Wired for War: Israel’s Black Cube and the infiltration of Europe

Political hit-jobs in Cyprus and Slovenia are just the tip of an election interference iceberg in Europe, involving a dark nexus of Israeli spies, defense chiefs, and tech companies. The threat is real, but the EU is staying silent

Targeting the EU: Israeli spy firm’s open admission

A week after Cyprus assumed the EU’s rotating presidency in January, a video appeared on social media – from a relatively obscure account named ‘Emily Thompson – showing President Nikos Christodoulides’s brother-in-law, a former energy minister, and a major construction magnate discussing influence-peddling arrangements between Christodoulides and foreign investors. Across a series of surreptitious recordings, the three also allege that Christodoulides took cash bribes during his 2023 campaign, and was taking cash to block EU sanctions against Russian business figures.

Cypriot authorities immediately declared that the video bears all “the characteristics of organized Russian disinformation campaigns.” Anonymous EU diplomats told Euractiv that Brussels viewed Moscow as the prime suspect, and authorities in Nicosia said that they had reached out to the US and Israel for assistance in identifying the video’s source. AP and Euronews headlined likely Russian involvement.

The release of the video undermined Christodoulides – triggering the resignations of his most senior aide and his charity director wife – and put a black mark on Cyprus’ stint at the helm of the EU.

The ‘Videogate’ scandal simmered in the background until last week, when Black Cube, an Israeli private intelligence agency, admitted that it had recorded and edited the video. The company said that it had compiled the video on behalf of a private client – not a state actor – and that it “has cooperated with the Cypriot authorities and expresses confidence that they will establish the truth and bring those responsible to justice.”

What is Black Cube?

Founded in 2011 by “veterans of Israel’s elite intelligence units,” Black Cube describes itself as “the world’s leading human intelligence firm,” capable of finding “hard evidence otherwise impossible to obtain” in support of “high-profile litigations, arbitrations, and white-collar crime cases.”

The term ‘Human Intelligence’, or ‘HUMINT’, is key here. Unlike open-source intelligence (OSINT), which relies on uncovering publicly-available information, HUMINT is gathered through covert surveillance, interrogation, and the management of sources and informers through bribery, blackmail, or intimidation. It is the kind of illegal or quasi-legal tradecraft usually practiced by state intelligence agencies.

Black Cube co-founders Dan Zorella and Avi Yanus are veterans of this underworld. Zorella served in the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) military intelligence directorate, and Yanus was a strategic planning officer in the IDF. The company’s board is a who’s who of the Israeli intelligence and defense establishment, and includes:

• Meir Dagan (now deceased), former Mossad director

• Efraim Halevy, former Mossad director

• Yohanan Danino, former Israeli Police commissioner

• Major General Giora Eiland, former Israeli National Security Council chief

• Asher Tishler, dean of the College of Management Academic Studies, and consultant to the IDF

Black Cube’s client list is long and controversial. The company was hired by US President Donald Trump’s aides in 2018 to undermine the Iran Nuclear Deal; worked for then-president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila, to spy on his political opponents; and spied on journalists investigating NSO Group – another Mossad-linked Israeli tech company, best known for its ‘Pegasus’ spyware.

Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein hired Black Cube in 2016 to silence and discredit numerous women accusing him of sexual abuse. Weinstein was encouraged to hire Black Cube by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein who co-founded Paragon Solutions, yet another spyware and surveillance company.

Israeli spy-tech infiltration of EU?

Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: rt.com