US Department of Justice months after leading technology companies said the spyware maker was “powerful and dangerous” and should be held liable to the country’s anti-hacking laws.

DoJ lawyers recently approached the messaging app WhatsApp with technical questions about the alleged targeting of 1,400 of its users by NSO Group’s government clients in 2019, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

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Canada spy agency unwittingly seeks double agent in Le Carré ad gaffe

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CSIS included quote from A Perfect Spy in tweet about job postings, bewildering Twitter users

For an intelligence agency seeking new recruits, the promises of adventure and intrigue found within the pages of famous spy novels might seem like a useful recruiting tool.

But promoting a double agent who lies to his family, betrays his country and ultimately takes his own life, is possibly not a strategy that will produce the best candidates.

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UK quietly expelled Chinese spies who posed as journalists

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MI5 concluded three Beijing security ministry employees used cover of working for Chinese press agencies

Britain quietly expelled three Chinese spies last year who it said were posing as journalists, it has emerged, as tensions flare between the two countries over a range of media issues.

The intelligence agency MI5 concluded the three worked for China’s powerful Ministry of State Security (MSS) but had been using the cover of working for the country’s press agencies.

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‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy

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The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian

Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian.

Yuri Shvets, posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, compares the former US president to “the Cambridge five”, the British spy ring that passed secrets to Moscow during the second world war and early cold war.

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Government lawyer tells court M15 officers could authorise murder

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Admission came hours before bill allowing continuation of controversial powers passed the Commons

Government lawyers have told a court that MI5 officers could authorise an informer to carry out a murder under controversial powers that ministers want to see continued contained in a bill that passed the Commons hours later.

The admission came in a court of appeal hearing on Wednesday when Sir James Eadie, representing the government, was asked if there was “a power for a Security Service officer to authorise an agent to execute an extremely hostile individual”.

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Indonesian fisher finds drone submarine on possible covert mission

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Navy seizes UUV, likely a Chinese Sea Wing, that experts say could be used to plot routes for military subs

An Indonesian fisher has found what experts say is likely to be a Chinese submarine drone in waters on a strategic maritime route from the South China Sea to Australia.

According to Indonesian media the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) was found on 20 December near Selayar Island in South Sulawesi. Six days later it was handed to police and then transferred to the Indonesian military.

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George Blake, notorious cold war double agent, dies aged 98

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Former MI6 spy exposed hundreds of western agents and settled in Soviet Union after escape from jail

The former British spy and Soviet Union double agent George Blake has died at the age of 98.

The RIA news agency reported that Blake died in Russia, citing the country’s SVR foreign intelligence agency. “We received some bitter news – the legendary George Blake passed away,” it said.

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Revealed: how abusive texts led to discovery of hacking of Al Jazeera

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Threatening messages led to monitoring of phone that unearthed evidence of cyber-attack against Qatar-based network

A series of abusive text messages sent to an Al Jazeera investigative programme were the first crumbs that eventually led to the discovery of an unprecedented hacking operation against dozens of staff from the Qatar-based media network, according to one of the journalists who was targeted.

Researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto claimed on Sunday that the UAE and Saudi Arabia used spyware sold by an Israeli private intelligence company to access the phones of at least 36 journalists, producers and executives from Al Jazeera, as well as that of a London-based reporter with the Al Araby network.

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‘Do you remember the underwear’s colour?’ – Navalny’s call with duped spy

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Russian opposition leader publishes transcript of call with FSB operative allegedly involved in attempt to kill him

On Monday Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny published a telephone call he had with FSB operative Konstantin Kudryavtsev, who was allegedly part of the FSB team, which in August poisoned Navalny when he travelled to Siberia.

Navalny survived after the plane he fell sick on was diverted to a nearby airport and he received quick medical attention. He rang Kudryavtsev from Germany last week, pretending to be an aide to a top FSB official.

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Revealed: China suspected of spying on Americans via Caribbean phone networks

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Security expert claims Chinese surveillance may have affected tens of thousands of Americans

China appears to have used mobile phone networks in the Caribbean to surveil US mobile phone subscribers as part of its espionage campaign against Americans, according to a mobile network security expert who has analysed sensitive signals data.

The findings paint an alarming picture of how China has allegedly exploited decades-old vulnerabilities in the global telecommunications network to route “active” surveillance attacks through telecoms operators.

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