Four spicy spy stories

We devoted yesterday to some of the political grandstanding on the world stage, so figured we'd devote today to some of the wild stories playing out in the shadows, like...

1. 🇯🇵 Is Japan Russia's latest spy den?

We've long called Vienna the espionage capital of Europe, but what about Asia?

According to The New York Times, the answer could be Japan! With a lil' help from friends in Western intel, the Times notes many of the Russian spooks booted from Europe have now ended up in Tokyo posing as diplomats and/or airline employees.

The Times outs the unit (GRU's 20th), cover (✌️airline office✌️), location (22nd floor), boss (Maksin Vladimirovcich Filchenkov), and aims (source Japanese tech for Putin's war).

For comedic effect, they also include a Monty Python-esque scene with an intermediary who happily chats to the reporters and hands over poorly-redacted manifests, rather than, you know... shut the door and call a lawyer?

But the broader question... why Japan? It's got world-class tech, proximity, shipping, and weak espionage laws born out of its postwar handcuffs. But Western capitals have long also observed weak security practices: want to share some spicy intel? There are MOUs on how, but best to invite your Tokyo counterpart into your own embassy's secure area...

So Japan now recognises it needs to lift its game. You can see that in both word (the Cabinet Secretary's press conference) and deed (Japan launching its first centralised intel agency). But notwithstanding all the reported Western help, it'll take decades to catch up: even the US took 37 years to go from Maxwell Smart to Jason Bourne.

And while Japan plays catch-up, Europe is battling a slick new cyber-twist in...

2. 🇳🇱 Are CCTV cameras our next blind spot?

We've long tracked the ways capitals ban certain CCTV brands, and now we know why: Dutch spooks just dropped a spicy report describing how Russian hackers used random security and doorbell cameras to track arms shipments into Ukraine. Satellites are fine, but they have limits on revisit time, resolution, and weather. Hack those ground cameras, however, and you get real-time eyes on exact truck models, plates, loads, and timing.

The only surprising bit here might be how easy it was: scan IPs for exposed devices, then use default passwords and outdated firmware to waltz right on in. So maybe change your passwords and update your firmware, particularly if you live along a NATO logistics route?

While Boris hacks cameras in Europe, there's some old-school smoke and mirrors in...

3. 🇮🇱 Did Hamas pull off a long con?

History will dissect the 2023 Hamas attacks, and Israeli voters might hold Bibi accountable on 27 October. But in the meantime, Israel's Meir Amit Intel and Terrorism Information Center (a think-tank with close intel links, as if that weren’t already obvious by getting named after a former Mossad boss) recently dropped a veeeeery intriguing report.

Citing internal Hamas documents, it argues the Palestinian group used a multi-year pre-attack deception doctrine to convince Israel the group had been deterred. How? Think...

• Public messaging focused on the economy and governance

• Highlighting more grievances in the West Bank than Gaza

• Internal compartmentalisation and misinformation to avoid leaks, and

• Outward shows of restraint and de-escalation (eg, on October 5, one wing announced a border march, which another wing then publicly blocked).

But now from smoke-and-mirrors to the mother of all intel operations in...

4. 🇮🇷 Did Mossad seriously recruit Ahmadinejad?

Building on early rumours and its own initial scoop, The New York Times just dropped a bombshell story alleging…

• Mossad used the cover of environment summits in Israel-friendly nations like Hungary and Guatemala to get Iran's hardline ex-president in town as a speaker

• It then approached and recruited him (including via the Mossad boss himself), and convinced him to participate in Mossad's regime-change plans for Iran, but...

• After initial Israeli airstrikes killed his regime-minders and Mossad whisked him off to a safe-house in Tehran, he supposedly then got cold feet and bailed!

So many questions here, like a) why would Mossad trust a holocaust denier (and vice versa), b) why explain the whole plot to a random professor in Hungary (the conference organiser now briefing the Times), and c) if you've got the ultimate asset still stuck in Iran somewhere, why now burn him via this leak rather than try again at the next opportunity?

We've explored it in the Intrigue group-chat (become an Insider and join us!), and there are still too many unknowns to draw conclusions, but some quick observations:

• Yes, we humans can cooperate with an enemy if we believe it helps thwart some bigger threat (like our own country collapsing under a rival faction…), but also…

• Yes, spooks do sometimes leak failed (or fabricated) ops to sow elite paranoia and infighting, plus can even leak successful ops if they've reached expiry date.

Anyway, if true, it’s almost a neat inverse of the successful Maduro op — while that one hinged on one chopper pilot holding his nerve, this one might’ve failed on one source losing his nerve.

Other spy stories we couldn’t jam in:

• North Korea has announced plans to ramp up its military intelligence.

• Ukrainian military intel has outlined an alleged India→Russia oil scheme.

• Bulgaria is arguing whether a top Russian Orthodox Bishop is a Kremlin asset.

• And the EU has announced more sanctions on Russian hackers.