Category: Spy News
It’s not paranoia – spies and secret agents are among us. Intelligence agencies and rogue operatives around the world are involved in covert operations as we speak. Terrorism and computer crime, as well as economic and corporate espionage, define the modern intelligence landscape. Keep yourself in the loop and read about all the latest spy news here.
Pentagon Pushes For Greater Spy Powers
Picture this spy: A Syrian soldier, wearing mufti, dressed in a suit, fluent in Syrian and Iraqi Arabic. He’s in a rattletrap taxi in Syria going to meet an agent who says he can offer rebels the Syrian government’s order of battle. The spy, from Army intelligence, has spent 18 months cultivating this connection. The source…
The body of Mr. Williams, from Anglesey, London, was dead a week before he was found in his flat in 2010, padlocked inside a holdall duffel bag in his bathtub. His inquest is now weighing the evidence that a third party was involved in the death. The inquest was shown footage of two experts’ struggling unsuccessfully…
Officially, the Special Collection Service, a secret joint program with the CIA codenamed F6, doesn’t exist. Unofficially, its snoops travel the world intercepting private messages and cracking high-tech encryption. SCS is responsible for placing super-high-tech bugs in unbelievably hard-to-reach places. Data collected is then transmitted to the National Security Agency. The Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, the…
New papers show that Russia’s spy agency authorized a raid on a British investment firm in Moscow that led to a massive tax scam by allegedly corrupt officials and the death of a lawyer who tried to expose the fraud. Sergei Magnitsky, a Moscow-based lawyer, died in November 2009 during pre-trial detention after he was arrested…
Iranian Doctoral Student Being Tried In His Country ...
By Daria Carmon
Omid Kokabee, an Iranian Ph.D. candidate in physics at the University of Texas in Austin, is standing trial on espionage charges in his homeland, after being held in custody since the end of January or February. It is believed he was picked up at the Tehran airport en route to continuing his graduate studies…
Georgia President’s Photographer, Four Others ...
The official photographer for Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, Irakli Gedenidze ,and four other suspects, were taken into custody by Georgian authorities on suspicion of working for a foreign government. Gedenidze’s wife Natia, Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs photographer Giorgi Abdaladze and European PressPhoto Agency photographer Zurab Qurtsikidze were identified as the other arrestees, while an unnamed…
Huffington Post Op Ed 6/30/10
Huffington Post Op Ed 7/8/10
Colonel Alexander Poteyev, the Russian double agent instrumental in the arrests of ten Russian spies in the United States last June 27, was convicted of treason and desertion in absentia by the Moscow District Military Court, which handed down a prison sentence of 25 years. The conviction of…
Lebanese Spy For Israel Receives Death Penalty
By Daria Carmon
Lebanon’s military court handed down a death sentence on Monday, June 20th on Bassam Abu Jawdeh, a Lebanese merchant found guilty of espionage. The conviction was for working for Israeli intelligence and supplying them with information. Death penalty is imposed in Lebanon when an operative’s actions result in Lebanese life being lost. The death…
Wahhab’s Bodyguard Arrested On Charges Of Bei ...
The military court in Lebanon brought charges of espionage against Jalal A.D., the personal bodyguard of Arab Tawhid Party leader Wiam Wahhab, on Wednesday, June 15th, after he came under suspicion by Hezbollah of collaboration with Israel. According to the pro-Hezbollah publication Al-Akhbar, Wahhab’s security chief was taken into custody by Hezbollah and brought to Beirut’s…
By Daria Carmon
Several months after Iran’s nuclear facilities were hit by ‘Stuxnet’ a vicious computer virus, senior government official Gholam Reza Jalali has confirmed that another computer virus, this one borne through the Internet, has been aimed at Iran’s government computer systems. Jalali, head of an Iranian military unit that combats sabotage, alleges that the new…
Trial Date Set for Three Hikers Arrested in Iran
The only person to be released out of a trio of American hikers arrested in Iran in 2009 while accidently crossing the border between Iraq and Iran has been subpoenaed to return to Iran for a court hearing this May. Sarah Shourd, a UC Berkeley graduate, was released from a prison in Iran last September on…
Mario Aranguren, former director of Colombia’s financial intelligence agency (UIAF) was freed from house arrest late last week. He is awaiting trial for illegally spying on Supreme Court magistrates, journalists, politicians and human rights organizations, peering into their finances without permission or warrant. He had originally been placed under house arrest while the Prosecutor General’s Office…
In May 2010, seven people were arrested in Kuwait after being accused of spying for Iran. On April 5, 2011, the verdicts in their trials were handed in. Three were sentenced to death, two were given life terms in prison, and two were acquitted. The men sentenced to death are two Iranian men and a Kuwaiti…
Libya’s security service announced on January 18, 2011 that two men, members of the country’s Amazigh Berber minority, had been arrested on charges of spying for a foreign intelligence agency. Mazigh and Maghris Bouzahar, who happen to be twin brothers, are being investigated by the state prosecutor while in detention.
On Monday, German prosecutors stated that a preliminary investigation had been opened concerning whether a former KGB colonel who had moved with his wife to Germany three months ago had been poisoned. The inquiry comes after a weekly magazine, Focus, wrote that doctors treating the couple found lethal amounts of mercury in their blood after arriving…
A Swiss family who once acted as moles inside the atomic black market and had a relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency might be in big trouble. A Swiss magistrate recommended on December 23 that the men be charged with trafficking in technology and information for making nuclear weapons. The CIA has been trying to hide…
According to The Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper based in Seoul, North Korea’s chief nuclear scientist has been arrested on charges of espionage. The senior researcher, Kim So-in, is rumored to have been arrested in May and taken to the Yodok concentration camp. It is also believed that his family was arrested with him.
So-in…
The Georgian government announced on Friday that it had arrested 13 people accused of spying for Russia’s armed forces. The accused include six military pilots, a naval radio operator, the founder of a non-governmental group called the Globalization Institute, and four Russian citizens. Most are accused of providing Russia with information about Georgia’s combat readiness. The…
Two people were placed into government custody in Taiwan early this week as Taiwanese investigators probe the most recent espionage attack on Taiwan’s defense system. One is a military intelligence officer from Taiwan who allegedly transferred classified data to another Taiwanese man with business interests in China. This business man then allegedly passed the information to…
U.S. Trial of Cuban Spies Questioned by Rights Grou ...
Amnesty International, a London-based human rights group, has raised some questions about a recent U.S. trial in which five Cuban agents were convicted of espionage, conspiracy to commit murder and other related charges. The group did not express an opinion on the agents’ guilt, but instead highlighted issues surrounding their pre-trial detention, including access to attorneys…
Glenn Shriver, a 28 year old man from Michigan, has pleaded guilty to a single offense of conspiring to provide national defense information to Chinese intelligence officers. In court, the man acknowledged that he had received $70,000 from Chinese agents in payment for trying to secure jobs with the CIA and U.S. Foreign Service.
Court papers show…
Last week, Lebanon’s military intelligence agency reported the arrest of a Palestinian man, purportedly a spy recruited by Israel. Sources say that the suspect was recruited by Mossad to gather information on terror groups and Lebanese Army movements. Allegedly, he was also told to search for details about Ron Arad, an Israeli Air Force navigator. Arad…
Italian Prosecution Looking for More Spy Conviction ...
An earlier ruling by an Italian court that convicted 23 American and 2 Italian citizens has been appealed. The defendants were accused of kidnapping a terrorism suspect. Now, the Italian prosecution is trying to reverse some of the lower court’s decisions. They have opened an appeal in hopes of incriminating the 5 other Italian agents who had been acquitted…
Iran Blames West for Stuxnet; Arrests Spies
In the aftermath of the discovery of the complicated and effective Stuxnet worm, Iran’s intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi blamed western intelligence agencies for developing and unleashing the virus on thousands of Iranian computers. He has now announced on Iranian TV that his own intelligence team has captured “several spies” implicated in the plot to derail Iran’s…