20 active spy teams revealed

By WND Staff

Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.


MI5 headquarters

LONDON – Specialists for the British MI5 intelligence agency have named 20 foreign intelligence services – including NATO allies France and Germany – who have “spies operating in Britain briefed to steal our most sensitive secrets,” according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

The revelation that it is not only Russia and China who have active spy networks in the UK, but “friendly European nations are also involved in espionage,” is bound to have wide repercussions.

Among the options? Britain could expel the agents and cause diplomatic uproar.

Details of the activities of Britain’s NATO partners are contained in a document marked “restricted” and issued this week to all government departments and the heads of key industries.

The document warns: “It is too easy to overlook the threat from traditional espionage and focus on attacks by al-Qaida. While terrorism must remain the prime threat, it is vital we do not lose sight of the other threats. Espionage against British interests is now coming from many quarters – some that we look upon as ‘friendly.'”

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The Security Service has a list of over 100 foreign spies in London. Some, like those of the CIA and Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, are “declared” – identified to the Foreign Office as intelligence officers.

But Russian and Chinese spies are almost never identified to their hosts. For a year MI5’s Counter-Terrorism Department has been tracking their spying.

“Their espionage activities not only include political and military intelligence, but new communications technologies, IT, genetics, aviation, laser and optics. In all these areas, Britain is an acknowledged, old leader – and a prime target for foreign intelligence agencies,” the report said.

MI5’s concerns have increased as the credit crunch bites hard into people’s lives. It fears that some of those working in high-tech areas will be tempted to sell secrets to pay for their mortgages or other debts.

“We know that in recent months both the Russian and Chinese spies have given clear cut signs they have been provided with substantial sums of money to buy their way into places where sensitive work goes on.”

But the naming of France and Germany as also actively targeting Britain is comparatively new.

While the German BND and France’s SDECE do not have the numerical strength of agents in the UK, their numbers have increased since the economic downturn in the country.

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