Dan Gordon Spy Club

FORMER CIA OFFICER LATEST SUSPECT CHARGED UNDER ESPIONAGE ACT IN UNRIVALED GOVERNMENT CLAMPDOWN ON NATIONAL SECURITY LEAKS

John Kiriakou, an ex CIA officer, was charged last week under the Espionage Act with passing on classified information to journalists. The Obama administration has made unparalleled use of the aforementioned legislation in its crackdown on current or onetime government officials turning over information to reporters, according to Steven Aftergood, who monitors the intelligence community for…

ZAMBIAN OFFICIAL DEMANDS THREE ACCUSED CZECH SPIES WHO SKIPPED BAIL AND FLED TO HOMELAND RETURN FOR TRIAL

Kennedy Sakeni, Zambia’s Interior Minister, has called on three Czech nationals who were to go on trial for espionage there this month, but jumped bail in December and subsequently turned up in their native Czech Republic, to go back and stand trial. Michal Vebr, Jiri Cetel, and Jan Coufal, employees of a Dutch exhibition logistics firm,…

FORMER AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES EMPLOYEE SENTENCED FOR ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE

Elliot Doxer, an ex employee of Akamai Technologies Inc. who entered a guilty plea to a charge of foreign economic espionage this past August, specifically to turning over trade secrets of his employer to an undercover FBI operative he thought was an Israeli agent, received a six month prison term and a $25,000 fine at a…

EX BRITISH OFFICIAL CONFIRMS LONGTIME RUSSIAN ASSERTIONS THAT BRITISH AGENTS EMPLOYED FAKE ROCK IN THEIR MOSCOW OPERATIONS

The documentary Putin, Russia and the West, which aired on the BBC the 19th of this month, incorporates the admission by former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, that the seemingly farfetched Russian allegations dating to 2006 of British use of a fake rock in a Moscow park for espionage, were indeed true.…

CANADIAN NAVAL OFFICER FIRST TO BE CHARGED UNDER SECURITY OF INFORMATION ACT AND ENSUING REPORTS CLAIM TIES TO RUSSIA

Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle, an intelligence officer in the Canadian Navy, holds the dubious distinction of being the initial espionage suspect charged under that country’s Security of Information Act, following his arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police during the weekend of January 14th. The aforementioned legislation was enacted in 2001 in the aftermath of the…

CONVICTED CIA SPY IN IRAN DRAWS DEATH PENALTY

Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, an ex Marine Arabic translator, was found guilty of being a CIA agent by an Iranian court, which handed down a death sentence, according to a state radio account last week. Specifically, the conviction entailed charges of spying for an enemy nation, serving as a CIA operative, and attempting to cast Iran as…

TRIAL DATE SET FOR ONETIME INDIAN DIPLOMAT ACCUSED OF BEING PAKISTANI OPERATIVE

March 22 was set by an Indian court this week as the start date for the trial of Madhuri Gupta, an erstwhile Second Secretary grade diplomat at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, on espionage and conspiracy charges related to allegations she had turned over classified information to Pakistani intelligence. The espionage charges against the officer…

SPECULATION ABOUNDS AS TO SUSPECTED SPY MISSION OF SPACEPLANE

The mission of the top secret American spaceplane, the X-37B, called the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) as well, has come under increased scrutiny, leading to suppositions that it is being utilized for espionage. The unmanned spacecraft remains in orbit after a launching by the United States Air Force this past March, and has drawn the close…

INDUSTRIAL SPY SENTENCED IN FIRST ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE CASE IN INDIANA

Kexue Huang, a scientist who pled guilty in October of last year to industrial espionage carried out while an employee of Dow Chemical Co. and Cargill Inc., received a prison term of seven years and three months at his sentencing on December 21 in Indianapolis before United States District Judge William T. Lawrence. The landmark action…

KUWAIT REFUTES REPORTS OF SPY SWAP WTIH TEHRAN

In the wake of the December 18th release of two Kuwaitis from a 36 day detention by Iranian authorities, Kuwait denied that a deal had been reached for it to release two Iranians found guilty of spying. The two detained Kuwaitis, lawyer and journalist Adel Al Yahya, and TV cameraman Raed Al Majid, first were accused…